■ BILLBOARDS COME DOWN,
Planting trees in North Vancouver, cleaning trash out of a salmon bearing stream in Chilliwack, and paddling and floating on some of B.C.’s most cherished rivers.
Those are just a few of the activities residents around the province took part in in celebration of World Rivers Day.
The annual celebration started in B.C. several decades ago and went international in 2005.
It is intended to highlight the value and improve stewardship of rivers around the world, said Mark Angelo, the head of World Rivers Day, founder of the event, and the head of the Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C.
“Rivers in every country face an array of threats, and only our active involvement will ensure their health in the years ahead,” Angelo said in a news release.
Community groups and local residents lined up to plant about 1,000 trees and shrubs at the City of North Vancouver’s Rivers Day celebration at Lynn mouth Park just northwest of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. The efforts were part of a broader push to improve the fish, bird, and wildlife habitat in and around Lynn Creek.
In a recent opinion piece published in The Vancouver Sun, Angelo called for a multi-government program to boost funding for the protection and restoration of rivers.
In a report earlier this year, the recreation council labelled B.C.’s steelhead rivers and the productive “Heart of the Fraser,” from Hope to Mission, as the most endangered rivers in the province.
The council’s list of endangered rivers warned that steelhead stocks have dipped to precarious levels on rivers like the Chilcotin and Thompson.