 With climate change and sea level rise, a first reaction is to protect our shorelines from wave-driven erosion. Sea walls or rock riprap are hard armor approaches that have been common practice. Beach nourishment, combined with green shores, is an alternate soft armor approach that uses a gentle slope and combinations of sand and gravel to mimic a beach shoreline. It protects or reintroduces shoreline native trees and vegetation to provide habitat. It could work with shoreline natural processes to adjust to sea level rise and climate change. And green shores are alive, accessible. The Stewardship Centre for British Columbia offers information and programs on green shores, both for public waterfront and parks, as well as green shores for homes. Green shores is about incorporating four principles into any shoreline project. These are best practices that we can do to make sure that we have a sustainable project as we move forward. The first is making sure that we maintain the shoreline processes along the shore. That is the physical process and the interaction between land and water. Shore zones are constantly changing. Waves and currents move and sort the sands and rocks up, down and along the beach. Sandy feeder bluffs erode and maintain the sandy spits and beaches that we all enjoy. But when we harden that shoreline, we interrupt those sediment sources and we stop the transport of sand and other materials along that shoreline. In essence, we starve the beach. Green shores designs avoid creating those kinds of barriers by designing with the natural physical processes in mind. The second principle is about maintaining or enhancing shoreline habitat. In the intertidal foreshore, what we typically think of as the beach, clean, undisturbed sand and gravel are critical for spawning by a variety of small fish like sand lance, surf smelt, capelin and eulacan. And these small fish are forage or prey for thousands of species in the coastal food whip. And without these forage fish, we really would have no salmon, eagles, shorebirds, waterfowl and a myriad of other marine species. What's also needed by all these species is a good healthy coastal riparian area, that vegetated corridor that just lies above the high tide line. The trees in that riparian corridor provide bird roots and nesting. The overhanging vegetation provides food sources for all the organisms in the water by dropping leaves, insects and detritus, as well as providing a lot of shade along the shoreline. What I'd like to show you here is the things that we put in place when we did this shoreline restoration. We brought in the logs and anchored them, as well as we placed a number of large rocks around here. And then the community association planted over 150 plants in the area. They planted dune grass and the nutcarose, which you can see behind me here. And they've been growing really well. They have really good root systems and they hold, with that in place, we hope to be protecting this park for some years to come. The third principle is about minimizing pollution into the aquatic environment. The roots of that vegetation stabilize banks and filter the surface runoff, which is very important for both organisms and people. The fourth principle is about minimizing the cumulative impacts of shoreline developments along a particular shoreline. Campbell River has a great story to share and that is about green shores and coastal erosion. We had a park that was under development and the shoreline, it was still muddy. It hadn't been stabilized yet and in comes a winter storm right to the path that had just been constructed. Then all of a sudden we thought, well, maybe there's a chance to use some of the materials that we had been removing from a public boat launch. We took that material and we were able to rebuild a natural beach profile. So instead of trying to put in that solid wall again or using riprap or some other solution, we thought, hey, we're going to design with nature and give this a try. It's a new approach. Let's see. And that shoreline has withstood beautifully over the winter storms ever since then. And in fact, if you go there today, it looks like a natural shore park land. In cases where we have the room to slope the land back, create that natural profile all over. Use native vegetation. The Green Shores for Homes program has been developed in British Columbia and also Washington State to help waterfront property owners develop and restore shorelines in ways that benefit both their shoreline ecology and their enjoyment of the waterfront. The program is intended to be voluntary and incentive-based. Homeowners use the guidance provided by Green Shores for Homes to develop in a manner which is supported by their local government. In Puget Sound, over 27% of the shoreline has been altered by development, and that number rises to 90% in highly urbanized areas like Seattle. This type of development has altered the physical character of the sound and impacted vital shoreline habitats. Green Shores for Homes aims to reverse this trend, bringing shorelines back to their natural living state by encouraging removal of seawalls and bulkheads, designing environmentally friendly docks, and planting valuable back shore vegetation. As well as benefiting the environment, Green Shores designs provide important recreational values. While walking along the shoreline on the Sunshine Coast a few years ago, we noticed a property with a natural beach bounded by two properties, one on either side with high seawalls. The beach below the seawall properties had eroded so that at high tide, the entire beach was covered with water. The homeowner in the middle told us that his neighbor's kids played on the beach in front of his property because they had no beach left to play on. Green Shores waterfronts are also attractive and appealing. On Lake Washington, the owner of a waterfront property who removed their seawall and used the Green Shores design to rebuild the beach told us that passing boats often stop and comment on how much they like what they've done. By the time these logs rot away, the beach and shoreline may need to be raised to manage higher flooding and waves due to sea level rise. To use a nourished beach and Green Shores, permits to fill in the foreshore would be required. Ideally, the shoreline protection will be planned at a neighborhood scale to consider shoreline sediment and ecological processes, as well as arrangements for land tenure and maintenance, and to choose the best shoreline solution, whether hard, soft, or combinations, for the local context. Green Shores may require a different set of design skills and approvals than a standard seawall, but they are often rewarding for the homeowner, the neighborhood, and the shoreline environment.