Wine Centre Poised for Growth
Wine Centre Poised for Growth
Jacques-Olivier Pesme
Simone Castellarin
The Wine Research Centre has expanded to Kelowna campus!
The Centre is now a dual campus initiative as it sets down roots at UBC Okanagan, in the heart of B.C.’s wine region. It is led jointly by Land and Food Systems and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Management and Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science.
Jacques-Olivier Pesme, who’s worked with the B.C. wine industry since 2012, is the Centre’s new Director. Based at the Kelowna campus, he works in the Faculty of Management, and is also a Professor in Wine Business at the University of Adelaide (Australia).
The Centre’s new Associate Director is Simone Castellarin, Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Viticulture and Plant Genomics. An LFS Associate Professor, Castellarin has been involved with the Centre for six years, providing continuity and research expertise. We caught up with Jacques-Olivier (JO) and Simone to discuss the Centre’s expansion.
What do you think will be the biggest impact for students at UBCV and UBCO?
JO: The wine industry contributes more than $3 billion per year to B.C.’s economy. It has created more than 10,000 jobs. It offers many opportunities for the younger generation because the world of wine, historically traditional, is evolving and new skills are needed. New courses, co-op, events, certificates, etc… there is a lot to come for UBC students.
Simone: UBCV and UBCO have outstanding scientists and instructors, from wine chemistry to wine business and geography, sustainability of grape and wine productions, and climate change. The new WRC will favor student exchanges across campuses. Students interested in studying wine and grape production will have access to courses and labs that cover those topics.
What industry collaborations are most promising now that the Centre has a base at the Kelowna campus?
JO: Proximity is the key word. Wine is a non-relocatable good. A wine from the Okanagan cannot be produced anywhere else and the Okanagan Valley represents more than 80% of B.C. wine production. To work with the industry, we have to be where the wine is made and where most of the visitors come for a B.C. wine experience. That being said, we’re based in Kelowna and Vancouver, but we do work with all sub-regions of B.C., including the nice wines from Vancouver Island.
Simone: UBC Okanagan labs are conveniently located closed to vineyards and wineries where most of the grape and wine research is conducted. While the WRC has always had strong ties with the wine and grape industry in the Okanagan Valley, having its headquarters in Kelowna will strongly increase the opportunities for research collaborations.
The Centre already has international collaborators for its research, how do you see this changing in the future, if at all?
JO: As the wine market is a global market, full of small- and medium-sized enterprises, international collaborations are essential to gather and disseminate knowledge. I want to reinforce this aspect with key partners in Europe, Oceania and North America. In that spirit, we have recently joined Oenoviti (oenoviti.com), the largest oenology and viticulture research community in 2019 and the International Vine and Enology Society (IVES – ives-openscience.eu) in 2020.
Simone: The new WRC groups together about 20 UBC professors with various expertise and research interests. This new endeavor will enhance existing relationships and create research initiatives with international collaborators from well-recognized wine institutes.
Each of you brings different experience and perspectives to the Centre. How do you complement each other?
JO: Wine is a complex product and what is in the bottle starts with what is in the vineyards. Viticulture is Simone’s expertise. Mine is about strategy and wine regional competitiveness. I strongly believe in a multidisciplinary approach. In a sense, Simone works for improving the quality of B.C.’s grapes and I work for strengthening the recognition of B.C.’s wines around the world. Nevertheless, at the end of day, a global reputation requests very high quality standards.
Simone: I agree with Jacques-Olivier. In short, my work and interest is funded in plant science and viticulture, while Jacques-Olivier’s background is in economics. Both of us are passionate to help push the wine industry forward and support it through innovative research and education.
What is special about B.C. wines? What do you find most exciting about our local wines?
JO: Their diversity. Even if I am not sure about the reason for such diversity. Most exciting… there is a lot to say, but to me the most exciting is the next vintage and the new developments to come at the WRC. We are entering a new promising cycle.
Simone: The strong commitment of wineries to high quality that results in continuous improvements to the wines, season by season. The industry is further expanding in new wine regions and we look forward to supporting them.
To learn more about the UBC Wine Research Centre, visit wine.ubc.ca.
Tagged with: 2020, Faculty, Wine Research Centre
Building a Resilient Food System Starts with the Soil
Building a Resilient Food System Starts with the Soil
Seeing empty shelves in grocery stores last spring was a shock to many consumers, as most of us have never experienced that in our lifetime. It shone a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of our food system, and opened discussions on how we can better enforce this essential service.
While the food system and supply chain was quick to recover from any shortages, Associate Professor Sean Smukler looks at it as an opportune moment to study the impacts and prepare for any future setbacks. “This year has really helped to identify how fragile our food system is, throughout all stages of it,” he says. “If we want to avoid situations like this in the future, I would argue that resilience needs to start at the farm and specifically with the soil.”
Smukler is the principal investigator of the Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes (SAL) Lab. The lab’s goal is to contribute to understanding the ecology of and management for an agricultural system that meets current needs, without compromising the needs of future generations. “We work with farmers and managers of agricultural landscapes, to find ways to better monitor, protect and enhance biodiversity and the availability of ecosystem services.”
“In terms of impact, the COVID-19 pandemic happened very quickly, but we were also able to recover quickly,” says Smukler. “Something like climate change, which is happening on a slower scale and therefore harder to see, presents a much more challenging problem. The effects of which could be much more challenging to a vulnerable food system.”
The SAL lab works closely with farmers in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, and hopes to turn some of the future challenges they may face into opportunities. “Studies have shown that temperatures in the valley are expected to increase over the next couple decades, which on the one hand is good news, because farmers can expect to have significantly more growing days. On the other hand, it may introduce new challenges, such as new pests or crop diseases, or an increase need for irrigation as precipitation patterns change.”
For all of these challenges, it helps to start by looking at the foundation of food: soil. “Soils are the basis for building resilience,” says Smukler. “They are the key to any production, as they store water, cycle nutrients, help to resist disease and ultimately grow healthy crops.”
An important measure of soil quality is soil organic carbon. Siddhartho Paul, a recently graduated PhD student in the SAL lab, is the lead author on a paper published this summer that measured soil organic carbon in the Fraser Valley from 1984 to 2018. The paper was co-authored by Smukler, Lyndsey Dowell (another graduate student from the SAL lab), Nicholas Coops in the Faculty of Forestry, Mark Johnson in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Maja Krzic with the Faculties of Land and Food Systems and Forestry, and Dieter Geesing, the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture Provincial Soil Specialist.
In their findings, the group determined that on 61% of farms, soil organic carbon was in decline.
“With soil organic carbon being a key indicator of soil health, the findings of our study is alarming,” says Smukler. “We really need to see levels increasing.”
The study looked at land use change and agriculture production. Some management practices on farms that have been in continuous use since 1984 have been identified as possible reasons for the decline in soil organic carbon, such as intensive tillage which increases losses of carbon to the atmosphere and a lack of cover crop use which helps sequester the carbon back into the soil. The next step of the research will be looking to evaluate which specific methods are contributing to changes in soil organic carbon, and working with farmers to find solutions.
While resilience for the food system begins at the farm, a resilient farm is really a shared challenge. “Scientists need to work directly with farmers, consumers need to understand the situation that farmers are in, and policy makers need to understand what the science is saying and provide the resources to address it,” says Smukler.
Tagged with: 2020, Faculty, Soil Science
New Faculty Profile: Risa Sargent
New Faculty Profile: Risa Sargent
Risa Sargent joined the Faculty in July 2020 as an Associate Professor in the Applied Biology program. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa. She has a BSc from the University of Calgary, and a MSc from Simon Fraser University, where she studied the timing of pollen production and stigma receptivity as a mechanism to prevent selffertilization, particularly in fireweed.
She completed her PhD at UBC with the Biodiversity Research Centre, where her research took a macroevolutionary turn.
“I was interested in the role animal pollination could have played in driving specialization and diversification in flowering plants,” says Sargent. “The theory of animal pollination may help answer why there are so many flowering plant species in comparison to conifers.” She was also a postdoctoral research associate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she took a more community approach to understand why certain plant species can co-exist, and the role that pollination may have in it.
Sargent’s current research focuses on how ecological context impacts plant-pollinator dynamics.
“There are around 450 species of bees in B.C., and around 800 in Canada. They are found everywhere, in gardens, parks, agricultural areas, forests and natural areas,” says Sargent. A large percentage of the food we produce in agricultural areas is reliant on bees. Key crops that at least partly rely on wild bees for pollination include cherries, peaches, apples, blueberries, squash, tomatoes, and many more. Even in plants that we do not eat the fruit of the crop (e.g., carrots, lettuce, beets), bees are important if we want to save the seeds for future plantings.
Yet for such an important species, we have very little data about them. “About 90% of the bee species in B.C. are solitary, meaning they do not live in colonies or hives,” says Sargent. “A solitary female bee will raise her young in cavities dug into the ground or sometimes in wood or other plant debris, depending on the species. This makes it difficult to study them, but there is a general concern that they are at risk. One of their primary threats is the conversion of wild lands to agriculture and urban use, which is where my lab’s current research lies.”
Canada is a good place to study this, as wild areas are regularly urbanized by our growing cities. “We should be asking ourselves, could we design cities and the landscapes around cities to provide better habitat for bees? Actions such as banning urban pesticide use that harm both pests and beneficial insects, or planning strategies that would dedicate more to wild habitat, would be very beneficial to bees and other species, like birds and butterflies,” says Sargent. “Cities that harbour a high diversity of wild species also tend to be nicer to live in.”
That would be good news for city dwellers with backyard or balcony gardens, which also rely on bees for pollination.
Tagged with: Faculty
New Faculty Profile: Lindsay Cuff
New Faculty Profile: Lindsay Cuff
Lindsay Cuff is enjoying her return to Vancouver.
“It’s like a homecoming for me. I love the smell of the forest after it rains and the salty air fills me with joy.”
She joins UBC as an Assistant Professor of Teaching with a joint appointment in LFS and Forestry.
She lived in Vancouver from 2007-2009 while completing a UBC Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Since graduating from UBC, she’s had the chance to travel and work around the world. While her global experiences have been diverse, a common theme for Cuff is engaging with organizations that work towards social change and education.
One of these organizations is the New York City-based Karuna-Shechen, a non-profit that provides services to vulnerable populations in the Himalayan Region. These services include accessing health care, education and vocational training – programs to improve quality of life or livelihoods.
She worked as Karuna-Shechen’s Communications Director for two years and had the chance to travel abroad from her New York base to engage with program stakeholders.
“One program we ran actually trained grandmothers to be solar engineers!” says Cuff.
Karuna-Shechen worked with the community to select female volunteers who could be trained to become solar technicians at India’s Barefoot College or at their facilities in Kathmandu. The women would return to install and manage solar lighting systems in their villages. Access to light allowed children to study once the sun set, encouraged more social activities, and transformed life in villages.
Cuff lived in New York for six years, moving there with her husband, Yana Kehrlein, a documentary filmmaker who was attending graduate school at Columbia University. While in New York, Cuff also worked as a freelance writer and was a writer-inresidence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
After living in the U.S., Cuff returned to B.C. and lived in Kimberley. She worked as Communications and Philanthropy Manager for six years at Wildsight, a charity that provides environmental education and initiates sustainable community initiatives through lobbying and mobilizing people to take action.
She worked on the Jumbo Wild campaign, which aimed to protect grizzly bear habitat in B.C.’s Purcell Mountain Range (Jumbo Valley) from being developed into a ski resort. After more than 20 years of lobbying, the Ktunaxa Nation, with support from the provincial and federal governments, declared the Qat’muk Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in early 2020, protecting the 700-square kilometre area in Jumbo Valley from development.
Cuff comes to UBC from College of the Rockies where she taught Scholarly Writing, and Advanced Professional Communications, at its main Cranbrook campus.
“LFS is all about transforming learning into meaningful change in the world. This is fundamental for me – our classrooms are a microcosm of the world and have the power to affect change beyond what we can imagine.”
For fun, Cuff plays a 100-year-old banjo and loves being outdoors. In Kimberley, she skied and tried to visit every swimming hole she could find, and now that she’s back in Vancouver, Cuff is taking advantage of swimming in the ocean at Locarno and Jericho beaches.
New Faculty Profile: Thorsten Knipfer
New Faculty Profile: Thorsten Knipfer
Thorsten Knipfer joined the Faculty’s Applied Biology program in September 2020 as an Assistant Professor in Plant Physiology. Originally from Bavaria, Germany, Knipfer completed his MSc at the University of Bayreuth, where he studied the water relations of roots in corn plants. He then
received his PhD from University College Dublin in Ireland, where he continued his work using micro-manipulation techniques to study the link between cell and root water relations and aquaporin activity.
“I was trying to understand how water travels through roots at the cellular level, where transport resistance may occur, and how this impacts whole-plant water movement” says Knipfer. “With this knowledge, we become aware of the plant’s ability to regulate water flow dynamics and how it can adapt to different soil moisture conditions.”
Knipfer was also a postdoctoral research associate with the Department of Viticulture & Enology at the University of California, Davis, where he continued his work on water relations, this time in grape vines. “I was looking closely at the xylem, which is the tissue that transports water and nutrients from the soil to the canopy,” says Knipfer. “Drought being a reoccurring feature of California’s climate, we wanted to test the resistance of various varieties of grape vines and better understand their water requirements.”
For the first time, Knipfer was able to use x-ray computed tomography to witness the formation of gas embolism under drought stress and elucidate the underlying repair mechanisms in the intact plant – a similar methodology used in medicine to look internally at bones.
“This work was conducted at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron facility in Berkeley. We essentially brought our garden into the facility, and used the machine to take more than 1000 images on a 180-degree rotation. We then created a 3-D visualization of the tissue anatomy of the plant, so we could see the network of xylem that water is flowing through and detect the weak points where air is entering the system. This provided a good understanding of plant anatomy in relation to plant function.”
Knipfer is confident that farmers utilize this information to make management practices more sustainable through water savings. “If we want to use less water without sacrificing yield, we need to understand the physiological processes of what is happening inside of a plant, and exactly how much water the plant needs to maintain those processes. Only then can we avoid over- or under-watering.”
Here at UBC, Knipfer’s research portfolio will fill in key gaps in plant physiology, with bridges to soil-plant-atmosphere interactions and genomics.
He has already begun collaborating with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on a project to investigate the poplar genus-types, using the synchrotron at the Canadian Light Source. He has also been in touch with B.C. hazelnut growers, helping them to screen hazelnut varieties to identify drought-resistant types.
“This field continuously fascinates me, as we are able to obtain an advanced understanding of drought stress responses in plants at both the micro- and microscopy level using a combination of cutting-edge and traditional research tools.”
Sowing Seeds for Future Generations
Sowing Seeds for Future Generations
Left to right: Iva Jankovic, Christina and Alan Eastwood, Rose Cameron
To Alan and Christina Eastwood, sustainable living goes beyond tending their own organic land and food, to extending support to LFS students facing new hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Eastwoods created an endowment to UBC in 2015, establishing two LFS awards for third-year and graduate students who have significant interest in food systems. This year, in light of the pandemic, they’ve increased available award funds.
“We think there will be more students in difficulty,” Alan explains, “so, the more we can add to the current year’s budget in our endowment, the better.” He wonders whether students may be facing a few difficult years ahead, and adds, “If anything, we would like other people who’ve got endowments to think of that, too.”
The Eastwoods live in North Saanich on Vancouver Island. They moved up island from Victoria to a three-acre spread when they were close to retirement, and they thrived there for 27 years, tending 30 fruit trees and an acre and a half of fully organic garden space.
“We were always busy in the garden!” says Alan, “it was our main time use.”
They moved to a smaller place three years ago, but still enjoy hours in the garden each day.
“It definitely fills my life,” says Christina, “and it’s life-giving, I would say. It’s a big hobby, and I love the fact that it promotes things like bees and bugs and wasps; all the critters that we need so desperately.”
Organic farming is what attracted them to UBC. “We’ve been to the UBC Farm two or three times now,” said Christina. “It promotes what we see as a very healthy and sort of far-reaching Faculty — I mean in their way of thinking, in looking after the soil, the organic nature of the food, and the furtherance of pollinators and birds.”
Organic growing and living sustainably with a small carbon footprint are deep commitments for the Eastwoods. While hereveryday outlook is optimistic, Christina’s long-range outlook is less so.
“I keep hearing these statistics on how many birds are disappearing, and how bees are disappearing. It’s like leaving a scorched earth behind us. And mostly it came from our generation.” Both Christina and Alan see their endowment as a tiny atonement as Alan adds: “We felt that by leaving an endowment to the next generation, maybe they can fix what we broke.”
In their garden this season, they’re seeing more hungry young deer reaching through their fences, and finding oddly beautiful lace-like designs carved in kale and chard by birds. Spending time cultivating in their garden keeps them both active says Christina.
As for the future, Alan says, “We just hope that students will benefit from our endowment, and we hope they’ll continue their interest in food systems.”
Getting into the Weeds
Getting into the Weeds
Jennifer Grenz (BSc Agroecology ’04, PhD Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems ‘20) wants her students take a closer look at the uninvited weeds in their gardens.
“I’m encouraging students to embrace a different definition of a weed, because every plant’s worth depends on the observer’s values and context,” she says. “Instead, let’s see a weed as something that you don’t want in a specific place.”
Grenz is a Sessional Lecturer in the Faculty, teaching APBI 328: Weed Science in the winter term. She was also a teaching assistant in the course during her graduate program. With the course being offered entirely online for the first time, Grenz took the opportunity to introduce a number of new changes this year.
“Previously, the course was very theoretical and classroom-based, focused on the weeds themselves. I wanted the students to get in the weeds and look outward. Weed science is very interconnected, and I believe it needs to address soil, plants, and people.”
In the course, students learn basic weed biology, integrated pest management, the impacts of climate change, and weed identification skills. The most fundamental change Grenz has introduced is a shift to a discussion approach and problem-based learning. “Weed science is all about problem solving and our students need an opportunity to develop and practice this skillset.”
“Students are working together on a collaborative weed mapping project. They are surveying their neighbourhoods for weeds, uploading images, identifying species, and measuring infestation sizes and density. We are creating a detailed map of weed presence in British Columbia, as well as some other countries where our students currently reside. This data will be shared with BC’s Provincial Invasive Plant Program for weed tracking purposes.”
And the pandemic hasn’t put a hamper on connecting students with people in the industry, as Grenz has embraced the use of virtual learning in the course. “I’ve invited farmers and ranchers to join the class directly from their fields, where they’ll walk around with a tablet and show students the issues they face with various weeds.” The students then form groups to tackle the farmer’s problem, and present their solutions. “In this way, students are already building connections with the industry while using problem-based learning to make changes in the real world.”
Grenz is a proud Nlaka’pamux woman whose family comes from the Lytton First Nation. As an Indigenous scientist, she is introducing decolonizing concepts into weed science. “Most people are taught that there are good plants and bad plants, or native species and invasive species,” she says.
“Instead, I try open discussion into plant potential and management through plant relationships. Many species that are considered a burden may in fact have some unrealized benefits. As we face a changing climate, and see issues such as herbicide resistance on the rise, we need our next generation of weed scientists to embrace relational thinking and be open to exploring new approaches.”
Tagged with: 2020, Faculty, Indigenous
UBC Alum Harold Steves to Retire From Civic Politics
UBC Alum Harold Steves to Retire From Civic Politics
Photo provided by Harold Steves
At 83, Harold Steves (BSc Agriculture, 1963) will be retiring as Richmond’s longest-serving City Councillor. Using Twitter, Steves, who is known as ClimateChange Steves (@Harold_Steves), announced he would not seek re-election in 2022 after 50 years of service.
Even though he plans to step back from civic politics, he has more to accomplish; and agriculture and food are bred into his DNA.
As the man who founded B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve in the early 1970s, Steves stays connected to scientists around the world via Twitter. This allows him to stay current on his interests, which revolve around regenerative agriculture, the UN, and local and global food security policy.
“I stay motived because I know it can take decades to make changes,” says Steves. “Five percent of people can change the world; it can take a while.”
Passion projects in the works for Steves
Food security remains a top priority, especially as COVID-19 exposed vulnerabilities in our food production, processing and distribution systems. Steves will continue to work towards achieving 40% self-sufficiency in food production within Richmond. This involves moving two projects forward: collaborating with Kwantlen Polytechnic University to start the world’s first farm school in Richmond; and setting up a land bank, enabling young people to access land via leases where they can establish farms.
Steves also has two more years on the Metro Vancouver Regional District Board. He hopes to dust off a plan that is currently “sitting on a shelf” that calls for preserving 240 hectares of Colony Farm in Coquitlam as an agricultural- and nature-protected area, housing organic agriculture, berms and trees.
Also, Steves is developing new plant varieties. At his 103-year old home in Richmond, he developed a new yellow tomato, and is improving an early heirloom tomato, called Alpha, selected for its hardiness in colder, northern temperatures; he’s excited to see how the Alpha fares in northern Canada.
For the past 10 years, he’s worked on bringing back the purple Mikado tomato that is high in anti-oxidants. His ancestors grew the original Mikado back in 1888, but the plants had become crossed with other tomato breeds and lost their original leaves that resemble potato leaves.
He and his wife Kathy raise purebred Belted Galloway Cattle and cross them with Angus to produce grass-fed beef.
A family of agricultural pioneers
His great-uncle Herbert and grandfather Joseph Steves started a seed farm in 1888, becoming the first mail-order seed-sellers in Western Canada. They managed heritage seeds from 50-60 varieties of vegetables adapted to northern climates.
Steves’ other notable lineage goes back one more generation. His great-grandparents Manoah and Martha founded Steveston in 1877. Hailing from New Brunswick, they were the first to settle north of what’s now called Garry Point, and brought in B.C.’s first purebred Holstein cattle, which supplied milk to the City of Vancouver.
Steves learned the value of oral history from his family.
“My great aunt Ida told stories of my great grandfather who taught my grandfather and father down through the generations,” said Steves. “We are husbandmen of the land. What we take from it we must return to it. We must never destroy the land.”
His father studied Agriculture at UBC, as did two of Steves’ children. Three of his other children attended UBC, studying Astronomy, Engineering and Social Work.
Steves’ wife of 60 years, Kathy (who has a UBC degree in Physics), has played the role of both life partner and business partner.
“Kathy can pull up files from 30-40 years ago from a wall of filing cabinets that she keeps. It’s been the two of us together the whole time.”
Initiating B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR)
While a student at UBC, a classmate urged Steves to join the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, precursor to the New Democratic Party) as both were upset by land rezoning in Richmond, which had negatively impacted their families’ farms. Steves became involved in the CCF during 1960s.
Steves’ father ran a dairy but like many farmers, he was unaware Richmond Council rezoned their farmland for residential use in the late 1950s. When his father wanted to expand his dairy farm so that he could install a bulk tank, he was forbidden to do so. After further setbacks, Harold and his father went out of the milk business and switched to beef cattle.
The younger Steves set up an Agriculture Committee under the NDP made up of young farmers, and he met with farmers in Richmond, all the way east to Abbotsford. Using a land bank model from Saskatchewan, he started to write up an Agricultural Land Bank system for B.C.
He drafted the agriculture policy for the NDP in the 1972 election, establishing a land-use zoning for agricultural production, which would protect these designated areas from being subdivided for industrial and residential use. This policy eventually became what is known as the Agricultural Land Reserve in 1973 under an NDP government.
“Since it launched in 1973, the ALR has had one battle after another to keep it together,” quips Steves. “But it’s mostly stayed together.”
The ALR has protected B.C.’s agricultural land, and while its mandate and scope have been reviewed several times over the years, it has served as a model for ensuring food security for the province.
Steves says he’s been contacted by the United Nations Habitat for Humanity in the early days of the ALR rollout, as well as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. They were concerned that urban dwellers may not be able to feed themselves in the face of climate change and wanted to understand how B.C.’s ALR was set-up.
Community involvement
Steves has made an indelible mark in Richmond and in agricultural policy.
He was elected from 1969-1973 as a Richmond alderman, and then served continuously as a councillor since 1977, only taking a break from civic duties to serve as an NDP MLA from 1973-1977.
In addition, he’s chaired the Metro Vancouver Agriculture Committee and currently serves on its Regional District Board of Directors; he co-founded the Richmond Anti-Pollution Association in the 1960s; and he’s protected overfishing by helping to set fishing quotas as a director of the BC Groundfish Development Authority; and, he joined demonstrations to save UBC Farm from development.
“There are many ways to get your message across. One way involves joining protests, and the other way is showing people how to do things. I do both.”