A long-time conservationist on B.C.’s west coast has penned a new book highlighting the importance of protecting nature on and around the islands of the Salish Sea.
Sheila Harrington, a Lasqueti Island resident who has been involved with conservation efforts for 30 years, travelled by boat to 17 islands in the Salish Sea to interview more than 50 fellow conservationists about the history of efforts to preserve habitats in the area.
It was while Harrington was living on Salt Spring Island that she decided to get involved with conservation.
But recently, when a local conservationist passed away, she felt it was something of a wake-up call — she felt she needed to share the history of the work she and her peers had been doing since the 1990s.
“I think this history needs to be told,” she told CBC’s North by Northwest host Margaret Gallagher. “It could be lost.”
So, over the past three years, she researched and wrote Voices for the Islands: Thirty Years of Nature Conservation on the Salish Sea.
The book’s chapters are divided by island, showcasing the distinct stories each one has to tell.
“Each island has its own unique beginnings,” Harrington said. “I think that’s kind of inspirational for readers because they can see how there’s such a diversity of ways that people can get involved.”
She said the islands are home to several ecosystems that need to be protected, including the coastal Douglas fir ecosystem, old-growth forests, wetlands, grasslands and kelp forests.
“All kinds of marine life depend on healthy kelp forests and healthy eel grass, which is something that kind of disappeared around the Salish Sea,” Harrington said.
“It all starts with the sea otters. When the sea otters were wiped out, they stopped feeding on the sea urchins and the sea urchins ate the eel grass. So you see how it’s all this cascading impact from our own impacts on the world.”
But the challenges around conservation are ever-increasing as development increases.
Harrington worries that newcomers to the islands of the Salish Sea don’t understand the importance of their natural surroundings.
“They just move too quickly and do things too quickly without getting to know the land,” she said.
Covenants on land can be one solution, she said, where landowners ensure that future owners can’t do certain things with it that would harm the area.
As well, she said, education for newcomers to the islands helps people understand their impact.
Continued conservation efforts
Originally, Harrington said, her goal was to interview people who founded organizations doing the work to protect those ecosystems.
But then, she met some of the younger folks who are continuing that work.
In particular, she recalls meeting a group of students on Pender Island who had made maps showing that the purple martin, a large swallow, had made its way up to the island from Costa Rica. They’d also held workshops to talk about the importance of eel grass and shorelines.
“These young people are just so enthusiastic,” she said.
“And many of the older people I interviewed, when I asked them, what hope do you have for the future? Do you have hope for the future? Almost all of them said their hope was in the young people.”
Harrington’s hope for the future of nature conservation?
“My hope for the future is that we can protect 30 to 50 per cent of the islands because this development is just happening so quickly everywhere around,” she said.
“We have to conserve as much as we can, as soon as we can.”
LISTEN | Sheila Harrington shares stories from the Salish Sea
