Laurel Bohart and Donna Collins were the recipients of this year’s Jo Ann Green Award.
“We thought they encapsulated what the Joanne Green Award is about. We had a number of nominations, but we considered their’s to be the best because of all the work that they’ve done for Wild Cortes. They put in a lot of unseen work in the background to make the Wild Cortes exhibit the success it’s been, and they’re doing that as volunteers,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI).
Every year at their AGM, FOCI gives the Jo Ann Green award to a worthy Cortes Island resident in recognition of their contribution to the environmental wellbeing of the community.
Helen Hall: “They are both putting countless hours into displays and staffing of the Wild Cortes exhibit, the one satellite exhibit of the Cortes Museum and Archives. Laurel is entirely responsible for all the taxidermy mounts in the exhibit and is the sole curator of the Raven’s Relations exhibit. Donna took over the much needed lead management of the Wild Cortes exhibit after Lynne Jordan moved off island. She offers administrative and creative energy into the new exhibits and the weekly operations of Wild Cortes, and jokes about this space being her home away from home.”
Cortes Currents: What do you think about receiving the Joanne Green Award?
Donna Collins replied, “It was a real shock, but it was a real feather in our caps for all the work. More so for Laurel, because she’s just done so much work. This is her life. All I’ve done is helped her showcase it a little bit better and get people out to see it.”
“A big thank you to FOCI for even thinking of us. Helen told me that it was a unanimous decision by the FOCI board that we would be the winners. She said there were other nominees, but it just went straight to us and that tells me something. It means a lot to us.”
Collins mentioned local biologist Sabina Leader Mense, whose work is well respected in the wider scientific community.
Donna Collins: “I think Sabina received the honour before and I’m figuring: if we’re up there with Sabina, we’re doing well.”
Cortes Currents: You’re also on the board of the Cortes Island Museum. How did they react to the news that you and Laurel had been chosen for the Jo Ann Green ward?
Donna Collins: “The board was absolutely blown away. It’s just such a big surprise to see Wild Cortes doing really well, it had stumbled along for quite a few years.”
“Wild Cortes is important because of our ability to put out information like:
- What’s happening with our wildlife?
- How our little island is doing as far as global warming is concerned?
- And the science behind things.
“So that people can make good decisions about what to do and what not to do.”
Helen Hall: “We hope that people are not only learning about natural history, but also caring more about it and wanting to do something more about it too. So, Laurel and Donna were a really good fit for this award and we were delighted to give it to them.”
Laurel Bohart added, “We have choices to make, and we’re trying to show people what the choices are. Maybe that’s one reason we got the award.”
“If we can trigger a few people to understand and to start working with, say, putting in (vegetable) gardens instead of lawns, all the basic things we can do to help mitigate the issues we’ve got. If everybody does a little bit, and there’s a lot of people on this planet, then I think we can turn it around.”
“I was just down at Basil Creek. There were some people down there looking to see if there was any Chum. For the second year in a row, there’s been no Chum. Instead, we had maybe a dozen little Pinks, and it was too hot for them to spawn. The creek was not reaching the sea because it was too dry, too much drought.”
“With successive droughts, we’re going to have fewer fish. We’re going to have fewer animals.”
Cortes Currents: When did wildlife become a concern?
Donna Collins: “I think they’ve always been a concern. Anecdotally, we’ve seen them diminish.”
“We do study skins, as well as mounts, in our collections and notice there are very few bats coming in. The numbers are going down. We’re also watching for white nose syndrome, which is making its way slowly towards us, and kills bats by the thousands. We really need bats because they eat insects and we don’t necessarily want to have all those insects around.”
“Also the Common nighthawk: They’re insect eaters and their numbers are dwindling.”
“We’ve got an exhibit about all the species at risk and the numbers just keep growing. People are just decimating them and decimating the forests as well.”
“Canada has the highest forest disturbance rate in the world. Most people would say Brazil because of the burning of the Amazon, but that’s not true. Every year we disturb 3.6 percent of our forests, and that’s just massive.”
(She cited the Mother Tree Project as the source of that statistic.)
Cortes Currents: Are you talking about clear cutting?
Donna Collins: “Yes, and when they clear cut, they come back to that area and they spray it with herbicides. If people knew that, I’m sure they’d be kicking up a fuss too, because we’ve banned it within cities. Why would we want to have that out in nature?”
Laurel Bohart: “I think that at this point, we’re at a very critical space when it comes to our world and ourselves. If we don’t change within the next few years, we may not be able to.”
“I hate to be a doomsday person, but all these changes and they’re coming rather fast. For instance, right about now, the north of BC should be receiving a lot of precipitation, snow, but it’s too warm and it’s too dry.”
“Creatures like caribou are having a hard time finding food. Creatures like polar bears, watching their sea melt, have to find food on land. So they’re in competition with grizzlies and other large predators. In the meantime, if we don’t have enough forage for caribou and other creatures, like moose and deer, then there’s going to be fewer of those and so this is one reason we have black bears coming into town.”
“Next year, we’re going to be talking more about what’s happening worldwide. So people are more conscious of it. What I’m trying to do here is show what we can have. We have to start really thinking about our future and preserving what we can.”
Donna Collins: “If they care about it, then they’re not going to want to see it disappear.”
Top image credit: Donna Collins and Laurel Bohart holding up a certificate saying they won the Jo Ann Green Award – courtesy FOCI
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