Sheila Harrington will give us a talk about her recently published book, Voices for the Islands- Thirty years of Nature Conservation on the Salish Sea.

SHEILA HARRINGTON is an author, sailor, and environmental advocate with a thirty-year career in the conservation field. She was the founding executive director of the LandTrust Alliance of BC (LTABC) from 1997 to 2011 and a director of the Lasqueti Island Nature Conservancy for more than twelve years. She is co-author of the bestselling Islands in the Salish Sea Community Atlas, a finalist for two BC Book Awards and third-place winner of the BC Historical Federation prize. She edited and published Positive Vibrations magazine in the 90s and Giving the Land a Voice, Mapping Our Home Places and the BC Kingfisher magazine in the early 2000s. She currently lives off-grid on Lasqueti Island.

Voices for the Islands brings together the stories and experiences of those who rose to protect areas at risk within their island communities. Narratively linked by author Sheila Harrington’s three-year sailing journey among the islands to interview more than fifty veteran conservationists, the book shares an in-depth view of local protests and the history and evolution of local conservancies from their timely emergence through legal battles and successful partnerships. It highlights how local, provincial, and national support was won, through the collaborative efforts of dedicated locals, resulting in hundreds of new protected areas and parks within one of the most at-risk ecological communities in Canada—the islands of the Salish Sea.

Beginning in the 1980s, when logging and development threatened the fragile ecosystems and natural habitats, and culminating in the creation of more than seventeen local conservancies and the Gulf Island National Park Reserve, Voices for the Islands will inspire readers to turn apathy into action and support the cause of conservation and reconciliation in an era of species extinction and climate change. Full of colour photos, maps, and fascinating first-hand stories by unsung heroes of conservation—many of whom are now elders—this book reveals how local people and grassroots movements have the power to transform the future of our precious planet.