Therapeutic River Valley Stewardship Work Program

ERVCC understands that justice and environmental problems are interconnected, and so too are their solutions. One potential solution we see is a therapeutic river valley stewardship work program that would enable healing for both people and the land. This would be a paid training and work program to benefit the river valley and support people facing barriers to employment through meaningful work.

Models Exist

Models for this kind of program already exist. The Civilian Conservation Corps, developed by US President Theodore Roosevelt in the 1930s, is one example. The program  paid and trained youth so they could support their families and develop skills while planting trees. The Civilian Climate Corps, recently developed by President Biden, built on the concept to create jobs for young Americans, focusing on green jobs. These examples prove we can create green work programs that enable people power rather than relying on carbon intensive machines. ERVCC wants to work with others to build a similar program for stewardship of the River Valley.

In Edmonton, social enterprise models also already exist (such as The Homeless Hub, Find Edmonton, Hiregood, and Yellowhead Tribal Council's Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Strategy), although the opportunity still exists for such a model to focus on a therapeutic river valley stewardship work program. Our city could work with Project Learning Tree Canada, which provides a 50% wage match and gas funding to hire diverse youth in meaningful work experiences. They place youth into paid work experiences in the forest, conservation, and parks sectors. Perhaps Edmonton could become a green jobs employer.

Win-win-win

Full-cost accounting means looking at all the pluses and minuses of a project or way of doing things, including its impacts on people and the environment. It can help identify the negative “externalities” of status quo river valley systems, like spraying of pesticides or clearing snow with noisy, polluting machines. We can replace those ways of doing things with people power for a quieter, cleaner, healthier river valley. And at the same time, we could be accomplishing that work by hiring underemployed people, many of whom are in that position because of systemic colonialism and racism, and clearing away some of the obstacles for these people to contribute their gifts. Indigenous Peoples cared for this land since time immemorial and all of us can learn and benefit from Indigenous stewardship here once again.