He has a special interest in ecological restoration. This has been the situation for decades in the Slocan Valley, whose steep conifer- carpeted walls rise up as part of the Southern Selkirk Mountains, in southeastern British Columbia. All of us depend on the various creeks, springs, and wells of the Valley for domestic and irrigation water. But some thirty years ago, commercial agriculture in the region fell victim to the provincial highway construction, through the southern portion of the province, that made produce from the Slocan Valley less competitive and cheap imports into the Valley possible. Since its founding in 1982, the Slocan Valley Watershed Alliance has functioned as an umbrella organization for some dozen neighbourhood watershed-protection groups located throughout the length of the Valley.
Some groups represent people collectively dependent on a sizable stretch of watershed.
Others represent the interests of village water-system users. Most member groups have a board which meets regularly, and the Alliance in turn has a board made up of group representatives, along with other interested individuals, who meet once a month. New people join both the neighbourhood groups and the Alliance board from time to time. Our objective in the Watershed Alliance has been to try to put a large share of decision-making power, with respect to how logging is planned and managed here, into the hands of the residents directly affected by it. We believe that, in practice, this would constitute an effective form of ecological management.