Prestigious honor bestowed upon Manchester
June 11th 2003
By Judie Steeves, staff reporter
Photo Gordon Bazzana
Longtime environmental advocate Lloyd Manchester has been
presented the prestigious B.C. Wild Earth Award.
A provincial award from fellow environmentalists was presented to
Kelowna’s Lloyd Manchester, senior policy advisor for the
Canadian EarthCare Society.
The B.C. Wild Earth Award was presented to the EarthCare founder
at the B.C. Environmental Network’s annual general meeting
in Vancouver last Saturday evening.
EarthCare executive director Charlie Hodge said the award is considered
the most prestigious recognition in the province by conservationists
and environmentalists.
It’s ironic, he noted, that people who excel in their fields
are rarely recognized in their hometowns.
Manchester said he was completely taken by surprise by the award,
but he conceded, “It feels pretty good to have your colleagues
applaud your work.”
EarthCare evolved in 1985 from the Committee Opposed to Malathion
Application, which was formed to fight the regional district’s
spraying program in 1981.
In a court case that resulted, those opposed to the sprays won,
and ultimately the regional district stopped using malathion for
mosquitoes and began using the biological control, Bacillus thuringiensis
israelensis (Bti), instead. That has continued to this day, he says
with satisfaction.
Over the years, Manchester recalls that Kelowna held the first
Household Hazardous Waste Day in B.C. and was second to implement
a storm drain marking program, then won on appeal against the Ministry
of Forests to stop the spraying of Round-up in the Belgo watershed
“We tackle any environment issue. We’re not a single-issue
group,” Manchester says proudly.
The society’s current campaign is to convince the City of
Kelowna to implement a pesticide registry for people to sign on
to be notified prior to pesticide spraying adjacent to their homes
or businesses.
That idea was embraced whole-heartedly by others at the convention,
and the BCEN resolved to focus on creating such a registry all around
the province in the coming year, noted Hodge.
He said Manchester has never quit despite the many frustrations
over the years.
“Your family pays the price. We’ve even received all
kinds of death threats over the years,” Hodge said.
As well, he said you lose a lot of money when you’re committed
to something like this.
In making the award presentation to Manchester, Spaces for Nature
founder Ric Careless said this about the Kelowna environmentalists:
“This amazing person has always been there for the environment,
doing whatever he could to make this a better place, a better protected
province and country.
“He is a hero to me. Lloyd has been in the trenches more
times than most of us and not just on one or two issues, but a broad
spectrum of needs.
“And it has not been easy. When so many finally got tired
of trying, Lloyd never wavered.”
In reading out a lengthy list of Manchester’s accomplishments
at the award banquet, Careless said: “It is damn hard to be
an environmentalist in this province, but in some spots such as
the Okanagan where the struggles are many and the victories few,
it takes a special kind of person to persevere.”
Manchester has argued numerous environmental appeal hearings, and
conducted provincial campaigns on clean air, pesticides, forestry,
park preservation and water quality.
He was one of the first land use negotiators for the conservation
sector on Vancouver Island and has continued to assist and negotiate
many other land use processes since the early 1990s.
He’s been instrumental in the creation and support of campaigns
that created several hundred parks throughout this province.
Manchester has also conducted a campaign to create the Cascades
International Park between Canada and the United States.
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