Underlying the Wilderness Committee's education work is a belief that citizens have the right, duty and the ability to stand up for the public interest and protect Canada and Earth's bio-diversity.
The Wilderness Committee is calling for a suspension on all private 'run-of river' power projects until they are regionally planned, environmentally appropriate, acceptable to First Nations and publicly owned.
[4] This is one of the Wilderness Committee's longest lasting campaigns to protect the largest area of ancient temperate rainforest left on BC's Vancouver Island.
In 2008, forestry company, MaMook Coulson proposed logging in one of Clayoquot Sound's intact areas of ancient forest – the Hesquiat Point Creek Valley – sparking a strong response from the environmental community.
But the conflict over potential logging in Hesquiat Point Creek has renewed the interest in finding a lasting solution for protecting Clayoquot Sound, while providing livelihood opportunities for those who live there.
The designation of Clayoquot Sound as an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2000, while a huge step forward, does not provide legislated protection.
Stopping the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, like the Canadian tar sands, new coal mines or proposals for oil and gas exploration will address some of the domestic action needed to prevent runaway climate destruction.
Stopping highway expansion and increasing investment in public transit, cycling and walking infrastructure and protecting wild lands like forests and wetlands, a significant storage of greenhouse gases, are some of the local solutions proposed by the Wilderness Committee.
[8] A license was issued in 2009 by the Manitoba government to build a logging road through the heart of the Grass River Provincial Park, an area that is also home to a newly discovered herd of caribou.
The Wilderness Committee believes the decision to approve the road will have a negative impact on the migration route of the park's woodland caribou, which gained protected status under the province's Endangered Species Act in 2006.
The ancient forests provide essential habitat for endangered wildlife such as the spotted owl, marbled murrelet and mountain caribou.
According to the Wilderness Committee, BC's second-growth forests could be logged at a slower, more sustainable rate to better protect the environment while still providing wood working jobs.
There are about two dozen staff members[11] who carry out various functions, including organizing volunteers, publishing educational materials, campaigning for the protection of nature and financial management.
The Wilderness Committee's primary goal was to build grassroots and broad public support for protecting ecosystems and bio-diversity.
Over a 2-year period the Wilderness Committee published and distributed over 1 million copies of the organization's educational tabloid style newspapers, 500,000 Adopt-A-Tree mail-in opinion cards, 10,000 copies of the Wilderness Committee's award-winning book Carmanah – Visions of an Ancient Rainforest, 20,000 posters, 45,000 calendars and thousands of news releases on the Carmanah Valley issue.
As part of this campaign the Wilderness Committee also conducted slide-show tours in BC and Ontario, built its first boardwalk wilderness trail, produced the organization's first video, built the world's first upper canopy ancient temperate rainforest research station and supported researchers who discovered hundreds of new insect species in the treetops of the Carmanah Valley.