Cowichan Bay, August 6, 2009. Cowichan Bay, a small seaside village located one hour north of Victoria, British Columbia, will be the first Cittaslow member in North America. Cittaslow is an International network of towns committed to putting quality of life first. Cowichan Bay, a village of less than 3,000 inhabitants is rich with small and medium scale agricultural operations, wineries, a charactaristic waterfront center, acres of greenspace, traditional First Nations land. Visitors and residents alike are attracted to the area because it has managed to resist fast food and big-box type retailers.
The effort to make Cowichan Bay a Cittaslow began two years ago, when Slow Food Vancouver Island and FarmFolk/CityFolkÂ’s Feast of Fields sponsored a food map of the wild and cultivated foods found in the Cowichan Bay region, created and hand drawn by well known environmentalist Brioney Penn. After a lengthy application and assessment process and broad based consultation and promotion of the concept with residents of Cowichan Valley, a small working group, including local business owners Bruce Stewart of True Grain Bread and Mill, Mara Jernigan from Fairburn Farm, Hilary Abbott of HilaryÂ’s Fine Cheese and Vanessa White of Affinity B&B, and supported by Regional Director Lori Iannidinardo and Economic Development Officer Geoff Miller have come together to achieve the goal of membership for the rural village. To support the initiative, the group is now selling limited edition, high quality signed prints of the map in two sizes.*
To become a Cittaslow, member towns are assesed and certified under six potential areas of excellence with 52 assessment points. The qualifying features are in the areas of environmental policy, land use and infrastructure, quality of urban fabric, encouragement of local food and artisanal products and businesses, identity and hospitality and friendliness in towns under 50,000 inhabitants. In the final Cittaslow assessment, Cowichan Bay scored a total of just over 93%, one of the highest of all the towns to apply to the International network, with a particularily high score in the area of environment, which includes greenspace, infrastucture policies such as recycling and biodiversity of both wild and cultivated foods. “We are very proud to have become the first Cittaslow in Canada and in North America.” says Mara Jernigan. “It shows a genuine committment towards the rural and environmental nature of the area and the local production of high quality artisanal and organic food. It will support the creation of policies that will ensure that vision for future generations who visit, live and work in Cowichan Bay.”
Two other Canadian towns, Wolfville Nova Scotia and Naramata B.C., are currently working through the assessment process to become part of the Citta Slow network. In the United States, the town of Sonoma, long recogonized as one of California’s most lovely wine and food regions, is hoping to become part of the “slow” growing network.
“To become a Cittaslow, explains Citta Slow’s director Pier Georgio Oliveti, “means to enter in a big family of 120 towns in 16 countries, working to give ourself a future of quality, applying Slow Food philosophies with concrete policies of sustainable development in each town.”
This fall, on September 18-19, Oliveti, based in Orvieto Italy and the President of Cittaslow International President, will visit the region to preside over an official ceremony marking Cowichan BayÂ’s membership in the wordwide Cittaslow network.
For information contact:
Mara Jernigan, communications coordinator 250 746-4637 mara@fairburnfarm.bc.ca
Bruce Stewart, President, Cttaslow Cowichan 250 746-7664 bruce@truegrain.ca
*To order limited edition prints contact Bruce at True Grain Bread and Mill
