Update: The federal government has extended the deadline for charitable donations to apply for your 2024 tax return, until the end of February. So you can still make a gift for the wild today and deduct your donation from your taxes in April.
Missing home is a lot like missing a person. Sometimes, we need distance in order to see clearly what it is that makes a place special.
Recently, I went overseas for the first time in a very long while. It was exciting to have so much newness around me. But before too long, I found myself thinking about home.
For me, home is in the wild valleys and peaks of the Kootenays and Columbias. It’s the golden glow of larch needles shivering in a fall breeze. It’s standing in awe before soaring spires in the Purcells, and wondering at the tiny dots of spotted saxifrage flowers in the alpine.
No matter how far I travel, there’s still nowhere on Earth that compares to the unique, wild landscapes here in the Kootenays and Columbias. Yet every day, we lose more of them.
Ancient forests have been felled, caribou herds wiped out and rivers polluted for centuries to come. We can’t change what’s been lost, but we can fight for what remains.
Will you join me today to protect the wild places you love? Will you become a monthly donor to defend our forests, wildlife and rivers all year round?
Looking down at miniature, snow-covered peaks on my flight home last week, I saw the places we’re fighting for spread out beneath me: the undeveloped valleys that allow grizzly bears and wolverines to roam; the free flowing rivers; the expanses of intact forest that keep wild animals like mountain caribou safe from predators, disease and human disturbance.
But alongside all this, I couldn’t help thinking of what we’re up against: increasing resource extraction, a network of continually expanding backcountry roads, dwindling old growth stands and a growing mosaic of clearcuts.
The wild can’t endure these threats alone—it needs our help. Whether you give a year-end gift or join our circle of monthly donors, your tax-deductible support today will help create connected and protected habitats for future generations—of wildlife and people alike.
Over Wildsight’s more than three decades of conservation, people like you have been at the heart of some of our biggest wins for the wild—protecting landscapes like the Height of the Rockies Provincial Park, the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy and the upper Elk River Valley. Today, animals like mountain goats, wolverines and grizzly bears are thriving in these refuges.
We’re a force to be reckoned with when we come together for the places we love. And we stand today at a critical moment in history.
The future of our wild places will be determined by what we do next—our choices and our habits, what we care enough about to protect and what we leave behind. These are landscapes worth fighting for. Will you join me?
For the wild,
Robyn Duncan
Wildsight Executive Director
p.s. This year, the Canada Post strike is going to have a big impact on charities’ annual fundraising campaigns, including ours. Your online donation today is more vital than ever before—please, give for the future of our wild places.