Adam Olsen’s statement highlighting the incredible work of the Peninsula Streams Society and habitat restoration. Human activity is heavily impacting ecosystems and the work of stream keeping organizations across British Columbia is successfully reversing the negative impacts.
[Transcript]
Saanich North and the Islands is home to an amazing non-profit called Peninsula Streams. Like stream-keeping organizations all across our province, their work is restoring the vital, circulatory network of a healthy ecosystem and healthy communities. The life force driving them is SĆÁÁNEW̱ — the wild Pacific salmon — ŦEḴI¸, SȾOḰI¸, HENEN¸, ŦÁ¸WEN and QOL¸EW̱. Sockeye, Chinook, Pink, Coho and Chum.
Soon after I was elected councillor in Central Saanich, I began to understand the tremendous impact community neighbourhood development has on our SĆÁÁNEW̱ relatives. This week, the Auditor General released a report about the impacts of human developments under the guidance of Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource and Rural Development and Environment on QÍYEĆEN, the grizzly bear.
The stories of STḴȺYE¸ wolf culls, apparently to slow the extirpation of Selkirk caribou, the KELȽOLEMEĆEN, orcas struggling to find food and quiet in the Salish Sea. Or the sad case of SXEU¸KEM, the Thompson River steelhead, are told daily.
The SĆÁÁNEW̱ is our provincial fish, and all these animals are powerful symbols of our homes. In their absence, we dare to call this place super or natural. With just 1.4 million salmon returning to the Fraser this summer, alarm bells are ringing — not just for them or the rest of the complex web that they exist in, but for all of us.
It does not have to be this way. In a new generation of leadership, we can choose to renew our relationship with the ecosystems that sustain our lives so fully. Streamkeepers are just one example of people making a difference, a difference for the environment and the quality of life in our communities. And for those who think we can eat money, they make an incredible economic impact as well.
I’m inspired by their passion. I hope that we invest in their work, because their investment is in our relatives, all living things, and it is an investment in the children and grandchildren that we will race home to hold and embrace when this place closes this afternoon. HÍSW̱ḴE
0 Comments