Despite political campaigns, direct action, annual calendars, and a fair heap of public support over 26 years, Paul George says the history of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee “has not really ever been written” .

One three-year hiatus later and committee cofounder George has changed that. Close to 500 pages, and with more than 560 illustrations, the B.C.–made and –printed Big Trees Not Big Stumps (self-published, $39.95) tells 25 years' worth of campaigning to save the wilderness of B.C.

At 65, George, a gentle giant of both compassion and dogged determination””is of official retirement age. WCWC, however, is still hard at work.

“The wilderness committee is just approaching middle age,”  George tells the Georgia Straight from his Gibsons home. “There's still more to fight for. A lot of people are, rightly, very concerned. Some will get going when it [wilderness] is all gone, which is the way it seems to be going. But I feel a new wave is happening, and that's a feeling I get every 15 to 20 years.” 

This was the kind of engagement George said he felt when he travelled to Haida Gwaii in 1977, where forestry interests increasingly threatened the precious wilderness habitat of South Moresby. In 1980, spurred on by Greenpeace in Vancouver, George and friend Richard Krieger started WCWC. In 1987, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve was finally declared a protected area.

For George, it remains one of the major WCWC benchmarks.

“If we'd lost South Moresby, I'm not sure I'd have been able to carry on,”  George said. “So much emotional energy and with things really getting going in those early years, it would've been kind of tough.” 

Along the way, George””who is married to B.C. Green Party leader Adriane Carr””has had a lot of help. Thousands of volunteer hours have kept things going, along with the input of long-time staffers like former Green Party school trustee Andrea Reimer. Reimer joined WCWC as part of a government program to get street people into gainful employment. She is still there today.

WCWC now has 30,000 members across the country. Many of George's allies were present at the book's unveiling””a modest event at Roundhouse Community Centre””on September 20. Summing up the state of the union there, Greenpeace founder Rex Weyler said the environmental movement still had to be on heightened alert.

“We can save a valley 10 times,”  Weyler said. “But when it gets cut down it's gone forever.” 

So has it all been worth it for George? “Of course,”  he said. “You see ups and downs, but that's the same with all parts of life.” 