AWARE: Protecting Whistler’s Environment

If there’s one thing nearly every Whistler local and guest have in common, it’s that we were drawn here by the area’s natural beauty and the unique opportunities these mountains, lakes, forests, rivers, glaciers and wetlands offer us. The power of that natural beauty is enough to lure over a million guests into the valley each year and to convince more than a few of them to drop everything and live here full-time.

But as the famous saying goes: with great power comes great responsibility. This means the responsibility to protect Whistler’s natural spaces (and the interconnected global climate systems that support them) is huge indeed. Thankfully, we have AWARE, a homegrown group of passionate Whistler locals dedicated to giving nature a voice.

Establishing AWARE

The Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment (AWARE), started in 1989 when a dozen or so locals met up on the patio of legendary Whistler Village establishment Citta’s to organize some sort of recycling program in the valley.

“Volunteers collected and drove Whistler’s recyclables down the valley themselves at first,” explains current AWARE board vice president John Rasmussen. “And eventually set up a program with the local waste management people and the municipality to develop local recycling stations—that was the start of AWARE.  Around same time there were development applications threatening some of the valley’s wetlands so those same people rallied the community to step up to protect some of those areas forever. And they never looked back.”

Driven almost entirely by volunteers for the first two decades of their existence, AWARE has been instrumental in several key local environmental causes, from habitat protection to food cultivation and zero-waste community programs to saving 1300+ year-old Douglas fir trees from logging or ensuring the “yellow list-endangered” western toads have a viable and protected migration route from water to forest at Lost Lake, one of the valley’s highest traffic areas.

 

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“We’d done a great job getting ourselves on the map,” Rasmussen says. “And then post-Olympics, AWARE had much closer involvement with the Resort Municipality on environmental issues and various committees which increased our voice. At the same time, generous funding from the Community Foundation of Whistler allowed us to run more programs and hire some full-time staff, including an Executive Director position. That helped legitimize things and we are really well positioned to build on all the great work that’s been done in the last ten years.”

Growing Momentum

Part of that growing momentum rests in the hands of Pegah Pourkarimi, who took over as Executive Director in June of 2024.

“I came on board and saw a lot of positive things right away,” says Pourkarimi, a Vancouver raised local with a strong history of non-profit and entrepreneurial work who moved into the Sea to Sky corridor in 2020. “The stats around AWARE’s most recent Zero-Waste campaign that started in April shows there is a an appetite to do better. At Crankworx this year we collected and sorted over 2000 kilograms of waste and diverted 1700 kilograms from the landfill. We have a workforce of about 10-12 in peak summer months on the Zero Waste program and a number of volunteers involved as well.”

Other recent “wins” according to Pourkarimi, include  AWARE running the RMOW bin stations at three major parks; Lost Lake, Rainbow and Lakeside Park, across the weekends in the summer. This gives AWARE the chance to educate the public and reduce contamination across the bins, which supports Whistler’s Zero Waste goals.

“Over Earth Week we raised over 30,000 dollars and had a number of great events that had record breaking attendance, like a community clothing swap and garage sale promoting both circular economy practices and connecting people together within the community. All events were well attended, and it gives me a lot of confidence that we have a strong—though small—team and a passionate network of volunteers and board members.”

The Need for Volunteers

This isn’t to say everything is smooth sailing ahead for AWARE. The global/national/provincial environmental crisis seems to get more dire every year, local residents, particularly the younger demographic, are busier than ever trying to make ends meet and have less time to volunteer than previous generations, and there’s always more than can be done.

But both Pourkarimi and Rasmussen see great potential in both the locals living amongst Whistler’s natural splendours, and the guests drawn to them.

“We know Whistler is a passionate community,” Rasmussen says. “We’ve seen large numbers of people rally and voice themselves on matters of community concern. Our task now is to find the environmental issues that will get the community to come out like that.

I don’t think it will be a broad brush, no more bombarding with doom-and-gloom environmental statistics and negative narratives of catastrophy. I think we are on the verge of flipping the script and building on the optimism with specific issues and actions that people can see and touch and do right here in their community.”

The Right to a Voice

“That mobilization will be a huge part of our success,” Pourkarimi adds. “When people recognize an issue as it pertains to our surroundings and feel like they do have a right to have a voice and stand up and say how they see it. That creates power.

Another huge thing we are aiming for is to get on the radar of all the people travelling through this area. We have a number of successful programs for residents and local youth, but if we can get our guests to realize they are all a part of this as well, that everything is connected…it could have a huge effect on everything from realizing why we need to close off a bike trail so these tiny toads can get into the forest all the way up to larger issues like waste and emissions.”

To help engage guests and valley newcomers with some of Whistler’s natural splendours, AWARE has printed up an “Ancient Tree Map” anyone can follow to discover a selection of Whistler’s oldest trees (one has been standing for over 1200 years!) as well as a 90-minute online Grizzly Bear webinar anyone can access at any time to learn more about the iconic Canadian animal.

“Single-use plastic is a big one on our road map,” Rasmussen says. “Waste diversion is always something that can be improved. We can get people talking about it, doing something about it, and then use that to mobilize the decision makers.

We are standing on the precipice of having a much more powerful and provocative voice,” Pourkarimi adds. “We’re standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us and those who stand alongside us. I look forward to learning from our existing community partners and developing new connections with locals and guests to the area. Together, we will get there.”

A Sustainable Future

The road towards building a sustainable and climate-resilient community is certainly full of challenges, but over the past 35 years, AWARE has proven that a dedicated group of people can and will make a difference. With that strong history of action and a new wave of community and visitor engagement around key events like Earth Week and the Crankworx Zero-Waste program, there is the potential for real change to occur.

Amazing AWARE Impact Facts

• GROW Whistler helps over 400 Whistler Residents grow organic, package-free food close to home.
• Over 5,000kg of annual food grown in 2024 GROW Whistler Community Garden Program.
• Over 400 community participants in 2024 Earth Week events, including a repair cafe and community garage sale
• Since 2017, AWARE has delivered Zero Waste Education Workshops to over 6400 students in 21 schools in the Sea to Sky corridor.
• Over 18,000 kilograms of waste have been collected across 208 local events as part of the Zero Waste Heroes program, with 91% diverted from the landfill.

Upcoming AWARE Events

AWARE runs events and programs year-round and some are coming up this fall including a Repair Cafe on Saturday, October 5 at the Whistler Public Library from 10 AM to 4 PM. There’s also the Fall Community Garage Sale on Sunday, October 6 in Creekside from 10 AM to 2 PM, and the Fall Clothing Swap at Fairmont Chateau Whistler on Tuesday, October 15.

It’s like late skier (and total legend) JP Auclair said in the 2011 environmental action/ski film All.I.Can, “It’s not about doing less, it’s about doing more.”

To learn more about AWARE (which will help you do more) and find upcoming events and opportunities to get involved check their website.