Clarice has lived for 29 years in the Joe Rich Valley, just outside Kelowna, BC. Professionally, she works as a Physiotherapist. In her spare time, she spends as much time outdoors as possible, appreciating what the Okanagan Valley has to offer. She has a large garden at home and enjoys participating in recreational activities with her husband (a Geologist), family, friends and their dogs. In 2020, she noticed logging companies were starting to clear-cut closer and closer to people’s homes in Joe Rich, and there did not seem to be any watchdogs out there.
This led to her getting involved with her local community group, called the Joe Rich Forestry Trails and Watershed committee (JRFTW). It was here when her environmental activism and passion started.
Clarice discovered that clear-cut logging was having a detrimental effect on the large Mission Creek watershed, where all the drinking water for about 30,000+ people in the Valley comes from. She has been busy communicating with various government ministries/logging companies, sharing the information with her community members and attending various field trips with and without logging companies.
This activism has led to linking up with other grassroots committees in BC’s Southern Interior and helping form the Interior Watershed Task Force (IWTF). It has been a steep learning process for her. She is proud to be associated with the IWTF committee, whose members all share similar passions. Clarice hopes all the volunteer work that she and the IWTF team are doing will ultimately make changes to our forestry policies that will have benefits for all.
This is where we ALL live, so it makes sense to protect our watersheds, our forests and our biodiversity.
