Western Canada Wilderness Committee - History

History

When the Wilderness Committee was founded in 1980 there was little information available to the public on Canadian wilderness issues. Under the leadership of Paul George, the Wilderness Committee began to research, publish and distribute information about threatened Canadian wilderness; especially focusing on the big-treed temperate rainforests of coastal BC. The Wilderness Committee’s primary goal was to build grassroots and broad public support for protecting ecosystems and bio-diversity. The Wilderness Committee’s first project was the collaborative production of a 1981 full-colour wall calendar featuring 12 endangered wilderness areas in Western Canada, with response tear-offs to a dozen different Canadian environmental groups.

In its early years the Wilderness Committee mounted campaigns in collaboration with other groups (e.g., South Moresby/Gwaii Haanas – with the council of the Haida Nation and Islands Protection Society; and the Valhalla Campaign with the Valhalla Wilderness Society). In 1985, the Wilderness Committee initiated a new campaign tactic with its Stein Valley campaign. A hiking trail was constructed into the threatened wilderness area so that citizens, media, scientists and politicians could go there and see the Stein Valley wilderness for themselves. This activity required mobilizing dozens of committed volunteers and moved the Wilderness Committee into an active year-round organization.

1988 was a pivotal year for the Wilderness Committee. It launched its first stand alone campaign to protect Carmanah Valley from industrial logging, and brought national attention to the importance of protecting Canada’s big-treed ancient temperate rainforests. The Wilderness Committee initiated its first door-to-door canvass with a focus on Carmanah Valley and from 1988 to 1990 increased its membership from roughly 3,000 to over 30,000. During this campaign the Wilderness Committee honed its skills in public education. Over a 2 year period the Wilderness Committee published and distributed over 1 million copies of the organization’s educational tabloid style newspapers, 500,000 Adopt-A-Tree mail-in opinion cards, 10,000 copies of the Wilderness Committee’s award-winning book Carmanah – Visions of an Ancient Rainforest, 20,000 posters, 45,000 calendars and thousands of news releases on the Carmanah Valley issue. As part of this campaign the Wilderness Committee also conducted slide-show tours in BC and Ontario, built its first boardwalk wilderness trail, produced the organization’s first video, built the world’s first upper canopy ancient temperate rainforest research station and supported researchers who discovered hundreds of new insect species in the treetops of the Carmanah Valley. The Wilderness Committee Carmanah Valley campaign ultimately resulted in Provincial Park protection for the whole valley.

By 1990 the Wilderness Committee had become the largest membership-based, citizen funded wilderness preservation group in western Canada, largely through its outreach efforts.

Wilderness Committee campaigns have helped gain the protection of many important wilderness areas, (2) including critical wildlife habitats and some of the world's last large tracts of old growth temperate rainforest and boreal forest. Notable achievements include playing a key role in gaining protection for South Moresby - Gwaii Hanas (BC), Caribou Mountains Park (AB), South Atikaki (MB), Carmanah Valley (BC), Pinecone/Boise/Burke (BC), Manigotagan River (MB), Stein Valley Nlaka’Pamux (BC), Sooke Hills (BC) and the designation of Clayoquot Sound (BC) as a United Nations Biosphere Reserve, and many other areas resulting in over 40 protected areas in western Canada.

Through successful litigation, the Wilderness Committee set significant legal precedents; logging was stopped in Wood Buffalo National Park and Greater Victoria's drinking watershed; established that no logging roads should be built without approved logging permits; guaranteed public access to crown lands; and, most recently, afforded critically endangered species' habitat protection from logging under BC's Forest Practices Code.