Canadian Rockhound: B.C.'s Vanishing Land Access

Historically, rockhounds have always relied on good relations with land owners and the Crown to ensure access to favourite collecting sites. Looking back over early editions of the Canadian Rockhound (pre-Dirk Schmid) from the late 1950's to the 1970's, there is a recurrent theme of private properties being closed because of thoughtlessness or vandalism.

On public lands, there have always been certain restrictions on mineral collecting, such as in parks, on Indian Reserves, and certain other designated areas. That is acceptable. Recently, however, the B.C. government has undertaken a vigorous expansion of its provincial parklands, and while as an environmentalist, we applaud their initiatives, there is a growing concern that sites that have been hunted for over a century are being closed, simply because they now fall within the boundary of a new park.

Compromises need to be made. In many locales, a hundred years of hand digging have done far less damage to the environment than the foundations of a single new park building being constructed to manage the area.

With this in mind, the Lapidary Rock & Mineral Society of British Columbia, which is the umbrella organization for 30 registered B.C. clubs, and representing over 1,500 members, formed the Preservation of Rockhounding Areas (PORA) Committee, to address this problem. The committee is made up of members from many of the clubs, and includes Elmer Clarke, Carl Friedman, Liz O'Hea, Hugh Hollins, Art Lemky, Win Robertson (Vice President LRMSBC 1998), Don Rotherham (President LRMSBC 1998), Dave Barclay, Jan MacLellan and Rick Hudson.

The committee's plans are as follows:

Compile a definitive list of areas that have been lost to collecting.
Investigate legislation from other provinces and states where rockhounding has been successfully managed within forest, park or other restricted areas.
Prepare written documentation and make formal presentations to the relevant B.C. ministries to (a) raise the awareness of the hobby, and (b) get legislative changes to protect the future of the hobby.

Anyone having ideas, suggestions or previous experience is asked to contact PORA Chairperson Rick Hudson at (250) 656-6533, or 1-800-879-0733, or geo@islandnet.com.

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