The Western Canada Wilderness Committee (often shortened to Wilderness Committee) is a non-profit environmental education organization that aims to protect Canada's wild spaces and species. Paul George, along with Richard Krieger, were the founding directors, and formed the Wilderness Committee in the province of British Columbia in 1980. It now has a membership of over 30,000 people with its head office in Vancouver and field offices in Victoria, British Columbia; Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Toronto, Ontario.
Paul George, the founding Director, has published a history of the organization: Big Trees, Not Big Stumps.
Other key campaigners for the Wilderness Committee over the years have been Adriane Carr, Colleen McCrory, Bryan Adams, Randy Stoltmann, Ken Lay, Joe Foy, Andrea Reimer, Ken Wu, Gwen Barlee and Nik Cuff.
Mission
The Wilderness Committee's Mission is: To protect Canada's bio-diversity through strategic research and grassroots public education. The Wilderness Committee believes that the right, the duty and the ability to act are integral to citizenship. The Wilderness Committee values nature, with all its natural bio-diversity, as absolutely vital to the health of people, communities and the planet. The Wilderness Committee acts with integrity and courage to mobilize citizens to take lawful, democratic action to defend Canada's remaining wilderness and wildlife.
The Wilderness Committee has campaigned successfully, alongside other like minded individuals and organizations to protect millions of hectares of Canadian wilderness in over 40 key wilderness areas.
Taking action
With community-based, grassroots education campaigns, the Wilderness Committee works to protect wild lands, safeguard wild habitats from destruction, defend the well being of and public access to established national and provincial parks, keep wild rivers as a vital part of the natural environment and ensure that people can live and work in healthy communities. Underlying the Wilderness Committee's education work is a belief that citizens have the right, duty and the ability to stand up for the public interest and protect Canada and Earth's bio-diversity. The Wilderness Committee's educational work about pressing environmental issues reaches up to 5 million Canadians per year through door-to-door canvassing, rallies, petition drives, educational publications and the media in order to gain public support and bring about changes in government policy.
A strong research and mapping program and strategic alliances support the Wilderness Committee's educational mission. The Wilderness Committee often works closely with other environmental groups, First Nations and community leaders, and conducts regular expeditions into threatened wilderness areas.
Wilderness Committee campaigns
Campaigns fall within the following areas:
1. Protecting Wild Lands
2. Safeguarding Wildlife
3. Defending Public Lands
4. Preserving the Pacific Coast
5. Supporting Healthy Communities
Some current campaigns
BC rivers at risk
The Wilderness Committee is calling for a moratorium on all private river hydro-power projects in BC. Following the BC provincial government's 2002 Energy Plan, publicly owned BC Hydro was forbidden from producing new sources of hydroelectricity as part of a shift to deregulate and privatize the BC electricity sector. So far private power companies have staked 600 wild creeks and rivers. The Wilderness Committee is calling for a suspension on all private 'run-of river' power projects until they are regionally planned, environmentally appropriate, acceptable to First Nations and publicly owned.