Valhalla Wilderness Society
Champion of conservation since 1975. We are a BC-Based wilderness conservation organization, specializing in the creation of parks and protected areas for wildlife and ecosystems.
Contact Us
Email: info (at) vws (dot) org
Champions of
Current Projects
While B.C.’s coastal rainforest is world-renowned for its splendour and diversity, its interior counterpart, the rare Inland Temperate Rainforest, remains relatively unknown, and is quickly disappearing.
British Columbia’s wildlife heritage is rich and diverse, and increasingly under threat from habitat loss due to industrial development, and from inappropriate hunting and poaching. VWS is involved in cougar, grizzly, black bear, mountain caribou, and wild horse conservation initiatives
The Grow BC Parks Coalition is petitioning the Provincial and First Nation governments of British Columbia to immediately protect BC’s remaining intact natural areas.
Approximately six hundred to one thousand wild horses live in BC’s Chilcotin region. Valhalla Wilderness Society biologist Wayne McCrory has studied these horses for over 15 years in an effort to protect them from unjustified culls. Recent DNA analysis suggests they may have inhabited this landscape, living in a self-sustaining predator-prey system with wolves, for far longer than once thought.
Global amphibian populations have experienced significant declines, signaling a greater biodiversity collapse that threatens all life on Earth. The West Kootenays still hosts a significant population of BC’s native, at-risk Western Toad. Valhalla Wilderness Society researchers are taking action to protect what still remains.
The Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park Proposal protects endangered mountain caribou, primeval Inland Temperate Rainforest with trees up to 1,800 years old, hundreds of species of lichens, rare plants, core habitat for blue-listed grizzly bears, wolverines, and spawning grounds of the bull trout.
The Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness Protection proposal encompasses one of so few remaining Ancient Inland Temperate Rainforest ecosystems in the world that its preservation is vital to maintaining biodiversity.
The proposed fully protected area surrounds the North and East arms of Quesnel Lake. It is an area of great significance to First Nations, endangered wildlife, and all British Columbians.
The Forest Watch program uses on-the-ground research and data to document the damage and danger caused by poor logging practices around the province, and to push for industry accountability. VWS director Craig Pettitt is the West Kootenay coordinator for Forest Watch.
On British Columbia’s mid-coast lives one of the most rare and beautiful bears in the world — the Kermode, or spirit bear. Found nowhere else on earth, these white-coloured black bears are at risk from logging and habitat fragmentation.
Successful Campaigns
B.C.’s domestic-use watersheds continue to be targeted for logging and road-building, despite dangers to ecosystems, personal property, water supplies, and even human life.
Stretching in a continuous belt across northern Canada, the boreal forest plays a critical role in the global ecosystem. Threatened on all sides from logging, mining, oil and gas development and hydro-electric projects, the boreal forest is under siege.
British Columbia’s provincial parks have, over the years, become part of the very identity of the province and its citizens.
User fees. Commercialization. Private Control. Major changes are in the works to ensure that profit-making, not ecological integrity, is top priority in the management of our provincial parks.