Region 8: Community Advisor - Erica Blake

Don Lowen is an environmental educator and advocate of community programming.

A SEHAB member since 2002, Don has helped the Board re-create and implement policy and protocol that optimize its ability to advocate for volunteer stewards. The resulting coherent processes have identified chronic issues that stand between stewards and their goals, and have given SEHAB a clear mandate to bring these matters to government.
Don also strives to ensure that the Community Involvement Program - a community-driven entity nested in a regulatory agency - continues to bring community solutions to the table despite the current appetite for risk management and performance-based funding.

For the last ten years, Don has honed his facilitation skills to help build capacity in community organizations. “People working together on the ground floor provide the real solutions to health and education issues; the government’s role is to acknowledge and encourage their ability to do this. For volunteer stewards, an agency’s demonstrated commitment to habitat protection is one source of encouragement.”

As Managing Director of the Watership Foundation, Don offers leveraged “partner plans” that ensure that all educators can afford to integrate ecology into their curriculum and school culture. He also posts a monthly e-newsletter - The Water Ship News - to over 300 subscribers, connecting educators and young adults to organizations and agencies offering stewardship training and volunteer opportunities.

Based in Victoria, Don has spent 25 years writing curriculum, organizing events and coordinating education programs, toward a common understanding that the interconnectedness of living things, not the accumulation of species-specific knowledge, is key to the development of an environmental ethic.

Don Lowen is a qualified teacher in British Columbia, completing his degree and post-degree professional program at the University of Victoria. You can contact him at (250) 388-4756 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .