By Cheryl Jahn

Biodiversity celebrated on Earth Day

Apr 22, 2025 | 2:48 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It was a small but dedicated crowd who braved the less-than-spring-like conditions to celebrate Earth Day, which has been around since the early 70’s. And a lot has changed.

“Globally, we have bigger problems since the early seventies. Pollutions and worse habitat disruptions where biodiversity is down. And of course, we got the big one, which is climate change,” explains Michelle Connelly with Conservation North.

The theme to this year’s event, hosted by Conservation North, is biodiversity, something this region has a lot of.

Weather Alerts

Freezing rain warning issued for Prince George-area, snowfall warning remains for Williston, Pine Pass

2h ago

Spruce Kings 4 Express 3

Lougheed's buzzer-beater lifts Spruce Kings to fifth consecutive win

2h ago

Cougars 5 Blazers 4 SO

WHL debutant Lewis backstops Cougars to shootout win over Blazers

4h ago

“A few years ago we hired a botanist to do some plant surveys in the Robson Valley and he discovered new species and found that our region is actually on par with places like the Mediterranean for biodiversity. People always associate the tropics with having lots of biodiversity. In fact, we have tons of biodiversity here, plants and lichens in particular,” says Connelly.

“Earth Day is a day to bring people together to talk about the successes, but also especially to talk about the obstacles and the difficulties that people are facing in terms of the environmental issues of forests, mines, lands and water and what we can do about it,” says Peter Ewart with Stand up for the North.

Participants held signs with messages about biodiversity and habitat. And Conservation North has a message for the Province.

“The BC government, about three or four years ago, committed to flipping the paradigm around land management from timber to biodiversity and ecosystem health. And the reason we have that banner that says that on it is that they haven’t really acted on it in a serious way. So part of our purpose today is to try and encourage the B.C. government to actually live up to their previous promises to protect biodiversity and ecosystem health.”

Connelly says biodiversity means the totality of an ecosystem and it varies from place to place.