WaldAktion British Columbia 2:

Biography of Colleen McCrory

- Over 30 years of environmental activism -

Colleen McCrory is Executive Director of the Valhalla Wilderness Society, an environmental group in southeastern British Columbia (Canada), that focuses primarily on wilderness, forest and wildlife protection. The society was formed to seek the establishment of a wilderness park to protect part of the Valhalla mountain range of the Selkirk Mountains in southeastern BC, something they achieved after a 12-year struggle with Colleen as their public persona.

Colleen has won major international awards for her work in the environmental field: the 1992 Goldman Environmental Prize for outstanding grassroots environmental initiatives (the world´s largest environmental prize, known as the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize), the 1992 United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honour, and the 1988 International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources´ (IUCN) Fred M. Packard Interntional Parks Merit Award. Colleen has won two national awards: the 1990 Equinox Citation for Environmental Achievement, and the 1983 Governor-General´s Conservation Award, and one provincial award: the Vancouver Island Human Rights Coalition citation for outstanding contributions to protection of the environment, which was presented by BC´s Lieutenant-Governor in June 1998.

Colleen's work with the Valhalla Wilderness Society (VWS) over the past 20+ years has helped propel the VWS into the top ranks of environmental groups in BC. She was instrumental in getting South Moresby established as a national park reserve (the world´s largest remaining temperate rainforest).
In 1991, after a cross-Canada trip documenting the boreal forest crisis, Colleen founded Canada's Future Forest Alliance (CFFA). The Alliance, now numbering nearly 300,000 members, is a network of environmental, native, labour and community group and individuals interested in reform of forest policy and practice. CFFA has produced two newspapers titled "Brazil of the North", which drew together information gathered by grassroots groups across the country about the sell-out of most of the remaining productive Canadian forests to multinational corporations.

Colleen was invited to participate in the 1992 Rio UNCED meeting and an international conference about forest issues in Sweden. At these meetings, she helped from an international network of environmental groups working for boreal forest protection, the Taiga Rescue Network (TRN).

She continues to work on forest issues with others around the world. Currently much of her energy is devoted to her own backyard: protection of the Inland Temperate Rainforest that spans part of southeastern BC, northern Washington, Idaho and Montana. This is the only inland temperate rainforest in the world.

Postscript:
Colleen McCrory died July 1st, 2007 as result of an operation. Her sudden illness and death at age 57 was a shock to the whole environmental movement.

Links:

• Valhalla Wilderness Society, VWS
  
• BC Green Party
  
• Taiga Rescue Network
  
• Goldman Environmental Prize