Katia Bannister (she/her) grew up on unceded Pune’luxutth territories (Thetis Island) and spent her childhood and teenage years learning, volunteering, and community organizing in the Cowichan Valley (unceded Quw’utsun territories). Her childhood love of nature led her to start participating in ecological restoration projects and community organizing through youth climate strike movement as a teenager.
Katia is completing her undergrad at the University of Victoria, studying Environmental Studies, Geography, and Indigenous Studies, with interests in everyday practices of sustainability, community-based food security initiatives, and land- and water-back work. Katia loves canoe tripping and whitewater paddling and got her start canoeing on the Quw’utsun Sta’lo’ (Cowichan River) while she was in high school. Her relationship to water through paddling has been enormously humbling and impactful, reifying the strong passions for freshwater advocacy that she developed while working for the Canadian Freshwater Alliance as a teen. With her background in community outreach and engagement, she is extremely interested in helping people to connect with their watersheds in more experiential ways (like recreation) and how this can help to generate more care and action for watershed issues, as well as more holistic watershed governance practices.
Katia is the former Communications Officer for the UVic Sustainability Project (UVSP). In addition to the Canadian Freshwater Alliance, she has worked and volunteered extensively for local environmental and social justice organizations, including Dogwood Foundation, Canadian Mental Health Association Cowichan Valley Branch, and the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians.
