Sheila Harrington’s Voices for the Islands is a visually pleasing and richly detailed record of BC coastal history that otherwise might have been lost.
One island at a time, we are drawn into Harrington’s entertaining narratives about resident heroes on the islands in the Salish Sea who toiled together, sometimes for years, in the common hope of eventual success and celebration. Many places now taken for granted as parks and protected areas owe that status to sustained private efforts. Piece by piece, critically endangered island habitats have been permanently protected, although Harrington makes it clear that much still remains to be done.
In contrast to the ages when the Coast Salish peoples lived sustainably with no need for complicated and costly conservation projects, Voices for the Islands describes modern industrial-scale logging and an overall steep decline in biodiversity within the fragile island ecosystems. Sparks of discomfort became flames of fear as residents worried that the natural world that had drawn them to live there might soon be destroyed.
Over several years, Harrington sailed from her Lasqueti Island home to record the stories of the residents who led and participated in landmark island projects. She wisely includes some of the gory project details, failures, and descriptions of people who played critical roles but are now gone. We get a sense of steep learning curves and mistakes, and also of the resilience of the determined souls who persevered to see their projects through – often in the face of rising land values and falling funding opportunities.
Through my work with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (well before I became a Gulf Islander myself), I was occasionally able to play a support role in some of the projects. However, like other large conservation groups, NCC usually signs on to smaller-area projects only when a compelling case is made by local partners. I found the islanders’ deep connection with the land was usually complemented by their wisdom in backing business and funding proposals with serious science, and fundraising a substantial amount of the cost.
Harrington provides the right amount of background and detail to make each project come alive, and even the most jaded reader will crack a smile at some of the happy endings.
Ideally, the publication of Voices for the Islands will trigger continued collective determination, inspiration, and guidance for a gentle passing of the torch to new generations of island conservation leaders and partnerships.
Voices for the Islands: Thirty Years of Nature Conservation on the Salish Sea
By Sheila Harrington, with foreword by Briony Penn
Heritage House Publishing
ISBN 9781772034929
Softcover | Publication Date: July 9, 2024 | 288 Pages
Jan Garnett was the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Regional VP for BC during many of the years described in Voices for the Islands, and is the author of the newly-published mystery novel No Safe House. www.jangarnett.com
