Harold Steves – BC’s Patriarch of Farmland Preservation

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Harold Steves, co-founder of BC’s Agricultural Land Reserve, was honoured recently for his unparallelled contribution to protecting BC’s food security. Harold’s discovery in the late 1950s that his farm in the Richmond community of Steveston (named for the Steves family) had been secretly rezoned to residential – along with the bulk of Richmond’s farmland – spurred him on to a lifetime of work in the political arena to protect the rest of the province’s agricultural land. As a young MLA in 1973, Harold successfully brought forward the idea of the Agricultural Land Reserve – the first of its kind in the world. After a stint in the Legislature, Harold joined Richmond City Council, where he continues today as the province’s longest-serving municipal politician. At a time when BC’s food security is more imperiled than ever, one can only imagine where we’d be without the leadership, vision, and dedication of Harold Steves. Thank you to Harold for over half a century of standing up for BC’s farmland!

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About Damien Gillis

Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon - working with many environmental organizations in BC and around the world. He is the co-founder, along with Rafe Mair, of The Common Sense Canadian, and a board member of both the BC Environmental Network and the Haig-Brown Institute.