A West Kootenay-based environmental group is stepping up to call attention to that fact and to lobby for the creation of three new parks in one of the rarest ecosystems in the world. Valhalla Wilderness Society (VWS) has spent the last 50 years protecting important wilderness across the province but the focus has shifted in the last two decades to the inland temperate rainforest. The area receives less than half the protection of BC’s coastal temperate rainforest, said VWS wildlife biologist Amber Peters, despite its globally rare status. “Three park proposals of the inland temperate rainforest have been mapped to include the most biodiverse areas, considered ‘true rainforest,’ from the Quesnel Lake area to the south end of BC’s interior wetbelt.” The three proposed parks are the Selkirk Mountains ancient forest, Quesnel Lake wilderness and Rainbow-Jordan wilderness, representing ecosystems of globally significant biodiversity.