Next year Georgia Strait Alliance celebrates their 20th anniversary of protecting and restoring the marine environment and promoting the sustainability of Georgia Strait, its adjoining waters and communities. Since 1990, Georgia Strait Alliance has been the only citizen’s group focused on protecting the marine environment in and around the whole Strait of Georgia — the place where most British Columbians live, work and play. They are also one of the few groups focusing on pollution issues and that look at the harmful impacts from land based pollution from a regional perspective. Their focus on the marine environment also pans out to the health of Georgia Basin communities, whose population is about 3 million.

The Georgia Strait Alliance focuses on 4 key areas:

Clean Air and Water

Georgia Strait Alliance is in the forefront of their region’s environmental organizations in addressing the impacts of pollution and toxic chemicals on wildlife and human health. Their sewage campaigns targets one of the most significant sources of pollution in the Strait. The ToxicSmart program teaches people how to improve their family’s health and protect the marine environment, by identifying toxic products in their homes and gardens and switching to practical, non-toxic alternatives. ToxicSmart education has also expanded to include culturally diverse communities, with education material available in Punjabi and Chinese.

Through advocacy and education, they also address other public policy issues including oil and gas development and transport, oil spill response, pesticides and toxic chemicals.

Green Boating

The GSA Green Boating program addresses the impact of the hundreds of thousands of recreational boaters in the region through education, advocacy and hands-on work with boaters, clubs, marinas and boatyards around the region. The program is particularly focused on the very popular Guide to Green Boating.
Clean Marine BC is their new environmental recognition program for marinas and boatyards in BC that meet defined best practices standards, modeled on a successful boating industry program in Ontario.

Through the Ocean Solutions project, GSA is proposing the establishment of a coastal network of pump-out stations, enabling boaters to dispose of their sewage at pump-out stations, where it would then go on to be treated, rather than being discharged raw into marine waters.

Marine Life and Habitat

On the policy level, GSA has partnernered with organizations and agencies from both sides of the Canada-US border to work for the creation of marine protected areas. Among these will be Parks Canada’s new National Marine Conservation Area in the southern Strait of Georgia, which is still undergoing a feasibility study.

GSA is also actively involved in efforts to improve protection of at risk species in Canada. They recently were clients on a legal decision which will see better identification of habitat critical to the survival of at risk plants and animals in the region, and they are currently clients on an action to gain better protection for the endangered southern resident killers whales, of which there are only 87 left.

On the grassroots level, the Stewards of the Strait project helps people to understand and adopt the greenest possible practices in their recreational activities on and around the Strait.

They also train and equip teams of volunteer Straitkeepers – citizen scientists who carry out ongoing intertidal studies. GSA also helps to and organize beach clean-ups.

Protecting Wild Salmon

Since the early 1990s, Georgia Strait Alliance has worked to protect wild salmon from the impacts of open net-cage salmon farming by transition the industry to closed containment technology. They are a founding member of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, a coalition of conservation groups working to reform the salmon farming industry. They are also actively involved in efforts to protect wild salmon throughout the region through the protection of their habitat.

To learn more about the GSA mission and in-depth information on their programs, click here for their homepage.
You can also choose to donate online, or through other channels, learn more about donating to the GSA by clicking here.