Learn Technical & Field Skills for Wetlands in Your Backyard
Wetlands are crucial for flood control, water filtration, and producing diversity of species — gain the practical skills to protect these essential ecosystems with a BCWF wetlands workshop!
The BCWF Wetlands Education Program offers free Map Our Marshes workshops (1-day) and Wetlandkeepers workshops (2.5-days) annually across B.C. to enable our community to learn about, steward, and map local wetlands. Learn more about the three programs below. As well, each year since 1988, the Wetlands Education Program has been conducting a 7-day Wetlands Institute workshop in B.C. for people with current and/or future wetland projects in their communities.
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Map our Marshes
Map our Marshes is a one-day workshop that offers passionate community members the technical and field skills for mapping smaller wetlands with Global Positioning System (GPS) units and useful smartphone apps, and how to share this information with local decision makers (e.g. local ENGOs, Government, and Consultants).
Map our Marshes courses teach community members how to track changes to wetland landscapes through GPS education, which lays the foundation for habitat protection and conservation. This introduction to GPS skills leaves participants feeling empowered, connected to a language of technology, and supported in their future stewardship endeavors.
Wetlandkeepers
Wetlandkeepers is a 2.5 day workshop that educates participants about wetland conservation. We bring this course into communities to teach wetland delineation, plant and animal identification, soil sampling, and other wetland classification and stewardship skills. Each workshop varies to suit the community’s unique wetland needs.
A mix of hands-on fieldwork and presentations, this workshop enables participants to steward their own wetland. Participants are given a Wetlandkeepers certificate at the end of the workshop and are provided follow-up support by the Wetlands Education Program team.
Wetlands Institute
The Wetlands Institute is a week-long course that is attended by landowners, land managers, government and non-government staff, educators, and First Nations. Each participant applies to the Institute with a wetland project that will have long-lasting impact in their home communities, such a conservation, restoration, and educational projects.
Since its conception in 1998, the Wetlands Institute has been collaborating with government and non-government stakeholders in recognition of the need for public stewardship of wetlands in BC, due to their essential functions to the health of watersheds and landscapes across the province, and the essential services they provide to wildlife and humans alike.
The Wetlands Institute is one of the Wetland Education Program’s (WEP) longest standing programs that upholds B.C. Wildlife Federation’s mission “to protect, enhance, and promote the wise use of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations.”
Photos From the Field
See more photos from the field at BCWF Watershed Team | Flickr