Gerry Addy, BA, BEd

Gerry is a retired elementary school principal from North Vancouver with thirty-six years of service in education. He and his wife Ruth moved to Qualicum Beach in 1997.

Gerry worked on the Board of the Eaglecrest Residents’ Association for eight years. Most of his efforts were devoted to working as a management team member on the Neighbourhood Emergency Watch program.

Considerable research and study on climate change convinced him of the need for action. Despite the irrefutable scientific evidence that global warming and carbon emissions are threatening to overwhelm us, it is still difficult to convince the public of the seriousness of the problem. Powerful lobby groups continue to subvert action at the political level even though a large majority of climate scientists agree the danger is real and imminent.

Gerry is interested in promoting ecological sustainability. He believes public recognition of the severe threat presented by climate change is an essential ingredient in achieving the greater goal of a sustainable community.

Neil K. Dawe, RPBio, President

Neil is a Registered Professional Biologist in British Columbia. He retired from the Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada, in 2006 after 31 years in civil service on Vancouver Island, managing National Wildlife Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries and working to protect migratory birds and their habitat.

Concerned about the plight of the Brant sea goose, Neil co-founded the Brant Wildlife Festival and co-chaired the festival for its first five years. This led, in part, to the establishment of the Parksville-Qualicum Beach Wildlife Management Area in 1993, which protected all Brant habitat along a 17-kilometre stretch of the Vancouver Island coast from Craig Bay north to the Little Qualicum River estuary.

In 1997, he was appointed to a two-year term as a volunteer member of the Healthy Community Advisory Commission for the City of Parksville, British Columbia. He is a founding Director of the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Reserve Foundation and the Qualicum Institute and is the first Canadian Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE).

Neil is a recipient of Environment Canada's Regional Citation of Excellence Award for his work in promoting the value of wildlife to Canadians and for his work with the Brant Wildlife Festival. He is also the recipient of the Federation of British Columbia Naturalist's Outstanding Service Award.

In 2001, he was honoured with the Ian McTaggart-Cowan Award of Excellence in Biology from the Association of Professional Biologists of British Columbia "in recognition of a significant contribution to the biological sciences in British Columbia."

Much of his work over the past 20 years has involved studies on bird use of estuaries and the restoration and creation of estuarine marsh habitat. His primary interests today, focus on the two limiting factors affecting biodiversity conservation on the Earth today: human population growth and per capita consumption.

Neil has written over 80 scientific, technical, and popular papers and articles on birds, ecology, and the environment. He is a co-author of the four-volume work, The Birds of British Columbia. He also authored the children’s book, The Hummingbird Book and Feeders and is a co-author of another popular children's book, The Bird Book and Bird Feeder.

Michele Deakin, BA, Vice-President

Michele is a graduate of Business Management at Ryerson University in Toronto and Recreation Management at the University of Waterloo. Many of her years working for Parks Canada on the Queen Charlotte Islands, included a liaison role between the tourism industry, the community, the Haida Nation, and Parks Canada.

She has also been involved extensively in public consultation and representing community/business interests to management, policy and planning, tourism planning and promotion, and various communications functions. Outside Parks Canada, she has also taught environmental education, outdoor recreation and volunteered in museums and schools.

Since coming to Qualicum Beach, Michele has been involved in the Brant Wildlife Festival, watershed and tourism planning, coordinating field work and public discussions related to healthy shorelines, and recovery work in local watersheds and estuaries.

Long interested in sustainability issues, Michele and her family are reducing reduce their footprint on the Earth by growing as much of their own organic food as they can, storing and using rainwater, and supporting local farmers and the local business community as much as possible.

Terri Martin, BSc, RPBio

Terri grew up at the edge of suburban Amherst View, near Kingston Ontario. Her keen interest in the countryside, especially those critters close to home, led her to the University of Guelph's Wildlife Biology program. While working towards her undergraduate degree, a wide array of character-building, agricultural jobs kept her in the field and enjoying a sense of place.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1989, she moved to British Columbia and began working as a naturalist; first with the Capital Regional Parks system in Victoria, then at Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park in Parksville. It wasn't long before she joined the Arrowsmith Naturalists to pursue birding, botany, and intertidal explorations with like-minded folks. She spent a year as the club president and was acknowledged for her invaluable contribution to the growth of the Club on their 35th anniversary.

Terri achieved the designation of Registered Professional Biologist in British Columbia in 1999. She has over 17 years of biological experience on Vancouver Island, has written over 30 scientific and technical reports, popular articles and essays, and has prepared expert witness testimony for the Conservation Officer Service and Crown Counsel.

She feels particularly grateful for having had the chance to work on two, long-term projects on southeast Vancouver Island: tracking the spring migration of the Black Brant sea goose and, as program biologist on Vancouver Island for the Wildlife Tree Stewardship Program, documenting and monitoring of more than 1,000 Bald Eagle nest trees.

Throughout much of her career, however, Terri has had a growing concern that conventional conservation techniques are not working. Year after year, more habitat and biodiversity gives way to human encroachment despite conservationists' best efforts. It is this pursuit of the root cause of biodiversity loss that brought her to the Qualicum Institute. She lives on Quadra Island with her partner and a collection of rescued dogs.

Roy Ostling, BA

Roy is a Nanaimo-based communications consultant and writer with 18 years experience. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Concordia University and a certificate of journalism from Langara Community College.

He currently provides communications planning, media relations, and writing services to local government with a focus on environment projects and programs such as solid waste management and climate change.

He is executive director of the Vancouver Island Association of Wood Processors and the Island Wood Processors Cooperative, and has served as Chairperson of the Brant Wildlife Festival. Roy is a founding Director of the Qualicum Institute.

Bob Rowe, DC

Bob graduated from Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in 1975 after being introduced to the amazing health benefits experienced by his family. He started his chiropractic career in Toronto and developed a very busy practice continually updating his knowledge with post graduate studies in many forms of chiropractic approaches and through the Naturopathic College in Toronto. This lead to a keen interest in acupuncture and he along with two other partners in 1985 developed and sold the LTS laser acupuncture treatment equipment.

After moving to BC in 1988 he established a busy chiropractic practice in Sidney. A strong desire to work more closely with other health professionals prompted a move to Qualicum Beach in 2001.

Since moving to Qualicum he has worked with local health professionals to develop and produce a yearly workshop known as health participation day to expose the general public to a vast array of alterative health approaches.

He is a member of the Arrowsmith Community Enhancement Society and currently serves as Vice Chairman. For nine years he served with the College of Chiropractors of BC and was chairman of Research and Continuing Education. He has certifications in Active Rehabilitation, and the Biophysics of Posture, and holds a master practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming along with training in other forms of Energy Psycology.

His focus today is on sustainability in the development and utilization of health care and the patient's education and participation in the process at the individual and community levels with the understanding that sustainability at all levels starts with the individual.

M.A. (Peggy) Ward, BA, Secretary-Treasurer

Peggy graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in geography. She retired after a 31 year career in the federal government, first with the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources in Ottawa and then with Environment Canada in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.

In the Surveys and Mapping Branch in Ottawa she developed a keen interest in mapping which she later applied to numerous projects for Environment Canada’s Lands Directorate and the Canadian Wildlife Service. She was involved with the federal-provincial Fraser River Estuary Study in the 1970’s, producing a map of outdoor recreation areas and access points along the Fraser River from Kanaka Creek downstream to the estuary. In 1980 she published the book Explore the Fraser Estuary, which became a regional best seller and was described by Tony Ebert of The Vancouver Sun as “an excellent use of public funds.” While researching the natural history portion of the book, she developed a fascination and deep appreciation for the interconnectedness of all natural systems.

Peggy’s husband Bill was an avid sailor and once they returned to BC from Ottawa, they spent their holidays cruising the Strait of Georgia and the Discovery Islands. They bought a boat in England in the mid 70’s, sailed across the English Channel and entered the European waterways, cruising from Amsterdam to the Mediterranean and after retiring in 2004, they returned to Europe to spend two years on the French waterways. While at home raising her two daughters for a few years, she contributed three chapters to the third volume of Bill Wolferstan’s informative and popular Cruising Guides to the Gulf Islands (Volume I), Desolation Sound (Volume II) and the Sunshine Coast, Fraser River and Vancouver to Jervis Inlet (Volume III).

Peggy returned to the Canadian Wildlife Service and conducted a comprehensive wetlands inventory of the Fraser Lowland in the late 1980’s. Reports were written describing each wetland, summarizing the overall distribution and pattern of wetlands and studying potential protection strategies for them. As a direct result of this work, many of the wetlands were afforded various levels of official protection. Work then began to inventory wetlands in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, one of the priority areas of the intergovernmental Pacific Coast Joint Venture.

The provincial government became interested in the work on the Fraser and Peggy was invited to participate in what later became known as the Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory of East Vancouver Island, better known as the SEI. The purpose was to map and evaluate remnant and relatively unmodified ecosystems. The results of this work were shocking! Despite the perception of ‘green’ along the Inland Highway to Campbell River, less than 8% of the entire 4,000 km² Nanaimo Lowland (Sooke to north of Campbell River) contained only remnants of the ecosystems that once covered the coastal lowland and islands. Five years later, a second study revealed that an additional 10% of these remnants had been further disturbed by human activity.

Peggy, along with her late husband, Bill, were founding directors of the Qualicum Institute. She has become increasingly aware of how humans are disconnected from the natural world that sustains them and has been involved in efforts to change that disconnect.