EEA staff in their natural habitat: Ken Wu (Executive Director) by a giant, moss-draped bigleaf maple on southern Vancouver Island and Celina Starnes (Outreach Director) by the Qu'appelle River in southern Saskatchewan.
Hello friends, please help us reach our October fundraising goal of raising $50,000 (tax receipts provided, and donations of securities also accepted - see below).
We are a small but powerful organization that punches far above our weight! However, we have not fundraised nearly enough this year - having been over-the-top busy campaigning, which is what our supporters want. But we need significantly more funds ASAP to fund our staff and projects, so we can continue to undertake major engagement with First Nations, non-traditional allies (businesses, faith, outdoor recreation groups, etc), government and the general public, to document endangered ecosystems in the field, to do vital policy analyses and writing, and to undertake major social and news media engagement to reach millions of Canadians.
Please DONATE here as generously as you can - we guarantee you that your funds will do great things for this planet:
Some projects we've been working on over the past 12 months:
EEA has spearheaded major campaigns (new and social media outreach, key analyses and research, public and non-traditional ally engagement and mobilizations, government engagement) in BC that has resulted in major policy progress from the provincial government to protect ecosystems. The BC government has committed to:
Meeting the federal/ international protection target to protect 30% of BC's lands and waters by 2030. This will double the protected areas system over the next seven years in BC, from 15% now. We are on the verge of the largest protected areas expansion in BC's history!
Protecting the most biodiverse areas in BC by launching the development of a Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF) that could result in the protection of the most endangered ecosystems - including the remaining, most at-risk, monumental old-growth forests.
Developing a ‘conservation financing’ mechanism to support new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). This funding for First Nations will be the indispensable driver to enable the establishment of new protected areas on the ground in BC.
However, there are still major loopholes and gaps that we will need your help to close soon - namely, the need for:
Ecosystem-based protection targets to ensure that the productive old-growth forests and most at-risk ecosystems are prioritized for protection.
Conservation financing dollars to go to First Nations’ sustainable economic development tied to ecosystem-based targets.
Ensuring that new protected areas have the standards and permanency of genuine protected areas.
We have also created numerous videos summarizing BC old-growth policy progress and the loopholes that must still be closed:
Summary of BC's Old-Growth Policy Development (from early August 2023)
Why Conservation Financing is Vital (video 1)
Why Conservation Financing is Vital (video 2)
We have kept pressure on the BC government to continue taking action on protection and to close the loopholes.
We recently circulated a media release on the BC old-growth situation urging the government to close the remaining gaps to secure old-growth protection. Also, we provided a detailed feedback submission to the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework.
Federally, we are developing a first draft of a national Endangered Ecosystems Act
Working closely with the environmental law organization Legal Advocates for Nature's Defence (LAND), we are close to completing a strong Act. This Act is similar to an endangered species act but for ecosystems, where science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge are key to set protection targets for the full diversity of ecosystems (i.e. not just one overall target for the total land area of Canada or for each province, but legally binding targets for every ecosystem). This way, governments can't evade protecting the ecosystems that are most coveted by industry - i.e. areas with the greatest timber, agricultural, and real estate development values.
See our input earlier this summer for the federal government's 2030 Biodiversity Strategy that will give you a sense of our aim.
We continue to help First Nations in BC, supporting their establishment of new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs)
These include our collaborative projects with the Kanaka Bar Indian Band near Lytton, and with the Mowachaht/ Muchalaht First Nation near Gold River on Vancouver Island. We are also in dialogue with many other BC First Nations to advance their old-growth protection initiatives. Our founders set up a new organization, the Nature-Based Solutions Foundation (NBSF), in late 2021 in order to help fund land-embedded communities, including First Nations, to protect areas in and around their communities. See some videos on the NBSF's pivotal work:
Full version: The Key to Protecting Canada's Most Endangered Ecosystems
Short-version: The Key to Protecting Canada's Most Endangered Ecosystems
We've made other new, fun natural history videos this summer:
Second-Growth vs Old-Growth Differences (seen by literally millions of people on Tiktok and Reddit!)
...and there is a lot more campaign work underway!!
Please help us as generously as you can! We provide official tax receipts and also accept donations in stocks and securities via Canada Helps (see in the donation link here):