Tag Archives: UN Biodiversity Conference

Forests

The Most Exciting Conservation Story on Cortes Island

Transcript of a radio broadcast by Sabina Leader Mense

Just last weekend several of us were at the Cortes Island Museum for the launch of Sheila Harrington’s new book ‘Voices For The Islands: 30 Years Of Nature Conservation In The Salish Sea.’ What Sheila does in this book is she celebrates this amazing community of conservationists that are living and working in the Salish Sea.  

In the foreword, Briony Penn wrote, “If you’ve picked up this book, chances are that you’ve fallen in love with the islands in the Salish Sea. You might have wondered how the heck they’ve retained their natural beauty against the hostile tsunami of contemporary clear-cuts, cookie cutter suburbs, and mindless malls that are encroaching elsewhere.” 

Briony talks about the collective efforts of thousands of people over generations that have actually been working to maintain the beauty of the islands. 

Sheila’s book documents the last 30 years of people (voices in the islands) who have been working at conservation. She includes a chapter on Cortes, so we’re in there with the best of them! I encourage everybody to pick her book up and have a read  to see what the island community of conservationists have been doing. 

Map of the Children’s Forest

The most exciting conservation story on Cortes today is definitely the Children’s Forest! This is the 624 acres of forest lands that stretch all the way from the Carrington Bay Road trailhead, east across Carrington Lagoon to Goat Mountain, just on the northern shore of Blue Jay Lake.  These are lands owned by Island Timberlands. It’s part of their privately managed forest land base on Cortes Island.

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Animals

Government protection of Species at Risk ineffective, report says

A new report commissioned by the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC found that Federal and Provincial government policy gaps have rendered their protection of Species at Risk ineffective. 

“Our study looked at terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate species in BC We needed to refine the scope a little bit just because there are so many Species at Risk in BC. In order to do this analysis, we had to narrow in on a few representative species. In total, we chose 64 species. Of the 64 species, only two of them have had their critical habitat mapped by the deadlines. The remaining 97% have experienced critical habitat mapping delays anywhere from 2 to 18 years. Then there’s 16 of the 64 species that still don’t even have their critical habitat mapped,” explained Charlotte Dawe of the Wilderness Committee.

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Cost of Climate Change

Preventing biodiversity collapse critical to COP26 climate goals, say world leaders

 National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In the run-up to the UN’s crucial climate conference at month’s end, global leaders have laid the foundation for an international framework to protect nature and halt the collapse of biodiversity worldwide while also curbing global warming and protecting human health.

More than 100 nations committed to the Kunming Declaration on Wednesday, a promise to put the natural world on a path to recovery by 2030.

Continue reading Preventing biodiversity collapse critical to COP26 climate goals, say world leaders →