Briony Penn

Briony Penn (born October 16, 1960) is a Canadian author, educator, geographer, artist, and environmental activist. She graduated in 1981 with a B.A. in geography/anthropology from the University of British Columbia and in 1988 with a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Edinburgh. Penn is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at the University of Victoria. In 1997 she co-founded The Land Conservancy of British Columbia and serves on its board. Her 2015 book The Real Thing: The Natural History of Ian McTaggart Cowan won the 2016 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. Penn wrote two books in collaboration with Wa’xaid (Cecil Paul), an elder of the Haisla people.

Quotes

• There is no doubt in my mind about which type of vulture I want attendant upon my death. Any funeral industry catalogue will provide you with a long list of the unwelcome vultures. A book on the birds of the west coast will supply you with the one species I would be happy pick over my bones — the Turkey Vulture. There are few selfless acts toward the natural world available to human beings and the one that would cause us the least inconvenience is illegal — the simple act of being consumed by nature's prime scavengers.
  • A Year on the Wild Side. Horsdal & Schubart. 1999. p. 124. ISBN 0-920663-68-0.  p.124, 1st 3 sentences; p. 124, last sentence

• In these interviews I got a privileged glimpse into his century — and what a century. In mathematical terms, the population-savvy Cowan would have noted that 1910 to 2010 represents one of the steepest trajectories in rates of extinction the world has ever experienced, rivaling the late Cretaceous. In his lifetime the number of humans had escalated from 1.75 billion to just under 7 billion, consuming proportionally more resources than in the past ten millennia to achieve a rising standard of living but also an obscene inequity. In poetic terms, Cowan the photographer and writer had captured the beauty and diversity of the wildlife and landscapes devoured. The loss of them was profound. What captured my imagination was that he was both early witness to and participant in these changes. He was the last of the naturalist-hunters and the first of the alarmed scientists.
  • "Preface". The Real Thing: The Natural History of Ian Mactaggart Cowan. Rocky Mountain Books Ltd. p. xi. ISBN 978-1-77160-070-5. 

• The herring in Fulford Harbour had disappeared by around 1983. They just suddenly stopped. They were just nowhere.
  • (March 1, 2022)"CHI Herring School: Dr. Briony Penn". Conservancy Hornby Island, YouTube. (quote at 12:26 of 30:45)

External links

• Biography of Briony Penn at her personal website
• ABC BookWorld article