Our story

Len Vanderstar

• Resident of the Bulkley Valley since 1989
• Set up and taught NW Community College’s Forest Technologist Program in Hazelton; the program had an indigenous emphasis, was accredited within 3 years by the Association of Science Technicians and Technologists of BC, and later laddered into the UNBC forestry/natural resource management program.
• Founding director of the Skeena Roundtable for Sustainable Development and Public Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, now defunct.
• Founding & current director of Friends of Wild Salmon, an umbrella organization of various affiliates that successfully stopped open-pen fish farms along the north coast, spear-headed the campaign against the northern gateway (Enbridge) bitumen pipeline and crude oil tankers, and took on the fight to stop Petronas’ proposed LNG facility on Lelu Island/Flora Banks at the mouth of the Skeena River. https://www.friendsofwildsalmon.ca/
• Director of the Bulkley Valley Outdoor Recreation Society, a registered society that promotes responsible backcountry recreation.

• Founding & current directors of Bulkley Valley Clean Air Now and associate affiliate Bulkley Valley Voices for Good Air– a voice for Bulkley-Nechako local airshed. https://can-bv.ca/
• Founding & current director of the Kenyan Child Guardian Foundation, assisting disadvantaged children in East Africa and empowering the girl child in pursuit of a sustainable future for humanity and African wildlife. http://kenyanchildguardian.org/
• Director of the B.C. Mountain Goat Society; mission is to publicly inform, conserve and promote scientific research (citizen based as well) as it pertains to mountain goats. http://www.bcmountaingoatsociety.ca/ http://www.mtgoats.ca/
• Registered professional biologist (R.P.Bio) and a retired registered professional forester, (Ret. R.P.F.) and holds a Bachelor of Education degree (B.Ed.).
• Has worked in the field of conservation biology in NW BC (Skeena Region) for 30 years, mostly with the provincial government as a habitat protection biologist for 26 years. Currently operates an applied conservation biology consulting company (Northern Habitat Solutions). Focal initiatives are promoting and refining a Watershed Sustainability Decision Support Tool to help ensure watershed hydrological integrity at all scales of watersheds, working with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust in assisting indigenous-based land use planning, ensuring that the heli-ski industry is not impacting mountain ungulates, and assisting the Babine River Foundation with their conservation mandate.
• Currently sits with What Matters in Our Valley as a scientific technical advisor focusing on the proposed Telkwa Coal project within the Telkwa Caribou Herd Recovery Area. https://whatmattersinourvalley.com/
• Works on a number of environmental initiatives including re-instatement of the Skeena Region’s Conservation Lands Program that was recently gutted by the provincial government, taking on the wood pellet industry’s pursuit of converting remaining primary forests into biofuel based on the fact that burning our forests is not the solution to climate change.
• Co-ordination of a group of leading forest ecologists, biologists and forest professionals that are collectively calling for a paradigm shift in forest management, both in legislation/policy and practice. Science Alliance for Forestry Transformation: https://www.saftforestry.com/
• Acknowledged as a Fellow with the Royal Canadian Geographic Society for being the First Canadian to summit each high point in every Canadian province and territory, while promoting Canada’s diverse landscapes and associated cultures to school children at home and abroad. https://summitsofcanada.net/canatrek/expedition/expedition.html