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JENNIFER KENNEDY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 BCBUSINESS 83 A s someone who spends much of his time studying and protect- ing wildlife, Jasper Lament recognizes that he's come full circle. CEO of the Nature Trust of British Columbia, Lament was born in Vancouver's South Gran- ville area, but his family moved out to the Fraser Valley when he was young and instilled in him a love of the outdoors. Fishing trips in B.C.'s Inte- rior with his dad were a regu- lar occurrence, along with family vacations and camping trips on Vancouver Island. "I became fascinated by nature and by fish," says Lament, who ended up doing a PhD in fish biology at the University of Miami. "Along the way, I realized I wanted to work in conserva- tion rather than research," he adds. "As I was finishing up my PhD, I looked for opportunities to break into the conservation business and subsequently spent most of my career doing that." Lament returned home and worked in environmental risk management with Crown corporation BC Hydro before becoming CEO of the Nature Trust, which manages eco- logically significant land in the province, in 2012. Ironically, he and his wife found themselves living in South Granville. "We had our first baby, and I was taking him for walks in the same park that my mom took me every day when I was a baby," Lament says. But as the family eventually expanded to five, he knew he had to make like his parents did and flee for (literally) greener pastures. Instead of the Valley, he chose to venture up the Strait of Georgia to Powell River. These days, both his oc- cupation and his downtime involve plenty of observing nature. "I'm always watching wildlife, whatever I'm doing," Lament says. "Yesterday, I was on a phone call, and I had to interrupt it to say, Oh, wow, there's a humpback whale, as I was sitting at my desk looking out at the Salish Sea." Conservationist Jasper Lament is in his environment both at work and at home by Nathan Caddell W E E K E N D WA R R IOR WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT Jasper Lament is CEO of the Nature Trust of British Columbia, a nonprofit conservation agency. The Vancouver-based Nature Trust and its 20 employees purchase land and conserve its biological diversity. The organization, now in its 50th year of operation, has more than 500 properties across the province, accounting for some 178,000 acres. "We raise money from a com- bination of private donors and government grants and businesses," Lament says. "Basically, anyone interested in helping to con- serve land for fish, wildlife, people, plants. And then we care for it." –N.C. NURTURE AND NATURE Lament's work reflects his roots in the great outdoors Wild Things O FF T H E C LO C K ( quality time ) Wildlife is just part of the deal where Lament lives. Not that he's complaining. "There are lots of bald eagles around here, great blue herons," he says. "In Powell River, they're kind of just around. Deer come through our yard, occasionally a black bear." But even though he's in a better location for it, Lament can't do the kind of fishing he enjoyed a decade ago—the days of spending 10 to 12 hours out on a boat with his friends are out the window. "Now with kids, their attention span is a lot