About
The Wilderness Committee is one of the largest grassroots environmental organizations in Canada. Established in the 1980s as a federal environmental charity, the organization evolved out of spirited conversations around a kitchen table and the collective determination to turn ideas into action.
Why do we call our work people-powered wilderness preservation? Because change happens when informed, engaged people work together. Donors make it possible for us to get out on the land to witness, document, map and monitor threatened wilderness and wildlife. Your support allows us to partner with First Nations, community leaders, social organizations and unions. It ensures the conservation work we do is grounded in our values of justice and human rights. Because of caring individuals like you, we are in communities forming alliances to collaborate on urgent priorities. We are proud to bring the results of that work to you and others who care deeply for wilderness and wildlife.
When people learn about the threats to wilderness, wildlife, and protected areas, and they share our passion, they act and resist. By popularizing complex information and using images, videos, and stories to make an emotional connection with people, we motivate them to preserve old-growth forests, and defend at-risk caribou and spotted owls. The resulting people power pushes logging and mining destruction out of parks and creates climate-stabilizing solutions.
Thanks to people like you, we protect life-giving biodiversity. Wilderness Guardians, loyal donors who choose to leave environmental gifts by will or estate, have made our work possible for over 40 years. Together we will continue to defend critical wild areas and species to benefit present and future generations.
Learn more about our wilderness and wildlife preservation work.
Our Impact
Our people-powered roots require us to be responsive to new and emerging issues while maintaining our foundation of defending ancient forests, standing up for parks and protected areas and advocating for at-risk species.
Wonderful people like you make up nearly 100 per cent of our funding. You — and tens of thousands of others — are a powerful force of nature. Together, our work has led to the protection of millions of hectares of wilderness, from Clayoquot Sound — the lands of the Ahousaht, Hesquiaht and Tla-o-qui-aht nations in British Columbia, to Chitek Lake Provincial Park on Skownan First Nation territory in Manitoba, to the old-growth pine forests of Temagami First Nation in Ontario.
Together, we’ve worked to establish federal endangered species legislation and its enforcement to increase protections for resident killer whales, northern spotted owls and greater sage-grouse. Together, we’ve advocated for a transition away from fossil fuels while promoting climate solutions for the future.
By remembering us with environmental gifts in your will or estate plans you ensure we carry on this critical work for you. Even when you are no longer here, you can remain an effective, independent voice.
