BC Spaces for Nature Wild Earth Award presented to Bert Brink

Pioneer BC conservationist Bert Brink was celebrated at the BC Environmental Network AGM for his exceptional dedication, achievement, and perseverance as an environmental activist as the 1999 recipient of the BC Spaces for Nature Wild Earth Award. Presented annually, this award honours exceptional dedication, achievement and perseverance over many years as an environmental activist.

Ric Careless, BC Spaces for Nature Executive Director presented this award to Bert Brink, and made the following comments.

"The Wild Earth Award is intended to honour those individuals who have proven time and again that achieving the impossible is possible. Strathcona Park (1907) was BC's only park when Bert started campaigning. Garibaldi was our second Park to be designated (1926 -27); at that time there was no money for parks, nor any legislation. Bert took action to block a government proposal to log Garibaldi as a means to provide funding for parks management."

Bert Brink is truly one of the founders of BC's conservation movement, and along with two or three others succeeded in getting government to create a province-wide parks system, through the legislation of the Parks Act.

Some of the provincial parks that Bert helped to establish include Tweedsmuir, Wells Grey, Cathedral, and Spatsizi.

Bert Brink was the first person to understand that BC's low-elevation lands were very limited and that protecting them was key to maintaining biodiversity. As a result, he became very interested in regional parks and played a leadership role in establishing the Lower Mainland Regional Parks system. He also organized a Nature Council, which evolved over time to become the BC Federation of Naturalists. Bert is a pre-eminent expert on grasslands, and has worked to protect Spruce Lake for years.

He was born in the grasslands of Southern Alberta in 1912 and graduated from UBC prior to World War II in agriculture and biology/botany. After the war he organized the UBC Plant and Science Division, which he Chaired for 25 years. He retired in 1974, and has been recognized by the UN Year of Elder Persons.

The BC Spaces Wild Earth award was presented before an audience of British Columbian environmentalists who were gathered for the BC Environmental Network Annual General Meeting, held in early April 1999.

Return to the Wild Earth Award main page.

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