Author

Hildegard 

Sustainable Community development services

Always

when you feel

you can’t go on

arrives from somewhere

a small light.

my mother’s candle

Hildegard Bechler British Columbia, Canada: migrated from Germany in 1951 as a child of six.

Took degrees at UBC: Bachelor of Arts in language, literature, and biological science; high school teacher certification.

Taught public school; initiated action groups on local eco-crises; stood for political office, civic and federal. Raised a son; participated in free school. Studied naturopathy and psychotherapy. Apprenticed in carpentry, practiced energy efficient and passive solar home construction.

Organized public meetings for global and local experts in emerging eco-crises, with a view to solutions. A speaking tour for Sister Rosalie Bertell during our resistance to uranium mining and nuclear reactors helped active citizens province-wide prevent both these death industries. Intervened in energy hearings. Worked in support of Indigenous Nations; taught in a Tahltan village in the North, where Respect sustains community through millennia.

Providing public access to sustainable solutions has been my work for more than forty years. As a teacher, business proprietor, and citizen activist, I worked independently and in co-operation with local and national organizations and Indigenous Nations. I organized public meetings and workshops with global experts who share positive perspectives.

BC Hydro’s threat of nuclear reactors at Chemainus, twenty miles from my home on Vancouver Island, expanded the work friends and I were doing in estuary protection and pesticide appeals. In 1978 I invited epidemiologist Sister Rosalie Bertell to BC; local groups in seven cities organized public meetings and media. Her new information on the health impacts of low-level ionizing radiation (she was head of the Adult Section of the Tri-State Leukemia Data, a 9-year, 36 million person-year study on the increase in leukemia for the American Cancer Society) helped our 15-year province-wide resistance to reactors and uranium mining prevent both these death industries.

After being assigned to the US Congress Environmental Assessment of the Solar Power Space Project, Dr. Bertell became expert in electromagnetic weapons: the tools of weather warfare—and devised practical steps to end war. I join thousands around the world who work to actualize her radical common-sense solutions.

Following the success of this initial public education initiative, I organized meetings for Hazel Henderson, Paul Connett, and Amory Lovins, along with local experts, leaders in positive, realistic solutions.

I founded citizen action groups, cofounded coalitions, intervened in energy hearings. I stood for municipal and federal election as an independent promoting sustainable development.

My son grew up during these busy times; I participated in his free school, Vancouver’s New School. Through naturopathy and psychotherapy (addressing our family’s war-torn trauma) I enhanced our well-being. I apprenticed in carpentry, took courses in energy efficient and passive solar home construction, and applied these in seasonal construction work.

Throughout these years I supported the work of Indigenous Nations for their title and rights. I taught On Call in a Tahltan village up North, where I learned how Respect for each other, for our children, and every life form, sustains community through millennia.

Citizens worked in broad cooperation for ten to thirty years on any given threat, winning our objectives totally or in part. In spite of much damage, the Left Coast is still beautiful: testimony to the power and healing energy of cooperation.

Community organizations founded:

Cowichan Valley Environmental

Solar Alternatives to Nuclear Energy (SANE) – preventing V.I. nukes

Queensborough Citizens’ Association

New Westminster Environmental

Coalitions co-founded:

Cheekeye-Dunsmuir Alliance – preventing submarine cable for Vancouver Island reactors

BC Energy Coalition – promoting energy efficiency and renewable alternatives

Lower Mainland Waste Management Coalition – promoting recycling, preventing new Metro Vancouver incinerators (after 30 years: success in 2015!)

Member, Fraser River Coalition

Presentations to Energy Hearings:

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission – on the impact of proposed nuclear reactors at Sedro Woolley on BC; these were prevented.

National Energy Board – on the impact of the first Site C proposal;

BC Utilities Commission: on Hydro market restructuring;

                                    :on Alcan’s raising the Kenney Dam on the Nechako River.

Federal hearings on the Fraser River salmon crisis

Support for Indigenous Issues:

Indigenous Nations developed networks with local and global supporters to prevent:

BC Hydro’s proposed seven dams on the Stikine River—success!

Lower Stikine logging—success!

Haida Gwaii clearcut logging—reduced;

Meares Island protected!

Stein Valley protected!

Gitksan-Wetsu wet’en Delgamuk land title legal case—success in part;

Shell fracking in the Sacred Headwaters of the Skeena, Stikine and Iskut Rivers—success!

Site C now being built on the Peace River—opposition continues.