Board

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West Coast Environemental Law is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors.  Board members are appointed at our Annual General Meeting each September.  West Coast's board members for the 2009-2010 year are:

Peter Chapman, Executive Director, Shareholder Association for Research and Education, Vancouver - on board since December 2005.

Peter Chapman is Executive Director of the Shareholder Association for Research and Education. SHARE is a national non-profit organization originating with that labour movement that assists pension funds, pension trustees and other investors in implementing responsible investment strategies. Its work focuses on trustee education, law and policy reform, proxy voting and shareholder activism.

Peter has worked extensively in the not-for-profit sector. Prior to his current position, he held a senior staff position at a Canadian charity. Currently, he serves on the International Stakeholder Council of the Global Reporting Initiative and the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy’s Capital Markets Taskforce. He also represents the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) on the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Committee on Workers’ Capital. He is formerly a board member of the Social Investment Organization (Canada) and the Robert Owen Foundation. Peter holds a Bachelors degree from Simon Fraser University.

Tony Crossman, Barrister & Solicitor, Miller Thomson LLP, Vancouver – on board since September 2009

Tony Crossman is the chair of Miller Thomson’s national environmental law group, with a focus on western Canada and the Yukon. Tony advises on all aspects of environmental law – from corporate compliance and due diligence through to regulatory, civil and criminal matters. His environmental work covers many sectors of the economy including energy, real estate, municipal, mining, pulp and paper, waste management, forestry and transportation. Tony is a contributor to Canadian Environmental Law (BC and Yukon chapters) (Lexis Nexis), Halsbury’s Laws of Canada and the BC Contaminated Sites Handbook. He is a past chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s national environment, energy and resources section. Admitted to practice in Australia (1985), British Columbia (1996), Nova Scotia (1996) & Yukon (2000).

Nancy Hannum, Vancouver - on board since June 1996.

Nancy Hannum was the head librarian/manager of the Legal Services Society/Legal Resource Centre. She provided leadership and management for Legal Resource Centre within multi-disciplined service organization and represented Legal Services Society on BC Courthouse Library Society Board from 1985 – 2002. Her experiences included working as a field staff librarian responsible for implementing Legal Resource Centre’s Public Library Program to “ensure that legal information is available to the residents of British Columbia”; a secondment to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Library Services Branch; a community hearings staff; a librarian at the Vancouver Public Library and as an assistant to the director at the Canadian Urban Training Centre.

Nancy received the Alumni Service and Leadership Award from the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, UBC in 2001.

Her community involvement includes being a board member and then president of the British Columbia Library Association; a research associate at the Women’s Research Centre; and a founding board member of the Vancouver Co-op Radio.

Kat Hartwig, Development Director, Wildsight, Invermere – on board from September 2009

Kat Hartwig was a founding member of the Invermere Branch of the East Kootenay Environmental Society (now Wildsight) and had the volunteer Invermere Branch president position for 10 years while managing her family ranch. Kat was also a Wildsight regional council board member until she started working as a Wildsight program manager in 1997, and she now works as Wildsight’s Development Director.

Kat has been involved in international, national and regional environmental advocacy issues relating to sustainable tourism, endangered species and water resource protection since 1983. With a background in business, Kat has worked to enhance corporate and NGO partnerships for conservation work and to develop shareholders resolutions that encourage environmental policies for public and private companies. She has attended the Triple Bottom Line conferences in Amsterdam and Washington DC, worked with Ethical Funds, Jantzi Sustainability Index and worked in Pembina Institute workshops to help develop criteria for Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) in Canada.

Kat is the Wildsight representative in the partnership with Living Lakes International (Global Nature Fund based in Germany) on behalf of the Columbia wetlands for which Wildsight was able to secure Ramsar status. She is currently developing a Canadian Living Lakes network. Kat traveled to Ottawa on behalf of Wildsight to receive the 2005 Canadian Environmental Award for Conservation in recognition of successful work to protect the regions wildlife and wild land values.

Ms Hartwig holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Guelph, and started her career managing hotels in the ski resort industry. Her current work with Wildsight includes program development and resource support for Climate Solutions for the Kootenays, Columbia Headwater Legacy Program, Classroom With Outdoors, Southern Rockies/Flathead Wild Campaign, and Purcell Transboundary Conservation Plan.

Nancy Knight, Associate Vice-President, Planning, UBC, Vancouver - on board since December 2005

Nancy Knight is Associate Vice-President, Planning for the University of British Columbia, which is one of Canada’s top universities. In this role, she is responsible for physical and community planning and development at UBC, looking after the emerging University Town at UBC's Point Grey Campus and for new sites such as UBC Okanagan.

Prior to joining the University of British Columbia, Nancy worked for the Greater Vancouver Regional District, which is the metropolitan governance organization for the region. Nancy held a number of positions at the District including:

• Assistant Manager of the Corporate Strategies Department (responsible for corporate policies and communications and the Sustainable Region Initiative);
• Division Manager of the Demand Side Management Division (responsible for demand management and regulatory policies and programs for the District’s water, sewer, solid waste and air quality functions); and
• Senior Planner in the Strategic Planning Department (responsible for development and implementation of the award-winning Livable Region Strategic Plan).

Nancy has also worked in private practice as a consultant, taught at the university level and is currently an adjunct professor at SFU. She holds a Masters in Resource and Environmental Planning from SFU and a Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning from UBC.

Nancy McHarg, Vice President, Jim Hoggan & Associates – on board since September 2008

Nancy McHarg is Vice President, Strategic Counsel at Hoggan and Associates, a leading Canadian public relations agency (www.hoggan.com) on environment and sustainability. Nancy provides strategic communications counsel to a variety of BC-based and national organizations. Nancy is actively involved in Hoggan’s sustainability practice and has led the firm’s landmark research initiatives in 2006 and 2009 that explored Canadians’ understanding and attitudes toward sustainability. Over the years, Nancy has worked on a variety of environment-related communications issues working with both corporate and ENGO interests. As a volunteer, Nancy has served on the Board of Directors of Canuck Place Children’s Hospice and the executive of the Parent Advisory Council and School Planning Council of her children’s school.

Lorene Oikawa, Vice President, BCGEU – on board since September 2008

Lorene is the first Asian Canadian vice president for the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU), and is in her second term.

Lorene chairs the BCGEU’s environment committee and works closely with the union’s staff and members on the Cool Communities campaign to fight global warming. Lorene is also a member of the Sustainable Communities Initiative Advisory Committee, Western Climate Advocates Network & Labour (Western Climate Initiative), Climate Justice Project Team and a member of the BC Federation of Labour Executive Council and the Canadian Labour Congress’s Human Rights Committee.

As well as being a union activist and political activist, Lorene has been a union spokesperson on a range of topics including provincial and federal legislation, health care, education, child care, poverty, human rights, food security, TILMA (Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement), and migrant workers.

Lorene has a BA (UBC) and is a strong advocate of life-long learning. She contributes to the process by facilitating training events within the labour movement and community. She is a part of a multi-union design team that created a climate change workshop that will be used across Canada.

Lorene is a fourth generation British Columbian whose family migrated from Japan in the 1800’s and 1906. Her family’s roots are close to environmental issues from food production to protection of fish habitat (T Buck Suzuki).

Richard Overstall, Barrister & Solicitor, Buri, Overstall, Smithers – on board since September 2009

Richard Overstall practices in Smithers, British Columbia with a particular interest in land-use, environmental and aboriginal law.

He received an undergraduate degree in geology and worked for a decade as a mineral exploration geologist in Ireland and western Canada. While subsequently working at farms, sawmills and construction in northwestern BC, he developed a penchant for public interest environmental work. He contributed research and strategic advice to local groups opposing Alcan’s Kemano project, seeking more sustainable logging practices, and seeking less polluting mining practices.

In the mid-1980s, Richard began work with the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en peoples, including coordination of the scientific evidence in the Delgamuukw trial, and advice on the subsequent settlement and treaty negotiations, particularly in the areas of forest and land use. He also helped design a restorative justice program based on indigenous law and practices, as well as education and training programs in fisheries, wildlife surveys and forest ecology. He helped produce and write scripts for two documentary films on the Gitxsan land claim struggle.

Richard obtained his law degree from the University of Victoria in 2000. His general practice has included litigation and policy advice on pesticide judicial reviews, contaminated sites, aboriginal fishing rights, land-use plan negotiations, forest-use practices, and establishing a public-private land-use plan monitoring trust.
He has published peer-reviewed articles on the use and misuse of DNA evidence in criminal trials, the use of the trust as a legal device to reconcile indigenous and western legal orders, and the concept of property in indigenous law as it relates to land and to so-called cultural property. He is currently investigating the close similarity between the legal orders extant in Northwest Europe in the first millennium AD and those on the Northwest Coast of America in the second millennium AD.

Cheryl Sharvit, Barrister & Solicitor - on board since September 2006.

Cheryl Sharvit has a BA from York University (1992), a LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School (1995) and a LLM from the University of Calgary (1999, specializing in Natural Resource and Aboriginal Law). She received several scholarships and awards while completing those degrees. She was called to the bar (BC) in 1999. She is an Associate at Mandell Pinder, and was previously Staff Lawyer at EAGLE, where she also articled. Her practice is focused on Aboriginal law and employment law. She has represented clients at all levels of court, including the British Columbia Supreme Court, British Columbia Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada, and has also appeared before tribunals. Ms. Sharvit taught an environmental law course as a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary, and has published articles concerning environmental law, constitutional law, natural resources law, and Aboriginal rights. She has also been a member of other Boards of Directors, including the False Creek Watershed Society.

Cristina Soto, PhD, - on board since September 2008

Dr. Cristina Soto's education has focused on aquatic and marine resource management; she has Bachelors and Masters Degrees in marine biology from the University of Guelph and a multi-disciplinary PhD in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University.
Cristina's doctoral thesis examined the barriers to using Traditional and Local knowledge in fisheries management. She chose the topic because this valuable knowledge is still minimally incorporated into current natural resource management and planning. During her studies, Cristina published a research paper on Climate Change and Marine Protected Areas.

Cristina has worked for the Federal, Provincial and First Nation's Governments and most recently as an independent environmental consultant. She also worked in Eastern Indonesia for two years with coastal communities to address issues of cyanide fishing, overfishing, small-scale aquaculture, and community development.

Currently, Cristina is biologist/planner at North Coast Skeena First Nations Stewardship Society, facilitating community-based marine planning with five First Nations. Her bicultural heritage (Chilean and Anglo-american) has contributed to her enjoyment of traveling and working with different cultures, particularly indigenous peoples.

Mark Underhill, Barrister & Solicitor, Underhill, Faulkner, Boies Parker, Vancouver on board since September 2001

Mark Underhill is a 1995 graduate of the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, and was called to the Bar of the Law Society of British Columbia in 1996. He practised with a leading litigation boutique for ten years before establishing his own firm, Underhill Boies Parker, in 2005. His areas of interest focus on administrative, environmental, aboriginal and constitutional law, and he maintains a broad general civil litigation practice.

He has experience in all levels of court, including the British Columbia Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, Federal Court of Canada, and Supreme Court of Canada.

Mark has taught environmental law at the University of Victoria in the faculties of law and environmental studies, and is a former chair of the UVic Law School Alumni Association. He is a frequent speaker at legal educational conferences in his practice areas, and has published a number of articles, particularly in the area of administrative law.

Mahmoud Virani CA, on board since September 2008

Mahmoud Virani, a native of Tanzania, immigrated to Canada in 1976 after obtaining his CA designation in England. He started his own accounting practice in 1991 after leaving an International firm where he had been a partner for 5 years.

Mahmoud has worked closely with not for profit organizations throughout his accounting career and he currently provides auditing, accounting and consulting services to several such Societies in Vancouver. He is currently The Director of Finance for the Dr Peter AIDS Foundation. In his capacity as Director of Finance for the Institute of Media Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS) from 2001 to 2005, he also worked on and participated in on-site evaluations on International media projects in Cambodia and Afghanistan.

He developed and presented the curriculum for an online course at BCIT called Financial Management for Not for Profit Organizations in 2007.

His community work includes being the Treasurer and then Chairperson of A Loving Spoonful and Vice Chairperson of the Association of Ismaili Businesspersons of BC. He is also one of the senior advisors to the Vancouver Initiative for AIDS Innovation.

Ardith Walkem, Barrister & Solicitor, Walkem and Associates, Vancouver – on board from September 2009