Voices for the Islands: Thirty Years of Nature Conservation on the Salish Sea

Review By Sarah Marie Wiebe

December 10, 2024

In 2021, the shorelines of British Columbia experienced distress like never before. That sweltering summer revealed a devastating period of loss, a matter of life and death for B.C. coastlines. While the province lost 619 human lives due to extreme heat exposure, over 1 billion sea creatures lost their lives during the heat dome event. Voices for the Islands by Sheila Harrington draws into sharp focus how bodies of water serve as harbinger of what’s to come if we don’t take the calls to action this book presents seriously: “What we do to nature, we do to ourselves” (235), the conclusion cautions.

Voices for the Islands takes readers on a three-year coastal journey across numerous archipelagos by sailboat. Her vessel serves as respite and a “womb” amidst a warming world (44). Sheila Harrington travels along the southernmost shores of British Columbia to highlight the ongoing impacts of the climate emergency to both human and more-than-human lives. In doing so, this moving book also amplifies the voices and accentuates the actions of those at the forefront of conservation efforts, featuring commentary from the perspectives of sailors, researchers, Indigenous leaders and activists, all demonstrating their enduring love for the local environments that nourish them. Sometimes this means doing so literally with one’s body on the line – as evidenced by efforts such as topless protests on horseback (32). Such actions highlight the intimate care and connection that many who speak up and out about the wellbeing of our coastlines feel.

Embodied actions show us that the climate emergency is not some far away global phenomenon, but something experienced in the core of one’s being. Sailing through the Salish Sea and relatedly paddling or “kayaktivism” efforts endeavour to “turn the tide on extraction” through embodied actions while demonstrating care and connection to more-than-human ecosystems (See also: Bagelmen, “Geo-politics of paddling: ‘turning the tide’ on extraction, Citizenship Studies, 2016). Such actions become an “antidote to grief” (15). Art, activism and action each provide a vital remedy.

This book is one that readily belongs in the tourism section of local bookstores and on board the B.C. ferries gift shop, not because it provides guidance on how to travel from point A to B, but because it is a vital and poignant detour. The collection of stories signal a critical pivot from the current societal status quo, which overemphasizes a transactional way of relating to our environments that relies on extractive capitalism, which is the root cause of so much loss, distress and devastation. Instead, this book emphasizes how “community is the way forward” (183). As a critical detour guidebook, Voices for the Islands navigates through coastal communities to give the reader a sense of optimism anchored in community connections.

Harrington shows us that not only are other worlds possible, but they are also essential for our survival. She documents this in gripping detail. As Briony Penn notes in the Foreword, this book makes the “local, collaborative, slow” efforts of local activism come to the forefront, through a kind of “quiet revolution” (vi). The collection of stories in this book are a gift and offer transformative possibilities for other ways of organizing, relating and governing. It shows us alternative routes for caring futures, with community-building as a central connecting force rather than capitalism.

There is much to learn from Voices for the Islands about ecological governance. Collaboration rather than competition is the way forward (241). Numerous chapters highlight alternative ways of organizing human and more-than-human beings alike, such as through co-management initiatives, ecosystems or bioregions. Harrington further features the critical places of cultural significance in the communities she encounters while aiming to centre Indigenous places like Medicine Beach on Pender Island (S,DÁYES), a site of “strong medicine” for W̱SÁNEĆ peoples (48). There is much to learn from these places and community leaders who steward them for the health and wellbeing of generations to follow. Voices for the Islands offers essential reading for anyone who cares deeply about protecting our coastlines so that sustainable futures are possible.