Interviewee

Ellen Zimmerman

Wildsight Founder, and sponsor of the Ramsar designation of Columbia Wetlands as an "Internationally Significant Wetlands"

Interviewers

Alison M. Jones

NWNL Director and Photographer

Kalista Pruden

Wildsight Steward and NWNL Interviewee

Overlooking the Columbia Wetlands near Radium, BC Canada on August 13, 2008

Introductory Note

In planning an itinerary for our second NWNL expedition to Canada’s Upper Colombia River, many contacts insisted we meet with Ellen Zimmerman. They were right. 

Thanks to Ellen’s dedication, the Columbia Wetlands gained Ramsar status. “Ramsar Sites are designated because they meet the criteria for identifying Wetlands of International Importance. The first criterion refers to sites containing representative, rare or unique wetland types, and the other eight cover Sites of international importance for conserving biological diversity. These criteria emphasize the importance the Convention places on sustaining biodiversity.” 

As a Ramsar Site, the Columbia Wetlands – thanks to Ellen – “is recognized as being of significant value not only for the country or the countries in which they are located, but for humanity as a whole.” 1

[1 https://www.ramsar.org/about/our-mission/wetlands-international-importance

Out of hundres of well-informed watershed stewards we’ve met, Ellen stands out as a passionate, greatly awarded environmentalist. While leading NWNL expeditions, I often drew on Ellen’s example of deep dedication to keep me going. What a role model for so many!

Happily, Kalista Pruden, a student also with Wildsight, joined NWNL for this interview. 

Our NWNL interview with Kalista covers her training for and experiences in conservation. 

Photo of Ellen on bluff over the Columbia Wetlands

Outline

The COLUMBIA WETLANDS – A RAMSAR SITE
OUR INTACT WETLANDS are CRITICAL​
HYDROLOGY of COLUMBIA WETLANDS
The KTUNAXA FIRST NATION & SALMON​
COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS​
BEAVER
GROWING HUMAN IMPACTS on the WETLANDS​
TRANSPORTATION’S INTRUSION​
ATV’s, “SEA-DOO’s” and BIRDS ​
PARTNERSHIP POWER​
IMPORTANCE of BIODIVERSITY
CLIMATE CHANGE
CONSERVATION IMPACTS
ELLEN ZIMMERMAN’S BACKGROUND​
ELLEN as an AWARDEE
BEING AN ENVIRONMENTALIST​

Key Quotes  Our job as an environmental group is to keep building environmental consciousness, to keep informing the public about the many ways to recreate out there, ways that don’t impact wildlife, and ways they can have their cake and eat it too, if you will. — Ellen Zimmerman

First Nations lore says we don’t own the environment or its resources – rather, we must hold them in trust for future generations. But that’s not what modern humans tend to do. We just tend to look at the world and let future generations decide how to clean up our mess. It seems the First Nations here in the Columbia River Basin and across Canada, as well as Native Americans in the US, are the founders and today’s leaders of our environmental conservation movement. –Ellen Zimmerman

All images © Alison M. Jones, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

NWNL   Hello, Ellen, I am sorry we didn’t meet when I was here on expedition last year, but the advantage is I’m now primed with more informed questions for you! So, let’s start with your introducing yourself. 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  I guess I’m one of the “Grandmothers of Wildsight” – the environmental group in southeast British Columbia, of which I was a founding members when we were the East Kootenay Environmental Society. I’ve lived in the Columbia Valley since 1970; raised my two kids here; and live on 150 acres with my husband on a big organic garden with46 rosebushes. It’s not so easy to grow roses in this area! I’ve had a lot of different callings. 

I’ve been a community advocate: a quasi-legal role of helping people who live in poverty and lack their entitled benefits, whether welfare, Workers’ Compensation or employment insurance. After 11 years, I became a newspaper reporter. But I’ve been a full-time environmentalist for many years – I think, forever, or at least most of my adult life.

The COLUMBIA WETLANDS - A RAMSAR SITE

NWNL  Tell us about the Columbia Wetlands. its location, size, width, elevation change, and why it’s so large, and the depth of the main channel?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Well, the Columbia Wetlands is a unique phenomenon – in British Columbia and in the world, I think. It’s 180 kilometers of natural wetlands with enormous biodiversity. I’ve learned much about the Columbia Wetlands when we applied for Ramsar status, an international designation that connotes a world-class wetland. There are eight criteria for wetlands to be considered a Ramsar wetland, and1 0r 2 of those must apply for designation – the Columbia Wetlands fulfilled all eight! The reason for that is its biodiversity, and because it encompasses so many different ecosystems. It has fast-moving river channels and slow-moving side channels. It has fens, marshes, wetlands, grasslands and both treed and forested areas. 

That combination of ecosystems is bound within 180 kilometers. We refer to it as “The Wild Heart of the Columbia Valley. A major highway runs along one side of our Columbia Wetlands, so it is very accessible for all traveling that highway which is full of wonderful. For many years,  local residents probably looked at it as a mosquito-infested swamp, but I think that’s changed. And I think it’s partly due to the public education Wildsight has offered to inform people of the importance of sustaining wetlands. Today 60% percent of the world’s wetlands are gone forever. They are in-filled, drained or built over every day. Thus, our wetlands become even more unique, and more valuable.

Aerial view of channels in Columbia Wetlands just south of Golden

OUR INTACT WETLANDS are CRITICAL

One cause of the formation of these wetlands is that the Columbia River loses very little elevation from its flat source at Canal Flats to its first reservoir, north of Donald, BC. Thus the river in that northern end of the Columbia Wetlands meanders through these enormous wetlands that are so important for migratory birds, since they have lost much of the Pacific Flyway, which is no longer intact. 

Today, the Columbia Wetlands are about all that’s intact within the Pacific Flyway largely due to damming and infilling that’s taken place along the Columbia. These interior wetlands are well located in the Columbia Valley for the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds that pass through here. This is a critical area for them to rest and feed on their way north and on their way south in the fall.

NWNL  What about other biodiversity flora and fauna in the Columbia Wetlands, especially endemic or endangered species? 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  To start, the wetlands are critically important to the larger ungulates of the East Kootenays. About 90% of the deer and elk of the East Kootenay region of southern BC winter in these wetlands. So, it’s critically important that they can get to their food source through the snow. Thus, we prohibit motorized vehicles, such as snowmobiles, going out there in the winter because they compact the snow, making it more difficult for ungulates to get at their winter feed. 

The Wetlands are home to many furbearers, including mink and the beaver, that set up many fine ecosystems within the wetlands. River otters, wolves, and both grizzly and black bear are found in the wetlands. Grizzly bears are there especially in the fall when the landlocked salmon and the kokanee come through. We also have rare and endangered species, including the locally blue-listed great blue herons and the American bittern, which is becoming increasingly rare.  We also have the leopard frog. The Wetlands is full of many species that are very, very important, and very biodiverse – all of which are noted in our Ramsar application. Suffice it to say, the Columbia Wetlands is the most biodiverse region in southern British Columbia. That, in itself, is very important.

Wetland nutrients support this coot, migrating birds needing overnight shelter and food and many other species.

HYDROLOGY of COLUMBIA WETLANDS

NWNL  What are some of the Wetlands’ unusual hydrology aspects? I hear there are hot springs here. How does the source of the wetlands water impact the Wetlands?  Where does all this water come from?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Much of what feeds the Columbia Wetlands are the 40 or more many mountain streams that feed these wetlands. The Wetlands itself starts just around the village of Canal Flats where many springs come out of the ground there. They are the source of the Columbia River which flows through the Columbia Wetlands and the springs feed Columbia Lake. 

The wetlands themselves start just north of Columbia Lake, and are protected as a designated Wildlife Management Area, a kind of protected area under British Columbia law. So the Columbia Wetlands are protected under the Wildlife Act, which emphasizes wildlife. It’s one of the few places on the planet where the priority management emphasis is wildlife – where wildlife species come before us, where their needs and what’s good for them comes before what’s good for us, no matter what our recreational.  However there have been a variety of challenges to that.

The Canal Flats - source of Columbia River - with canoe

The KTUNAXA FIRST NATION & SALMON

NWNL  Tell us about the Ktunaxa First Nation – – originally called the Kootenai – and their dependence on and respect of the wilderness, the wetlands, and especially the salmon migrations. They and so many other First Nations in Canada and Native Americans in the US Northwest thrived on salmon that came up here to British Columbia from the mouth of the Columbia River at its Pacific Ocean terminus. 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  The First Nation’s people have a long history with the wetlands and indeed were very dependent on salmon. When the Pacific salmon stopped coming up the Columbia due to dam-building, it was an environmental disaster. The result was two-fold: people and animals could no longer depend on salmon for food; and it was environmentally damaging to lose the nutrients those salmon contributed to this ecosystem when they died after spawning. 

The first dam built on the Columbia caused those impacts. The Ktunaxa people are very protective of the wetlands. They honor them and consider them important. If they had their way and could make the laws in this country, and we would have no motorized vessels whatsoever out there. We would have only canoes in these wetlands! They would like to see only traditional uses for the Columbia Wetlands, which have always been an important area for them, and still is.

NWNL  Can you describe the specifics of that historic salmon cycle for those unaware of this species’ amazing journeys and their invaluable gifts to these headwaters’ ecosystems? 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  The salmon brought nutrients from the ocean, which had an ecological spinoff that we haven’t even begun to measure. This area provided the Ktunaxa with their critical food source, because very large salmon used to come from the Pacific up the Columbia. The Ktunaxa had caches of caught salmon in pits all the way along the Columbia Wetlands where they buried them to sustain them through winter months.  

Salmon annually swim up from the Pacific to spawn here in our upper reaches, tributaries and the Columbia Wetlands, where they were born. After spawning, they die. Their carcasses, holding nutrients from the Pacific Ocean, then feed their alevins and fry. These carcasses also float ashore, often carried further from the stream by bears who poop out those nutrients as fertilizer in their wanderings. Thus, salmon nurture a wide variety of river- and land-based animal life and plant life throughout the Upper Columbia Basin. 

But, when the first dam was built on the river, that all stopped. It ceased overnight, and nothing’s replaced that. Yes, we have the kokanee salmon, which are a much smaller landlocked salmon, They provide some food s for First Nations and for animals like bears and eagles and those kinds of things – but the kokanee do not contribute what the Pacific salmon did to the ecosystem. 

This is an aerial perspective of the many aspects of the Columbia River Dams, typical of the Rock Island Dam, completed in 1933.

COLUMBIA RIVER DAMS

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  I think the Columbia Wetlands is the only undammed portion of the Columbia River, the only naturally flowing portion of the Columbia River. That in itself is so significant when you think about the Columbia being one of the most dammed rivers. That’s what makes this 180 kilometers of naturally-flowing river and wetlands so very special.

NWNL  One of the things that fascinated me, as an Easterner, was that the rings of the trees are thicker on the years of heavy salmon runs. That was the kicker for me to understand, “Aha! salmon serve as fertilizer!

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Yes, Pacific salmon made their way to the headwaters of this river as very large fish, until the first dam on the Columbia. They provided fertilizer that provided ocean nutrients to all the plants that grew here. The wide rings on the trees were the good years, when their carcass nutrients would increase growth for any plant life. They also nurtured all other life in this upper part of the Basin – for regional people and animal life. It was a big loss on all levels when the dams appeared and those salmon stopped coming up the river. 

A spawned salmon's carcass, which can increase growth for plant life.

BEAVER

NWNL  You’ve spoken of the value of the wetlands as an essential winter range for the ungulates. Another thing I’d like you talk about is the role of the beaver. No Water No Life has documented Yellowstone ecosystem earlier this year and seen how important the beavers are there. Is the beaver helpful in establishing a wetland?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  This might be a little controversial, because there are mixed thoughts on beavers. Personally, I’m a fan of beavers, but their populations have grown in the last few years. For years, they were a species that was heavily trapped by First Nations and then white trappers as a very important source of fur. But that activity has declined over the years.

Certainly, beavers do have impacts. People will say, “Well, you know, they take down trees important for wildlife. Perhaps they take down trees such as large cottonwoods that are home to other species whose survival may be more challenged, like the great blue heron. But beavers have a very important role in the ecosystem. They provide habitat for all kinds of animals, because they’re able to dam some of the channels and make larger wetland areas that some species require. There are many species that benefit —specifically some of my favorite species of birds which build floating nests that require deep sloughs. Grebes, redneck grebes, eared and horned grebes, and pie-billed grebes all nest in the Columbia Wetlands by building floating nests, which are very susceptible to damage. If they can build their nests in the larger sloughs that beavers help construct, then they are more likely to successfully raise their young.

KALISTA PRUDEN  What about loons?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Loons don’t build floating nests, but they are a wilderness species that doesn’t do well with our intrusion. But they’re not yet an endangered species . 

A beaver's lodge in the wetlands, illustrating the ecosystem and the value of beavers in it.

GROWING HUMAN IMPACTS on the WETLANDS

NWNL  How do you assess the human impact on ecosystem degradation in the Columbia Wetlands?  And why has it not been drained and developed for agriculture like so many wetlands – both worldwide and nearby in British Columbia’s Creston Valley area at the southern end of Kootenay Lake?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  One thing that’s helped protect the Columbia Wetlands is our relatively awful climate! We’re considered to be Zone 3 here, which I sometimes think is quite optimistic. Thus, this area has never been a target area for agriculture, and that’s helped sustain the wetlands here in their natural form. 

There has not been much initiative from humans to drain these wetlands for farming purposes, due to the challenging climate. Similarly, we’ve had a low population density, probably because of the area’s wild nature and climate, which is not very conducive to settlement. 

One response I get from old-timers who have lived here their whole lives and use the wetlands and the Columbia River in a certain way, is “I’ve never done any harm. I’m always so careful when I’m out in the wetlands with a motorboat.  I drive very slowly.” Well, when there were just a few old timers using the river, the impacts were very, very small. 

But this has all changed, radically and very, very fast over the last few years. We’ve been discovered, especially by Calgary, whose population has now gone over a million. It’s a fast-growing and developing city with a lot of economic oomph from the northern Alberta oil sands. So that money and those people are funneling into this valley, and they have more of a recreational bent when it comes to the Columbia Wetlands. Those impacts are growing, developing and getting worse all the time. 

There have also been other impacts, like sawmills and other industries right down on the shores of the wetlands. But the flood plain of the Columbia itself takes care of that to some extent since it rises and falls with such extremes. When high water comes in the early summer from the beginning of June into mid-July, activities that take place along the banks of the wetlands are constrained by the natural rise of the water as it turns into one large lake. So I think that aspect has constrained development impacts to a minimum. Additionally, the population’s been relatively low until just very recently.

An industrial sawmill in the Columbia River Basin.

TRANSPORTATION'S INTRUSION

NWNL  In considering historic human impacts, what about the sternwheelers here prior to 1915? I understand the sternwheelers dredged the main channel, but then stopped coming when the railroad came in. Then, I’ve heard, the water table rose again as the wetlands restored themselves. However, since the railroad came in along the wetlands edge it often bisects parts of the Columbia Wetlands. Furthermore, the new highway running along the Wetlands causes runoff pollution.

Can you elaborate on the impacts of the sternwheelers, railroad and highway on the water quality of the Columbia Wetlands, its flow and its species?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Back in the early part of the 20th century, the sternwheelers were especially an important part of transporting logs up and down the river channel, so they dredged the main channel of the river, because otherwise the Upper Columbia does not lend itself to large vessels. There’s normally a lot of debris and aquatic vegetation in the river, and that needed to be managed for the sternwheelers. 

When the big boats stopped using the river for lumber transport, the railway was built and the river reestablished its natural channels and way of being. The railway is an interesting phenomenon. I ask, “Why worry about  the noise or the intrusion from a single motorboat when we have these trains going up and down the wetlands all the time?”

Interestingly, local wildlife acclimatizes to that kind of intrusion, to regular noise and to regular intrusion from mechanical aspects of a train, because it stays on the tracks, and they sense that it does. In contrast, a motorboat appearing from nowhere is a surprise and has much larger impacts than trains. Other issues with the railway include the treatment on the ties and their using pesticides on the railway’s path. Those river-side operations do impact the wetlands, and are not good – for sure. But we’ve done everything we can to keep impacts to a minimum and to help educate the railway about their impacts.

NWNL  I’ve seen the railroad and highway bisect the wetland and form side barriers on the wetlands. Is that a problem? 

Development in the wetlands can threaten their health and ecosystem.


ELLEN ZIMMERMAN 
Highway 95, which parallels the wetlands, runs north to south as both the wetlands and the river do. I don’t know what kind of impact that has, to tell you the truth. There are very few roads that cross the wetlands, and only a few river crossings throughout the whole length of it. The highway is fairly well isolated from the wetlands. So, I’m not sure that roads have a major impact. The railway, of course, is more problematic; but it also runs on a north/south course, mostly parallel to the  eastern boundary of the Columbia Wetlands. So that keeps it isolated.

You know, you can be out in the wetlands in your canoe and feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. You can feel like you’re in the Florida Everglades, or someplace very, very remote. You hardly hear the highway; and in some places, not at all. There are aspects of the wetlands that remain so natural and wild that even a major highway and railway have very minimal impacts.

NWNL  Just a question. What is the seasonal rise and fall of the Columbia here? For instance, NWNL also studies the Omo River in Ethiopia which annually drops 40-60 feet. I doubt this waterway comes close to that!

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  You know, I don’t know; but the Ramsar allocation would have that information. It is such a technical document that took over a year to compile, and was then peer reviewed by everybody and their dog – all the scientists who would have any input for it.

ATV's, "SEA-DOO's" and BIRDS

NWNL  So now let’s talk about ATV’s and those jet skis, or “sea-doo’s as Pat Field calls them.”  What degradation is caused by their noise, the disruption of calm and their pollution?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  For over 10 years, Wildsight has intently focused on the impacts of motorized conveyances in the Columbia Wetland ecosystem on land and water. There’s a great deal of controversy over it. When the wetlands were designated as a Wildlife Management Area under BC law, it gave its managers a legal tool in the Wildlife Act to use the regulation that one cannot enter Columbia Wetlands with any form of conveyance of 10 horsepower or more. They chose that size engine because there was traditional use by trappers, hunters and others who used small motors on the river respectfully. 

Bringing in the 10 hp rule in 1997 eliminated ATVs and snowmobiles, due their 10 hp motors. But the rule allowed some traditional usage by other vessels. Most larger motorboats are constrained by the river’s heavy aquatic vegetation and many shallow places. That fortunately forces drivers in larger vessels to operate very, very carefully and slowly to avoid collisions with wildlife. There are also jet boats –  large riverboats with engines that operate in very minimal water levels. Jet boats use a different technology that allows them to operate in very shallow water and avoid making large wakes that would impact wildlife.  So, in 2002, they struck down that part of the regulation that applied to vessels. But the rule still exists saying land-based conveyances – snowmobile, ATV, truck or any other kind of land vehicle – cannot go into the Columbia Wetlands. 

A sign showing one way of protecting wildlife and wetlands.


For the last many, many years, our focus regarding our Columbia Wetlands outreach has been educating the public and our affiliate, the International Living Lakes Network. We’re now in a 60-day consultation period over a federal boating regulation, due August 27, 2008. We hope for a regulation by the year’s end, saying no motorboats ever allowed in the in the Columbia Wetlands. The main channel of the Columbia is off limits to any towing activity—so no wakeboarding or waterskiing or any kind of towing. The main channel of the Columbia will be closed to motorized boating until July 15
th, and only then be open to motorized boating.

That’s where compromise and controversy comes in. From a strictly biological point of view, a study Environment Canada did in the Columbia Wetlands concluded that the great percentage of spawning and breeding activity, bird-breeding activity, is completed by July 15th, and then the young are fledged and out of the nest, with their vulnerability to motorboating impacts much less. 

Now we could argue this forever, because there’s so little that we know about so many of these species. We just learned this summer that blue herons nest in very low shrubbery; and when their first attempt at nesting fails, they attempt again. This year on July 15th, very young herons were still in the nest, and probably didn’t fledge from the shrubbery until mid-August. They were still very susceptible to motorized boating.

But even when this regulation is law, we’ll still have to educate the public about boating impacts on this ecosystem. While boaters can legally be in the wetlands after July 15th, it’s still crucial for them to respect and recognize all they share with wildlife and especially birds in this ecosystem. 

PARTNERSHIP POWER

Columbia Wetlands Stewardship Partners, formed 2 years ago, is a group Wildsight is very involved with. We were a founding member of this group, representing 35 regional stakeholders at all levels – from municipal and First Nations; federal and provincial governments; and environmental and recreational groups interested in the wetlands. That included groups like: Wildsight, Friends of the Columbia Wetlands, Columbia Valley Greenways, hunting groups, BC Wildlife Federation, the Lake Windermere Rod and Gun Club, the Golden Rod and Gun Club, and other interested groups such as forest companies. It’s a wide-ranging stakeholder group that has acted as a consulting group for this proposed regulation.

Originally, we suggested to the federal government the need to encompass and benefit all stakeholders. The hunting community required a 20-hp motor for safely during hunting season transport, especially at the northern end of the Columbia River and Wetland. The northern flow of the river is much stronger, due to larger tributaries entering the river there. To compensate, a 20-hp motor was required; so we suggested on July 15th the ban on motorized vessels in the main channel continue as a 20-hp limit.  But the federal government regulation simply allowed any size vessel after July 15th – with a proviso they’d monitor and record impacts and the number of vessels out there, so we could strengthen this regulation in the future, if necessary. 

We are now seeing large, motorized vessels out there during the high April-June breeding season in the wetland portions. We fear those impacts, especially on the species that build floating nests. The smallest wake from a motorized vessel can swamp those nests, and I have photographs documenting floating eggs that will never hatch. That substantiates our request to at least protect the wetland portion during the key breeding season and spawning season.

NWNL  What about the fall migration?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Fall migration is another issue. While science says we should limit the vessels on the main channel in the fall, the federal government says it will sustain a certain level of impact in order to compromise. That’s what governments do – they compromise. We hope any impacts on fall migratory birds will be small, since most will be in the wetlands’ deep sloughs that are still full of water then. There are very few migrating birds that use the main channel.

We work with what science says is justifiable and defensible since it’s what the federal government insists upon, so it wasn’t an aspect of I’m out there in a canoe, and I don’t want to any motorized vessels. But I don’t think they belong in the Columbia Wetlands! I also think people in jet skis and jet boats miss out on many aspects of being there. They can’t hear the birds or encounter other wildlife. They miss the peaceful serenity of the Columbia Wetlands which is very unfortunate.

Our job as an environmental group is to keep building environmental consciousness, to keep informing the public about the many ways to recreate out there, ways that don’t impact wildlife, and ways they can have their cake and eat it too, if you will.

An isolated marina in the Columbia River Basin.

IMPORTANCE of BIODIVERSITY

NWNL  Can you share more on your value of the importance and presence of biodiversity?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  One aspects of the Columbia Wetlands I like to talk about is that here wildlife comes first. Usually, human impacts take precedence over almost everything. It amazes me that despite elevated consciousness worldwide of our impacts on the environment and the consequences, environmental groups haven’t been very responsible. The planet has brought our attention to our changing climate due to the very many mistakes we’ve made and the very selfish way we’ve treated our ecosystems. 

Here we have 180 kilometers – about 28,000 hectares – of wildland. “Wildlife First” is the priority here, and recreational needs are second to that. The more we sustain biodiversity on the planet, the more likely we will survive as a species and sustain our planet. Every time we lose species – we lose potential for our own survival. It’s a loss  we can never actually gauge, because we’ll never know what those species could have given us in the future. By sustaining biodiversity, we keep our options open. 

NWNL  What are specific species are important to us as human species? In our last newsletter I highlighted the importance of the wolf;  its role as predator in a “Trophic Cascade;” and how the wolf affects hydrology. 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Did you read a book called Mount Analogue years ago? By a French writer, it’s about about somebody who kills a rat that lived under a mountain and was keeping a little creek from flowing in a certain way. When they killed the rat, it brought down the entire mountain. It was a very popular book in the ‘60s, due to that aspect of how the smallest impact from a tiny animal – or anything on the environment – can have far-reaching consequences. 

First Nations lore says we don’t own the environment or its resources – rather, we must hold them in trust for future generations. But that’s not what modern humans tend to do. We just tend to look at the world and let future generations decide how to clean up our mess. It seems the First Nations here in the Columbia River Basin and across Canada, as well as Native Americans in the US, are the founders and today’s leaders of our environmental conservation movement.

NWNL  That’s beautiful. First Nations here and Native Americans in the US graciously accept that every decision made should consider the impacts 7 generations forward. If only all of us could be guided by that principal.

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  If we did that and held the world in trust for future generations, it would change our attitude and whole approach. Right now, all we do is freely use all the resources as fast as we can use them. We’ve done that all through the past century; but now we know, per our scientists, we can’t do it anymore. Yet not much has changed in decision-making. It’s still business and economy first – and that’s a very shortsighted approach.

NWNL  How can this message get to those decision-makers? 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  I think the planet will carry the message. I like to say that Mother Earth is the one speaking out now with the recent bizarre and dramatic climactic events— hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, earthquakes and melting polar ice.

KALISTA PRUDEN  And tsunamis!

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Those impacts are dramatic. The planet’s taken over message deliveries, which we can ignore no longer. I hope there’ll be change. but we environmentalists tend to be cynical and haven’t seen it yet. We’re just waiting, hoping that decision-makers will turn around and say, stop right now. Stop the music! We must change our ways – now. 

We need to reduce our energy consumption now! And I don’t mean just you and me. I mean all big corporate entities as well.  That’s why we’re not seeing the impact. At home, we’re all recycling, cutting down, and  using efficient light bulbs; and I don’t minimize those impacts. But we need the corporate and government entities doing it as well.

Columbia Ice Fields markers show dramatic climate change impacts on glacial recession.

CLIMATE CHANGE

NWNL  Back to the planet speaking to us, let’s talk about how climate change is affecting these wetlands. Glacial recession means less water in the future. Is glacial recession having an effect here now, and then certainly reduced winter snowpack is, because you’ve got rain when you used to have snow, and you have earlier freshets in the spring, so it’s drier now at the  end of the summer.

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  From my observations, the change in the climate has been dramatic/ I’m not a scientist, but I have lived here for 38 years and remember withers with -40 temperatures when we first lived here. We would have really cold winters with deep snowpacks, and we would have hot summers. We would have full springs and falls. But in the last few years we haven’t been seeing that. We’ve had winters with much milder temperatures, less snow and more rain; plus cool springs and mixed summers. Recent summers can now be very, very, very dry. These climate changes will eventually impact the Columbia Wetlands. As our winters get milder, we have less snowpack, so less water is delivered to the wetlands bit by bit.

We will have more flash floods. We will have large rain events, and we have much more pressure from development on what water we do have, so as the summers get hotter and drier, well, I mean, you know what people predict, and you only have to look around to see all the dead trees to know the impact of the mountain pine beetle on this region. So we’re looking at how that’s going to impact hydrology, how that will impact the wetlands. Are we going to have devastating forest fires in the future as our summers get drier and drier? All these things will have impacts on the Columbia Wetlands, and, at the same time, we have a lot more pressure on the water table. So we have more golf courses and more condominiums and more development in the centers, like in Invermere, Radium and Golden, and those things all have impacts on what ends up in the Columbia Wetlands.

One thing that makes wetlands so precious for the environment is they act like big sponges, so they’re able to sustain and hold water. They’re able to moderate floods and moderate droughts in the same way, and so the contribution to the health of the region’s ecosystem in the future from the Columbia Wetlands will become even more dramatic and more important, more critical.

NWNL  The Moyie River must be part of the Kootenai watershed.

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Yeah.

NWNL  But driving up here, I noticed at the northern end of Moyie Lake, the river is totally dry. I drove in. There’s a little development area. I thought maybe I could photograph the lake, and I crossed the river and a huge riverbed, and it’s totally dry. The Columbia Basin Trust had a climate change in Canada’s Columbia Basin called Starting the Dialogue.

And it said, a survey of stream flies [ph] at the end of the hot dry summer in 2003 found the Moyie and Spokane [ph] Rivers at their lowest flows in many decades. Now is that river usually perennial [ph] or is it ephemeral?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  I don’t know about the Moyie. Do you know, Kalista?

KALISTA PRUDEN  A couple weeks ago we were doing fieldwork on Moyie Lake. I can’t imagine that it would be an ephemeral river.

NWNL  It doesn’t look like it.

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  It’s gotten much drier down there. See, those climate changes have been more dramatic, I think, as you move north. Like the drier areas have become more dry, you know, maybe up in the Golden area, because it’s much wetter.

Fast-running streams in the spring, called freshets.

CONSERVATION IMPACTS

NWNL  So our solution lies in conservation achievements, such as getting the WMA designation, and then your getting the Ramsar designation for Columbia Wetlands, Ellen. You also mentioned International Living Lakes,. These groups create a positive momentum.  So let’s look at solutions and the change that is possible and motivational. How can excite folks and lead them to want to make a difference?  What solutions have worked – and why?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Wildsight has championed over the last few years a strategic role in further protection for the Columbia Wetlands. In 2000, these wetlands were recognized and chosen as the “Living Lake” for Canada, within the International Living Lakes network. This gave us a world stage to show the importance of the Columbia Wetlands to British Columbia, Canada and the entire world. We hosted an international conference here in 2004 with 200 delegates from all over the world. 

The conference attendees gave us a different perspective on our beautiful untouched wild areas which we tend to take for granted here in Canada. Visiting attendees asked us, “Do you know our country is spending to restore billions of dollars a tiny little wetland? Yet here you have this vast wetland. What are you doing to protect it?” Such discussions are inspirational, not just for us, but for our decision-makers and governments. Achieving Ramsar status for the Columbia Wetlands made the federal government of Canada take note and sit up and take note of what was here and what was valued and what the rest of the world considered to be of such critical importance. So those things all sort of added on to the original wildlife management designation, and I think it’s helped us to achieve this boating regulation. That will set precedent for other wetlands, in Canada at least – and perhaps across the world. They can use us as a model to say, we must regulate more than just pollution, we must also regulate recreation to protect our wetlands.

Signage posted ahead of Columbia Lake and its stunning landscape.

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN'S BACKGROUND

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  I grew up in a big, dirty industrial city in the eastern U.S. –  a completely urban background. I fancied myself a completely urban person until I moved to California and had an epiphany on the beach at Big Sur in 1968. Ever since I’ve had a love affair with the outdoors. Moving to Canada’s Columbia Valley in 1970 just made the outdoors a more vital part of who I am.  I became a birdwatcher, which got me into the Columbia Wetlands, where the birdwatching is unparalleled, especially during spring and fall migrations. 

Understanding how important it is to just be outdoors is what birdwatching is. It’s just an excuse.

I think hunters sometimes find hunting is just an excuse to be one with the natural world. I think it’s a primeval part of us. Many of us never get that opportunity, and so I’m grateful for it.

NWNL  When did you first appreciate a bird and start birdwatching? 

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Birdwatching is wonderful, and you can do it anywhere. In fact, there’s wonderful birdwatching in many urban settings. I started when I came out to the Columbia Wetlands. I packed a pair of binoculars and was exposed to so many species of migratory birds coming through in spring. I learned their names, how to identify them and their songs. All those things became layers in my appreciating the outdoors – especially the wetlands. I learned as I gained a scientific point of view regarding the region’s biodiversity.

NWNL  A favorite bird?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  I love red-tailed hawk – they’re an icon of the west. As they soar up on thermals, they make that sound we associate with our western movies. Regarding smaller birds, I like red-breasted nuthatches – a lovely little species that eats insects by the gallons, which is important for the ecosystem. I think they eat pine beetles too.

KALISTA PRUDEN  And they’re here all year ‘round too.

ELLEN as an AWARDEE

KALISTA PRUDEN  Ellen, I am just shocked that in your biography you didn’t mention being recipient of the Earth Mother’s Award.

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Yes. In 2006, it was a great honor to be the first Canadian woman to win Canada’s “Terre de Femmes Award,” an environmental acknowledgement from the Yves Roches Foundation. I was taken to Paris and met women who work in the environment from all over the world. Some of the situations they’ve had to work in made me appreciate my North American experience.

Another of my achievements is the protection of The Cummins, a 25,000-hectare interior rain forest valley. It’s a very remote drainage about 140 kilometers north of Golden, and part of the Columbia Watershed, because it flows into Mica Dam’s Kinbasket Lake.  It’s now a Provincial Park, with no development and no infrastructure. Getting there is very challenging, but hearty souls who are prepared can access this place where wildlife is valued more than anything else. 

Its protection was one of those things they said could never be done. Logging plans were in place and ribbons were on the trees. 

People said, “You’re never get The Cummins protected;” but we did. It made me incorrigible. But I did it with our community and great help from the government. It was a huge achievement. Now that valley is still an intact ecosystem of old growth forests, thousands of years old. This is unique for the interior of the province. It’s home to moose, grizzly bears and mountain caribou, since it has all kinds of arboreal lichens on its old trees. So, it was a big achievement; and certainly helped me feel “Never say never.” 

There’s always hope, so we continue to work for the environment in all kinds of situations.

Resort water access 50 feet lower than promised by BC Hydro when Mica Dam was built.

BEING AN ENVIRONMENTALIST

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  One thing about being an environmentalist:  stubbornness and tenacity are critically  important. Being there for the long haul leads to success, as does stubbornness in sticking with your goal and not being thwarted no matter what.

NWNL  And what about the camaraderie of working with each other?

ELLEN ZIMMERMAN  Yes, partnerships are critical. I think of Wildsight’s relationship with First Nations – a very beneficial relationship as is our relationship with other community groups and municipalities. For instance, the Town of Invermere adores the Lake Windermere Project with good reason. We have worked closely and very well with all the communities of East Kootenay and other wildlife groups, including hunting and rod-and-gun clubs.

We each have a shared goal of wanting to maintain habitat for wildlife, so we come together in any way we can. Wildsight has always been good at that. Part of success for environmentalists is living in the region, being part of the region, and caring about the same things that your neighbors care about.

NWNL  Ellen, thank you for sharing your passion, your scientific knowledge and your valuable learned lessons. 

Posted by NWNL on October 04, 2024.
Transcription edited and condensed for clarity by Alison M. Jones.

All images © Alison M. Jones, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.