The News
The latest articles and news relating to rural living...
Harrop-Procter Community Forest: The Podcast
In this podcast, Dave Johnson, Erik Leslie, Rami Rothkop, and Ramona Faust discuss the origins and operating philosophy of the Harrop-Procter Community Forest Cooperative, one of the most interesting Community Forests operations in British Columbia.
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How to create a community investment vehicle
These video modules comes to us courtesy of the Alberta Community & Co-operative Association. Each video provides useful information for rural community leaders interested in raising local capital for community-based investment. While the investment vehicle…
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Unleashing Local Capital
The Alberta Community & Cooperative Association’s Unleashing Local Capital project empowers communities to invest locally, direct their own economic development and reduce dependency on government supports by directing outward-bound investments toward local businesses, keeping local capital flowing…
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Decent health care, an ongoing rural challenge
It’s difficult to imagine a functioning community without access to a school, basic infrastructure, and a critical mass of businesses and services — chief among them, decent rural health care. For most communities, the standard…
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How Malakwa Saved Its School
Seven years ago, the small community of Malakwa, located just off the Trans-Canada Highway east of Sicamous in British Columbia’s Columbia-Shuswap region, feared it was about to lose its school. Many feared if the school…
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Rural citizens investing in themselves in Creston
Rural citizens investing in themselves in Creston? What does that mean? Every year, rural Canadians place hundreds of millions of dollars into RRSPs. Most of this money ends up financing economic development “somewhere else” —…
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Fields Forward is putting a cherry on top!
Rural revitalization. Rural renewal. Leveraging local strengths. These are all easier said than done for many rural communities struggling to reinvent themselves in the context of a rapidly urbanizing 21st century. An innovative agriculture-based…
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Community investment in Creston & district
As more and more economic power flows to major urban regions and large cities, small towns and rural regions find it increasing difficult to find the funds necessary to fuel economic growth. That’s certainly true…
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Dr. Laurie Moss on rural population attraction
We ask Dr, Laurie Moss to explain rural population attraction in this video Dr. Moss is uniquely qualified to tackle this question. The co-founder of the International Amenity Migration Centre, he has spent decades studying individuals…
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Community Forestry in Canada — Professor Sara Teitelbaum
Community forestry in Canada has taken root over the past three decades. Locally run forestry initiatives have been hailed as welcome alternatives to large corporate and industrial logging practices, yet little research has been done…
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Mobilizing Rural Investment Capital
The Need for Rural Investment Capital in BC Access to investment capital is crucial to business and economic development anywhere – but is especially important in rural areas. However, research completed by SIBAC and others…
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Nelson — One of the World’s Most Intelligent Cities?
Nelson has just been named one of the most intelligent cities in the world. The Intelligent Community Forum has announced an international shortlist of 21 intelligent cities that recognizes digital innovation — and Nelson, population 10,000,…
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International Cooperation Comes to Kamloops!
The BC Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) warmly has extended an invitation to attend the BC 2030 Meeting on November 21st in Kamloops. The meeting will discuss how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) link to the work going on…
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Healthy Food for Everyone — Is It Possible?
Healthy Food for All? Healthy food for everyone — is it possible? On October 16, World Food Day, BC-based environment organization Wildsight’s Elk Valley Branch presented FOOD for THOUGHT: Food Security For Our Communities –…
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Rural Bandwidth + Creative Entrepreneurs = Kootenay Business TV
MOST SMALL towns — let alone tiny villages and rural regions — lack daily newspapers, or radio and television stations. News tends to flow in only one direction in BC — from Vancouver & Victoria out…
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Dennis Walker on Rural Internet Radio
Canadian media is becoming increasingly concentrated. A relatively small number of companies control most of Canada’s airwaves. This means most small rural communities lack the meaningful local news and information small-town newspapers and radio stations…
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Premier Clark Appoints Donna Barnett as Minister of State for Rural Economic Development
Premier Christy Clark has announced her intention for Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett to be sworn in as Minister of State for Rural Economic Development by Her Honour, Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon. “Every community in British Columbia…
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Fogo Island
In a country full of tiny, remote communities, Newfoundland’s tiny Fogo Island has to rank among the smallest and hardest to get to. Devastated by the collapse of the cod fishery in the 1990s, Fogo…
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Local Agriculture — a Chat With Rob Gay
Rob Gay is both the Area C Director and chair of the Regional District East Kootenay. Rob sits on the board of SIBAC, and through the Association of Kootenay Boundary Local Governments helped organize a…
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Rural Broadband via “Air Fibre — Kaslo InfoNet’s Tim Ryan
Kaslo InfoNet’s Tim Ryan explains how Kaslo’s community non-profit ISP managed to get high-speed fibre to his home office — good news for rural residents of rugged, under-served British Columbia.
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First Nations & the Web — a Conversation with Jeff Ward
Canada’s oldest cultures are embracing the 21st century! Victoria-based Jeff Ward, the founder of Aboriginally owned and operated web developer Animikii, named Aboriginal Business of The Year by the BC Achievement Foundation in 2010, is a prime example.…
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Heidi Khokhar
Eugene, Oregon-based Rural Development Initiatives (RDI), has supported the creation of resilient rural communities in Oregon and northern California for over 25 years. Through programs such as WealthWorks Northwest, Rural Economic Vitality Workshops, and First Impressions,…
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Rural Broadband — Kaslo Style
Rural Broadband — Kaslo Style. If rural BC is to prosper in the 21st century, access to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet is essential. Kaslo InfoNet (KiN)’s Don Scarlett and Tim Ryan talk about fibre optic…
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