CodeBlue BC has named Professional Biologist Mike Pearson a Local Watershed Hero for his hard work and dedication in standing up for the health and well-being of the Lower Fraser River and all of its inhabitants. Mike’s expertise and deep knowledge of species, local habitat, and ecosystems may be based on his scientific training, his dedication to data, and the time he spends in the field. However, he is also dedicated to ensuring that facts are not ignored in the media, in the courts, and by governments.
"Our connections to our watersheds are very, very real. We all depend on the world around us for our life, our society, for all things" -- Mike Pearson
Pearson originally made a name for himself in speaking up about a diminutive fish known as the Nooksack dace. The Nooksack dace might not be quite as sexy as salmon or sturgeon. However, it is a species native to Fraser Valley watersheds, and an integral part of the food chain.
The little dace and habitat is far from the only beneficiary of Pearson’s decades of science-based work. As he told Parliament’s Environment Committee in 2010, the fish’s territory overlaps with the habitat of the endangered Salish sucker and other key vulnerable species. And these species and habitats that support them also provide critical benefits for other larger fish and wildlife, as well as humans.
"People need more knowledge and training ... We need to get people to understand what's happened to our environment occurred in a relatively short time, just 150 years" -- Mike Pearson
“Healthy aquatic and riparian habitats purify water. They store carbon. They function as primary pathways in the landscape through which water and nutrients and organisms move,” Pearson told Members of Parliament. “They're essentially the circulatory system of an ecosystem, and it's in our interest to protect them.”
A Registered Professional Biologist with three decades of experience, Pearson puts his money where his mouth is.
In 2007, for example, his company’s largest client was the federal fisheries department (DFO). But when he testified against DFO in a lawsuit over habitat protection, his business was blacklisted for contracts by the government of the day. The government lost the suit.
“Healthy aquatic and riparian habitats purify water. They store carbon. They function as primary pathways in the landscape through which water and nutrients and organisms move.”
Says Pearson, “Following my passions and beliefs has opened up lots of opportunities... I spend a lot of time in a canoe, and I get to work in a lot of interesting places with interesting people. I've been able to be consistent, even though standing up and speaking out is scary sometimes.”
In 2019 Pearson made national headlines by drawing attention to damage to Fraser Valley fish habitat caused by construction of a pipeline intended to transport diluted bitumen from Alberta to the BC coast for export. The company had installed concrete mats, which Pearson said created a sediment problem that damaged habitat for coho and chum salmon, and the aquatic invertebrates on which they feed.
Pearson started his company, Pearson Ecological in 2001 while completing his PhD at UBC. His company specializes in field-based projects involving freshwater fish, species at risk and aquatic habitat restoration.
"I occupy kind of an unusual niche,” Pearson told CodeBlue. “I’m a private consultant, self-employed, a scientist, and an activist. Often those things don't co-exist."
This is my 28th field season in the Fraser Valley, in the same locations and streams and watersheds. In the last two years I’ve seen areas go dry that I've never seen dry before.
Pearson Ecological works mostly in the Fraser Valley, collaborating with First Nations, academic researchers, and non-profit organizations. It leads research and recovery projects focused on the Nooksack dace and Salish sucker, and designs, constructs and monitors habitat restoration and enhancement projects “known for creating diverse, naturalistic habitats that benefit multiple species.”
Pearson spends most of his time in the field and is a hard man to catch for a conversation. CodeBlue found him on a rare slow day in his office in Agassiz, near his beloved Fraser River.
"In Canada we have a tradition of enacting pretty laws, and then not enforcing them at all" -- Pearson on what should be done about water wasters and polluters.
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10 QUESTIONS FOR MIKE PEARSON
What is your first memory by water?
Snorkeling as a kid, in the shallows near our family cottage in Northern Ontario. I couldn’t swim yet. But we had an inner tube, and I'd be face down looking through the hole of the inner tube at large mouth bass, rock bass, and perch. There was a whole otherworldly-ness to it.
What is your favourite water critter?
A prickly sculpin or a rough-skinned newt. The sculpin because they just look so cool with their big heads – like grumpy old men! The entire ventral surface of newts is bright orange, construction orange.
They’re quite common in BC but almost no one ever sees them. There’s a diversity here that very few people are aware of–but it's all around us.
What is a place that you love in your home watershed?
I've got a lot of choice. I go to my favourite place by walking out my front door near the Fraser River near Agassiz, across the railroad tracks, and sit beside the river.
Other favourite places are the Upper Pitt at the North end of Pitt Lake, where there are salmon, and grizzly and wolf tracks. And, Chilliwack Lake is magical. The whole western shore is still old growth, with massive trees and salmon in the river in August.
What issues are you seeing affect your watersheds?
Nutrient pollution from commercial animal agriculture.
Few people realize it, but the Fraser Valley has one of the highest livestock densities in the world. The animals are all in barns so you don't see much. There are chicken farms with hundreds of thousands of birds, and dairy operations. They’re all regulated by supply management, so when the human population goes up, consumption goes up, and more quota is realized for farmers to produce more chickens, more cows–and more manure.
All that manure is spread on the same limited land base in the Fraser Valley. There are three to five times as many nutrients going onto the farm fields as the plants can possibly take up, so the excess ends up in the water.
That pollution leads to very low oxygen levels in the water. Most people have read about dead zones in the oceans. But before there are dead zones in the oceans, there are hundreds of kilometres of dead streams, which don't have enough oxygen to support fish during the summers.
People driving Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley pass by ditches that are waterways for fish–and which are dead zones. But people don’t know what they’re looking at.
How does drought affect you?
Climate change is increasingly an issue. This is my 28th field season in the Fraser Valley, in the same locations and streams and watersheds. In the last two years I’ve seen areas go dry that I've never seen dry before.
The droughts of the last couple of years have been devastating.
I don't look forward to mid-summer anymore. It gets pretty ugly.
What motivates you, keeps you hopeful?
A passion for wilderness and wildlife, and a sense of justice. Giving up is not an option: then what would I do?
But, to be honest, I'm not overly hopeful. By the nature of my work I am seeing a lot of places I've loved be destroyed, lots of times.
The way I have learned to cope with that is to separate my own sense of well-being from what I see going on. I can learn not to accept it, but to accept that it's going to happen and not tie my personal happiness and equilibrium to that. I can live, laugh, and enjoy what I am doing and the people around me.
What are the benefits of protecting our watersheds?
There are pragmatic and spiritual benefits, and both are important.
Watersheds provide air purification, water purification, sources of medicines, and the flood control that wetlands provide. A lot of our seafood is wild.
Our connections to our watersheds are very, very real. We all depend on the world around us for our life, our society, for all things.
In another way all of BC, to some extent, benefits from watersheds, in terms of the provincial slogan "Supernatural British Columbia.” All of the things we think of when we think of BC are nature-based: big trees, salmon, mountains, all that.
What should be done about water wasters and polluters?
In Canada we have a tradition of enacting pretty laws, and then not enforcing them at all–and that's especially true with laws about habitat.
There are fines for pollution. But when it comes to habitat, there’s a policy of no charges, which has been in place for years.
Staff cuts during the years of Prime Minister Stephen Harper had an impact. There’s now a lot of hiring and scaling up again in federal agencies, but enforcement isn't there. They can't just undo what was lost, because when the federal government made cuts in the early 2010s, they got rid of the institutional memory. In federal habitat-enforcement offices a whole class of people were lost, the people who had investigated and knew how to lay charges, and were area-based. Now government is a revolving door of junior positions, and it’s hard to get continuity in expertise.
How do we improve local watershed governance in BC?
Local watershed boards can be vigilant. One of the things I am hopeful about is the increasing capacity and role of First Nations in watershed management, particularly the rise of Indigenous Guardian programs and restoration work.
The Indigenous communities I work with now have Guardian programs, and people out on the land observing, reporting, and making it known that there are eyes on what's going on. That is key, to raise public awareness and hold authorities more accountable.
What is needed to achieve watershed security in BC?
People need more knowledge and training. A lot of people don’t understand the concept of a shifting baseline… People can only judge something based on what they've seen, because we don’t pay attention to how it used to be.
When we look at a landscape, land use, and waterways what we see around us is what we perceive as normal. We need to get people to understand what's happened to our environment occurred in a relatively short time, just 150 years.
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Pearson told CodeBlue that his science, activism, and business “coexist quite well for me. Following my passions and beliefs has opened up lots of opportunities and enriched my life a lot in terms of my lifestyle. I spend a lot of time in a canoe, and I get to work in a lot of interesting places with interesting people. I've been able to be consistent even though standing up and speaking out is scary sometimes.”
For example, he said, after he testified in court against DFO, “there were repercussions. No employee of DFO was allowed to speak to me for several years. But it also opened many other doors and probably I wouldn't be doing the work I’m doing now had I not done that. I now work with people I want to work for, who value taking that kind of stand.”
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The rough-skinned newt is one of Pearson's favourite critters. "The entire ventral surface of newts is bright orange, construction orange!"
A prickly sculpin is one of Pearson's favourite critters, "because they just look so cool with their big heads – like grumpy old men!"
All photos courtesy of Mike Pearson
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