We recently spoke with Erich Schwartz, Founder and President of Greenomics on the rise of Sustainable Tourism. His “Sustainable Practices in Business Tourism” workshop on September 21st in Vancouver, BC attracted hotel owners and operators, restaurant owners and operators, senior, industry association executives and destination marketing organizations.
Vancouver is one of the world’s most sought after tourist destinations and will host millions of citizens and athletes from around the globe [...]
A tourist from Calgary found a lone seal pup while in British Columbia. She thought the pup needed rescuing, so she put it in her car wrapped in a blanket then called the police. Most likely, the pup was not abandoned. Canada.com explains:
According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, mother seals will often leave their pups shortly after birth. They will often return to their pups within 24 hours provided conditions are right, one of those being that humans aren’t nearby.
The first known migration of blue whales from the coast of California to the Gulf of Alaska and areas off the coast of British Columbia since 1965 has been documented by scientists, suggesting that historical migration patterns are being established by these amazing marine mammals.
The Canadian government has made good on a promise to protect 15.8 million acres of unique British Columbia rainforest–an area more than twice the size of the entire country of Belgium.
Unique coastal wolves range from Southern Alaska to Vancouver Island. Their fur has a red tint and their diet includes salmon, beached whales, and seals.
Certain to take notice was British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, who heads into an election of his own in the spring having to defend an unpopular carbon tax.
Since 1993, Wayne Sawchuk, a former logger and grizzly bear hunter, has been working tirelessly to protect “the biggest well-kept secret in North America.”
Wayne Sawchuk recently found some atonement for decades of his life spent logging, partying and grizzly hunting. Funded mostly by private donors, Sawchuck played a major role in the conservation of the MuskwaKechika Management Area in Northern British Columbia.
Taking a month to cross, even with horses, the land has been touted as “the biggest well-kept secret in North America,” and “North America’s Serengeti.” Teeming with grizzly, black bear, wolf, lynx, caribou, elk, moose, bison and stone sheep, it is the largest intact wildlife habitat in the entire Rocky Mountain chain and only slightly smaller than the state of Maine.
In the early 1990’s, the government of British Columbia came under pressure to make a final decision on how to manage the province’s resources. Wayne Sawchuk, still a logger at the time, recognized the opportunity of a lifetime and teamed up with other key players to protect the tract of land.
Involved in the efforts were guide outfitters, recreational hunters, the oil and gas industry, snowmobilers, businesspeople, environmentalists, timber industries and government officials. Sawchuk had a tremendous impact in the conservation efforts, as he led the media, government and scientists through the area on horseback so that they could get a first hand glimpse at what they were talking about.
According to an article in the latest bulletin from the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, Prairie Mines & Royalty, Ltd. (PMRL) and Norit Canada are building Canada’s first activated carbon plant. This plant will manufacture activated carbon for a mainly Canadian audience of coal-fired power utilities.
PMRL is a subsidiary company of Sherrit International, the largest producer of thermal coal in Canada (about 90% of total Canadian coal production volume). Additionally, 90% of Sherrit’s coal is sold to nearby power plants located at what are called the “mine-mouth”. Norit on the other hand, is the world’s largest manufacturer of activated carbon and has been in the industry for over 80 years.
It’s fairly obvious why it makes sense for a joint venture building an activated carbon production plant between these two companies, but why build an this type of plant now?
Green building tours are becoming popular in many cities, and are an excellent means of introducing green construction options to professionals and laypeople alike.
The Cascadia Region Green Building Council will host a tour of green buildings on September 25th, 26th, and 28th in the Victoria, Vancouver, and Okanagan regions of British Columbia. British Columbia is the Canadian province with the most LEED-certified buildings per capita, and Cascadia’s Green Skyline tour [...]
A new study in the journal BMC Ecology indicates that coastal wolves in British Columbia switch to eating salmon in the fall as a primary food source, rather than deer. Scientists arrived at this conclusion after analyzing wolf poop they collected over a four year span.
Among the thousands of stools that were collected by the researchers in the spring and summer months, 90-95% of them contained some indications that wolves were eating deer as prey. In the fall, however, this number dropped significantly. About 40-70% of the stools in this time of year indicated that wolves were dining on salmon.
Today is July 1, and that means North America’s first ever carbon tax will take effect in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
The carbon tax, introduced in the Feb. 19 budget, taxes carbon-based fuels like gasoline, diesel, natural gas and home heating fuel. The rate of taxation is $10 (Can.) per ton of greenhouse gases generated. The carbon tax will rise $5 a ton for the next four years until it hits $30 per ton in 2012. The tax increase works out to an extra 2.4 cents a liter on gasoline, increasing to 7.24 cents per liter by 2012.
The government has said all carbon tax revenue (roughly $1.8 billion over three years) will be returned to British Columbians through reductions to income and business taxes. But with rising gasoline prices, the addition of the new carbon tax will certainly be making some British Columbian drivers cringe when they fill up at the pump.
The first known migration of blue whales from the coast of California to the Gulf of Alaska and areas off the coast of British Columbia since 1965 has been documented by scientists, suggesting that historical migration patterns are being established by these amazing marine mammals.
