Killarney students make 1,400 paper cranes
and $1,500 to save Burns Bog

by Peter Chappell

On March 27, 2001, the Killarney Secondary School students’ Environment Club presented an art piece they made by folding 1,400 paper cranes, plus a cheque for $1,500, to the Burns Bog Conservation Society. The art piece, made in the shape of two sandhill cranes in flight, resembles the Burns Bog Conservation Society’s logo. The students, who make money through their school-wide beverage-container recycling program, want to help save Burns Bog. In addition to donating $1,500, their goal was to fold 1,000 paper cranes, based on the Japanese story that then their wish would come true. Eliza Olson, president of the Burns Bog Conservation Society, is very grateful. "This donation from killarney students will definitely help our efforts to put Burns Bog into public ownership. The bog is one of the world’s most rare and threatened wetland ecosystems. Thank you, Killarney!"

Every second Friday after school, the dedicated students of Killarney’s Environment Club emptied and cleaned 30 recycling bins placed throughout the school. They sorted all the beverage containers for pick-up by a recycling company. The $1,500 slated for Burns Bog represents 30,000 beverage containers removed from the waste stream.

Burns Bog is the largest raised bog on the West Coast of the Americas and is the largest urban wilderness in North America. It provides a multitude of ecosystem services including habitat for hundreds of plants and animals, such as rare and endangered green-backed herons, peregrine falcons, and pacific water shrews, the great sandhill crane, a blue-listed species (vulnerable), uses Burns Bog as a nesting ground.

The Burns Bog Conservation Society is a non-profit society dedicated to the conservation of Burns Bog.

Peter Chappell teaches at Killarney Secondary School, Vancouver.