Richard Thomas spent his “Alberta Years” of environmental activism from about the 1980s to the early 2000s.
One of his primary achievements was Making Connections: Alberta’s Neotropical Migratory Birds, a 24-page booklet explaining the plight and importance of hundreds of species of birds migrating between the tropics and the temperate zones of the Americas, with Canada’s boreal playing a key role in breeding cycles. The self-published booklet, subsequently reprinted by the AWA, was written in the early 1990s and was used extensively to try and defend the boreal forest from massive clearcutting by large foreign-owned pulp mills which had been invited into the province starting in 1989.
It is Richard’s claim that AWA, through the support of Cliff Wallis, initiated his life as an environmental rebel when Cliff approached him at the geology department to review geotechnical documents associated with a proposed dam on the Oldman River.
Richard’s crowning achievement has been the work he’s done in Newfoundland, against considerable odds, to raise the stature of Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve to World Heritage Site status. Richard retired in 2017, and he continues to reside in Portugal Cove South, a barren spot, but a paradise for a devout birder like Richard.
