BCGWLP stands for the "British Columbia Guide to Watershed
Law and Planning." This Guide focuses on the local level – the
watershed – giving residents of British Columbia, Canada an overview all
of the laws and planning processes that govern watershed management in British
Columbia.
How is the website structured?
The Guide is organized into four main
subjects, which can be accessed with the buttons on your left:
·“Accessing
Government” – A crash course to understanding government, lawmaking,
planning and how to get involved in all of it as a watershed advocate.Good background for anyone who wants to influence government, whether
on watershed issues or not.
·“Issues
and topics” – Identify watershed issues and problems and learn
about what laws and planning processes apply to them.This is a great starting point if you’re concerned about a particular
watershed issue, but don’t know much about the legal or planning requirements.
·“Laws
& Plans” – A description of every piece of legislation and
planning processes that the Guide’s authors thought might be useful to those
engaged in watershed protection.This
section is useful if you know what law or planning process you want information
about.
·“Case
Studies” – Learn by reading stories.The case studies set out common watershed protection issues and then
tell a story about how local citizens used advocacy, legal and planning tools
to work for watershed protection.You
can then move from the case study stories to more detailed information about
the tools used.
In addition to these, there are a
number of tools that you can access by using the buttons at the top right of
the page:
·Glossary
to help you understand the information on the site;
·Links Page
to help you move beyond this site (although there are also links on most topic-specific
pages within the Guide).
How do I find what I want
on the website?
You can navigate throughout each subject by using the menu on
the left of every page. Wherever you are in the website, this menu will link
back to it's relevant home page, which contains further links to topics within
it's related subject.
The Sitemap lists all the pages within
the website and is organized by subject and sub-topic. When searching for topics
discovered while browsing through the subject menus, the Sitemap will prove
to be a fast and effective method of finding information by means of a categorical
index.
The Search page is another useful method of finding information
within the BCGWLP website.
How can I contact BCGWLP?
You can contact BCGWLP for general inquiries at bcgwlp@wcel.org.
Information on contacting specific individuals by mail or telephone is available
upon request.
Where do I report technical faults with the website?
Faulty pages or applications, broken links and other technical
faults should be reported by emailing bcgwlp@wcel.org.
Our technical help page may also help you to solve any difficulties you are
experiencing.
Technical Help
Browser Compatibility
A Web Browser is an application that allows you to view the BCGWLP
and other World Wide Web pages, the graphical portion of the Internet. There
are many different browsers available with the most popular being Microsoft
Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Because of this fact the BCGWLP site
is designed with these two browsers in mind. Also note that there are slight
differences between Windows and Macintosh versions of browsers.
The BCGWLP website has been tested and verified compatible with
the following Web browsers:
MS Internet Explorer 5 thru 6
Mac Internet Explorer 5
Netscape 5 thru 7
Mozilla 0 thru 1
Opera 6
WebTV (slight irregularities appear on top of screen)
We recommend using a modern 6.0 generation browser like MS Internet
Explorer 6 (5.1 on the Mac), or Netscape 7 (Mozilla 1.4), or higher.
Optimum screen viewing size is from 800x600 to 1152x870 pixels;
although in many cases, 1024x768 resolution will look best.
Updating your Browser
We are working toward complying with the World Wide Web Consortium
standards and guidelines which make Web sites accessible to the visually-impaired.
Versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer earlier than 4.0 do not support these
standards, so Web sites (including ours) may display oddly and possibly function
poorly on these old browsers.
To use the BCGWLP website, we strongly recommend that you use
a version 5.x or 6.x browser. If you do not already have one, we STRONGLY RECOMMEND
that you download the latest versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator
by using the links below.
These browsers may take a little while to download, but the added
functionality makes it worth the wait. Once you have completed downloading and
installing a new Web browser, you will be ready to browse the BCGWLP website
with full compatibility.
You may want Adobe Acrobat
Some of the external documents referred to in the BCGWLP website
are only available on the Internet in "pdf" format. You will need
Acrobat Reader, a free plug-in for you browser, to view or print them. If you
don't have Acrobat Reader, you can download it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
Printing Pages
Pages on this website will format automatically
for the page when printed through your browser. To print a page, use the "Print"
command in the "File" menu in the top bar of your browser.
You can choose to not have any Web page background images or color
print. If you are using Internet Explorer go to the Tools menu
then select Internet Options and under the Advanced tab then scroll
down to Printing and click the appropriate box.
If a Web page prints too wide at first try, change the page setup
to landscape and try again. You may also need to adjust the page margins or
scaling percentage to get the Web page to fit.
Make the BCGWLP your Default Home Page
You can make the British Columbia Guide to Watershed Law and Planning
Home Page your default home page in both Explorer and Navigator.
If you are using Internet Explorer go to the Tools
menu then select Internet Options and under the General tab type
in the address line.
If you are using Netscape go to the Edit menu, and select Preferences.
In the Home page section, type in the box.
Clearing your Cache
Your cache stores recently downloaded Internet files locally
for faster viewing. From time to time you may need to clear your cache to either
clear disk space or to allow you to view the most recent versions available.
To clear your cache in Internet Explorer you would go to
the Tools menu then select Internet Options and under the General
tab you would click on the button Delete Files under the Temporary
Internet files heading. Also click the box to delete all offline content.
With Netscape, go to the Edit menu, and then select Preferences.
From the menu on the left you would click on Advanced and then Cache.
Once you are at the Cache window you would click the buttons Clear
Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache.
