CWF and Environment and Climate Change Canada’s program Hinterland Who’s Who travels all over the country to get footage of a wide array of flora and fauna species. I have the chance to manage this program and so I head out in all sorts of different habitats to supervise the process needed to create our videos. Last year, we visited British Columbia’s rainforest, a unique and complex habitat that is kept healthy by the presence of a great diversity of plant and animal species. But as visitors to this habitat, our team had to follow strict rules to help conserve such a special place. And these rules don’t only apply to the rainforest, they are good rules to follow every time you visit a part of the amazing wilderness in Canada.

Have you heard the saying “leave only footprints, take only memories”? This is a great motto to live by when visiting a wild space. In the rainforest, and all other habitats, it’s important to act like a responsible visitor. Here are seven easy ways to do just that:

  1. Stay on the marked trails, as wildlife might be impacted when a human strays and walks out.
  2. Keep your pet on a leash, as your dog might be interested in having an intimate meeting with an unwilling wildlife species.
  3. Keep a safe distance from any other critter, as even the smallest critters like the rainforest’s Banana Slug should not be handled.
  4. Never feed wildlife since it habituates animals to the presence of humans and might take away their reflex of fearing us, which is to everyone’s (including the animal itself) benefit.
  5. Don’t leave litter lying around even if it’s biodegradable, as who knows how long it takes to disintegrate in the wild and those apple cores could attract animals to areas they wouldn’t normally frequent.
  6. Leave natural items where they are, don’t remove them from the area. You have memories to take back with you.
  7. Most important of all, please follow fire bans and regulations around having a fire. The fires we see presently raging in our country are often caused by negligent human activity and the resulting disasters, because of climate change, are more intense than regular forest fires. This has a major impact on our wildlife, whether in or out of the rainforest.

Sharing is Caring

Another way to help is to teach others about a place you love, which may inspire them to also act for its conservation. To help you talk about your day in the wild to others, you can take pictures! It’s my own way of safely appreciating any wild space. This enables me to have a look later at all the species I’ve seen and talk about them… and when I’m stuck in my identification of a plant or animal, I upload my picture to iNaturalist.ca. This might give me some answers while helping scientists to figure out where and when a species is in a given space.

This is a bit like what I do at work: I get to share the footage my team has taken! It’s a great way of making others visit the wilderness like the rainforest. In fact, if you want to learn more about this unique ecosystem, watch out for the new Hinterland Who’s Who videos which are coming out this year! They present important species for the rainforest, which include the Banana Slug, the Bald Eagle and the Red Cedar. Go have a look at hww.ca!