Our Mission
The Grassland Conservation Council’s mission is to ensure the conservation, restoration and stewardship of British Columbia’s grasslands through integrated partnerships and collaboration across people, place and purpose. Click here to read our 2022-2026 strategic plan.
Community Engagement, Education, Outreach and Communications
Our goal is to teach and support behaviour that creates and maintains healthy grasslands. We publish reports and videos, host field days and outreach events, share updates via our Facebook page, Instagram page, LinkedIn page, and e-newsletters.
Conservation, Restoration and Stewardship
The GCC leads and supports collaborative initiatives to conserve, restore, and steward grasslands. We facilitate both broad and in depth knowledge exchange and conversation these topics. We collaborate with user groups to develop best guidance documents such as such as Grasslands Monitoring Manual for Ranchers in BC and Best Management Practices for Motorized Recreation in BC’s Grasslands. Some of our current projects are the Friends of Lac du Bois initiative and the Laurie Guichon Memorial Grassland Interpretive Site.
Supporting Research Informed by Science, Indigenous and Local Knowledge
Reliable knowledge provides the foundation for all that we do. It informs the other aspects of our work, grounding recommendations for policy, protection, stewardship, and education in facts, experience, and traditional knowledge. The GCC leads the Priority Grassland Initiative and mapping of grassland boundaries and losses. We also have research projects with the Fraser Lab at Thompson Rivers University and the Earth Observation & Spatial Ecology Lab at UBCO.
Policy Support, Input, Recommendations and Guidance
Policies, regulations, and plans help governments and other organizations act to support the integrity of grassland ecosystems. GCC works with all levels of government, sharing information and best practices to benefit people and landscapes around the province. We continue to seek opportunities to advance policies that respect grassland ecosystems and have participated in input processes for projects such as Provincial Protected Areas, Trans Mountain Pipeline, and Ajax Mine. We are also dedicated to to draw from both western and Indigenous knowledge in order restore grasslands.
Building Capacity in the GCC
We aim to be a financially sustainable organization, have a predictable, ongoing revenue stream to support a full time staff that can manage the organization’s strategic area actions , and develop a body of supporters and donors to supplement project-based revenue streams.
