Colleen McCrory died last weekend of a brain tumor.
She was among Cascadia’s most fearless and successful campaigners for the conservation of our natural heritage—for the forests, rivers, and islands of British Columbia.
If you weren’t blessed to know Colleen, you can read about her here in the Globe and Mail. Her astounding accomplishments as a campaign leader:
“Valhalla Provincial Park, in the Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia;
“Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, in the Queen Charlotte Islands;
“Goat Range Provincial Park, in the Selkirk Mountains;
“Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary, on B.C’s central coast;
“Spirit Bear Conservancy, in the Great Bear Rainforest, on B.C.’s central coast.
“In the 1980s, she also persuaded the B.C. government to set up a planning process that would more than double the amount of protected landscape, to 12 per cent of the province.”
In some Latin American political movements, when a leader dies, the survivors chant “presente, presente, presente.” It’s a little thing, like saying “present” or “here” when the roll is called in school. But it means that the leader’s spirit is still present among them. It’s an injunction to make ourselves worthy of our predecessors—to make our lives amount to as much as theirs did.
Colleen McCrory, presente!
