Residents plants trees, clean trash, go for a paddle to celebrate World Rivers Day

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 to celebrate 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 1,000 trees and shrubs at the City of North Vancouver’s Rivers Day celebration at Lynnmouth Park just northwest of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. The efforts were part of a broader push to improve fish, bird, and wildlife habitat 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 found 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 steelhead stocks have dipped to precarious levels on rivers like the Chilcotin and Thompson rivers.