Success! The federal government announced plans to protect the South Okanagan on July 2, 2019.

Canada’s lone desert, the South Okanagan-Similkameen, is a unique landscape of dry grasslands and open ponderosa pine forests in southern British Columbia.

The area has more endangered species than anywhere else in the province, including creatures found nowhere else in Canada such as Lyall’s Mariposa Lily, Flammulated Owl and Great Basin Spadefoot Toad. Other animals natural to the area, like the Burrowing Owl, Sharp-tailed Grouse, and White-tailed Jackrabbit, have already been lost due to habitat loss.

As development continues in the Okanagan, we need to permanently protect this unique treasure with a new National Park Reserve.

On July 2, the federal government announced a memorandum of understanding that included the government of British Columbia and the Sylix/Okanagan Nation. Negotiations will now begin to finalize the boundaries and the formal agreements required to make the area into a park reserve.