BOWEN ISLAND CONSERVANCY — NEW WEBSITE

ABOUT — Our Story — Page Draft | Phase One — Build | June 2026

Narrative history. Human and community-rooted, not institutional. Ending rebuilt to close with human voice rather than strategic plan summary. 'Where we are now' paragraph moved to close; final lines connect 1996 to the present reader directly.

HERO IMAGE

Suggested: archival photograph of an early Conservancy meeting or work party, OR a wide landscape of the Cape Lands — the largest acquisition in the Conservancy's history, which could not have been imagined in 1996.

Thirty years of protecting what matters most on Bowen Island.

HOW IT BEGAN

1996 — A community decides to act.

The Bowen Island Conservancy began with a Sunday morning meeting. In February 1996, twenty-two Bowen Islanders gathered to hear writer and conservationist Des Kennedy speak about the conservancy movement and how it might take root on Bowen. By the time they left, they had formed a steering committee.

Through the spring of 1996, that steering committee consulted Gulf Island conservancies — including the newly formed Gambier Island Conservancy and the Denman Conservancy Association — and studied how the conservancy movement worked in BC. They identified what a Bowen Island organization would need to do: work formally with provincial and federal conservation bodies, educate residents about the value of protection, and prioritize areas for conservation across the island. They saw the need for an organization that could accept conservation covenants and ecological gifts — legal tools that could protect land without requiring it to be purchased.

With a draft Constitution in hand and a founding Board identified, the Bowen Island Conservancy was registered as a BC Society and introduced to the public.

GROWING THE WORK

Conservation covenants, nature reserves, and community science.

Through the late 1990s and 2000s, the Conservancy built its conservation toolkit — working with landowners on covenants, taking on stewardship responsibility for Islands Trust Conservancy nature reserves on Bowen, and deepening its research into the island's ecology.

Fairy Fen Nature Reserve

Thompson Road — 18 hectares

One of the most undisturbed and biologically diverse fens in southern BC, identified as a priority by the community in the Islands Trust Conservancy's Free Crown Grant program. Ownership was transferred to the Islands Trust Conservancy; the Bowen Island Conservancy manages it locally. Soil core sampling in 2011 confirmed peat deposits over 4,000 years old.

→ About Fairy Fen

Singing Woods Nature Reserve

Cates Hill Road / Berry Road

A forest and wetland corridor protecting critical bird and mammal habitat near Snug Cove — established when a residential developer agreed to permanent protection. Dry Maritime Coastal Western Hemlock forest and a large wetland-stream corridor. Owned by the Islands Trust Conservancy; managed locally by the Bowen Island Conservancy.

→ About Singing Woods

A MAJOR MILESTONE

2020 — The Wild Coast Nature Refuge.

In December 2020, the Conservancy completed the acquisition of 32 acres of rare coastal bluff, old-growth adjacent forest, and marine wildlife habitat at Cape Roger Curtis — permanently protected through a community fundraising campaign and placed under covenant in perpetuity.

The Wild Coast Nature Refuge became the Conservancy's flagship protected place: a site where whales pass offshore, where lichen-encrusted coastal bluffs have never been cleared, where Garry oak and arbutus cling to south-facing rock above the sea, and where the living connection between land and ocean is immediate and tangible. The western Sanctuary was closed to all visitor access — a statement about what the most sensitive habitat needs.

→ Learn About the Wild Coast Nature Refuge

THE CAPE LANDS

2024 — The largest acquisition in Conservancy history.

In October 2024, the Conservancy purchased 160 acres of formerly planned residential land at Cape Roger Curtis from Metro Vancouver. The Cape Lands acquisition is the most significant conservation outcome in Bowen Island's history — protecting forest, wetland, Huszar Creek headwaters, and coastal habitat at a scale that would have been impossible to imagine in 1996.

The acquisition was made possible by donor support and marks the beginning of a long-term ecological assessment and restoration process that will unfold over decades. Together with the Wild Coast Nature Refuge, the Cape Lands now form a protected corridor at the southwestern tip of Bowen Island that is without precedent in the island's modern history.

→ Learn About the Cape Lands

BUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE BASE

2026 — The Nex̱wlélex̱wm / Bowen Island Biodiversity Plan.

In April 2026, the Conservancy released the first island-wide biodiversity plan for Nex̱wlélex̱wm / Bowen Island — developed in collaboration with researchers from Simon Fraser University over eighteen months. The Biodiversity Plan maps Bowen's ecological systems, identifies conservation priorities, and provides the scientific foundation for land protection decisions going forward.

One of the plan's most important findings: many of the island's highest-value habitats sit outside existing protected areas — on private lots, road edges, and community spaces. Conservation, the plan makes clear, is a whole-island responsibility.

→ Read the Biodiversity Plan

WHERE WE ARE NOW

The work continues.

In June 2026, the Conservancy approved a five-year Strategic Plan covering 2026 to 2031, organized around four goals: protecting and stewarding priority ecosystems; building a technical foundation for adaptive management; fostering island-wide shared care for nature; and strengthening organizational capacity.

The Conservancy that exists today looks very different from the steering committee of 1996 — and the conservation challenges it faces are larger and more urgent. But the essential thing has not changed: it is still a community organization, still volunteer-led, still funded by people who care enough about Bowen Island to give something of themselves to its long-term future.

If those twenty-two people who met on a Sunday morning in February 1996 could stand at the edge of the Cape Lands today — 160 acres of protected forest dropping toward the sea — they would recognize exactly what they started.

→ Read Our Strategic Direction

Support land protection on Bowen Island

The Conservancy is a registered Canadian charity. Your donation helps protect and steward ecologically important lands on Nex̱wlélex̱wm / Bowen Island for future generations.

[ Donate ] [ Become a Member ]