The Wilderness Committee Board of Directors is excited to announce the promotion of Beth Clarke, our former Co-Executive Director and Development and Program Director to the position of sole Executive Director.

Beth has spent the last nine years with the Wilderness Committee as an Executive Team member, leading organizational strategic direction and planning, managing fund development, human and financial resources, collaborating on campaigns, communications and operations, and supporting board governance. She has led non-profits, community initiatives and international programs for nearly 30 years. Her experience and her academic background in organizational and international development now stand with the environmental movement.
 

Co-Executive Director Joe Foy will retire from his executive leadership position with the Wilderness Committee on October 31, 2019, at which time Beth will take the helm as sole Executive Director. Joe was the organization’s first staff member back in 1988 and has worked tirelessly for the past 30 years to advance wilderness preservation campaigns to protect the Stein Valley, the Carmanah-Walbran, Pinecone Burke, Clayoquot Sound and the Elaho Valley, advocate for new parks and protected areas, and fight for the protection of old-growth forests and the species depending on them like the endangered northern spotted owl. 

Joe’s retirement doesn’t mean B.C.’s wilderness is losing an advocate. He will stay on at the Wilderness Committee part-time as our Protected Areas Campaigner — a title and position that allow him to continue to bring his passion and expertise to defending the wild places remaining in the province like the “Donut Hole,” an unprotected wilderness area surrounded by Manning and Skagit provincial parks.
 

The Wilderness Committee is also pleased to announce the promotion of Vancouver Island Campaigner Torrance Coste to the position of National Campaign Director, as of July 1, 2019. Torrance will lead the national campaign team and serve as a spokesperson for the organization on its critical environmental campaign work. Torrance has spent the last seven years leading the organization’s forestry work on Vancouver Island, fighting to end old-growth logging, ban raw log exports and promote a sustainable forestry industry that recognizes Indigenous rights and title and mitigates the increasing severity of climate change.

The Wilderness Committee Board of Directors looks forward to working with the entire staff team as we move into this next phase and further our leading grassroots advocacy work to preserve biodiversity, stand up for parks and public resources, and strive for a healthier climate.