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Thursday September 4, 2025
Trouble in the Headwaters
Documentary Film Screening
September 4, 2025 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
YOU’RE INVITED!
Hello friends of PWPA and the Interior Watershed Task Force. Join us as we partner with filmmaker, Dan J. Pierce and the Narwhal, for an eye opening film and an important discussion about forestry and flooding in BC. Trouble in the Headwaters is a hard-hitting documentary that investigates the 2018 Grand Forks flood and reveals the connection to clearcut logging in the headwaters of the Kettle River Basin.
The film follows Dr. Younes Alila, a professor of forest hydrology at the University of British Columbia, and two retired loggers as they travel through the Kettle River Watershed and unravel the science connecting industrial clearcutting and the growing risk of flooding, landslides and drought across British Columbia.
Interact with the filmmaker, Daniel Pierce, and the main subject, Dr. Younes Alila, as well as local experts at a reception before the film and post film with a Q &A discussion.
Local Panelists:
Sonja Furstenau-Former Green Party leader
Mike Morris – former BC Solicitor General Former Minister of Public Safety
Dave Gill – RFP, Westbank First Nations, Ntityix Resources
Elliott Tonasket – Indigenous Knowledge Counsel member for the Syilx Okanagan Nation
Dr. Younes Alila-Hydrologist
Dan J. Pierce- Filmmaker
Date/time: Thursday, September 4th, 6:15-9:00
Location: Mary Irwin Theatre, Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Ave., Kelowna BC V1Y6Z1
Entry: By Donation
Tickets: FREE by DONATION
LINK FOR TICKETS:
Link and Button below
Trouble in the Headwaters Film Screening | The Box Office
Doors open @ 6:15, Reception, Screening @ 7:00pm followed by Q&A with panelists
FILM SYNOPSIS
The City of Grand Forks has faced an onslaught of destructive floods. More than 100 families have been displaced and tens of millions of dollars have been spent on flood infrastructure. But new science has revealed that the root cause of the floods lies hundreds of kilometres upstream, where timber companies have logged vast swaths of the surrounding watersheds. We follow UBC hydrologist and engineer Dr. Younes Alila deep into the forest headwaters to reveal how clear-cutting has unleashed a vicious cycle of flooding and drought on rural BC.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT FROM DANIEL PIERCE
“It’s become clear that the costs of clear-cutting now far outweigh the benefits. Dr. Alila’s science has exposed a dirty secret of the BC government and the timber industry – that they have wildly underestimated the flood risk being created by their logging. Now is the time to get together and have a real conversation about stepping into a new forestry paradigm in this province, one that protects communities and puts people to work restoring forests back to ecological health.”
SONIA FURSTENAU -Educator, Writer and former Green Party Leader
As MLA for Cowichan Valley and party leader, SonIa is a career educator, conservationist, organizer and activist.
MIKE MORRIS -former BC Solicitor General and Minister of Public Safety
Mike is a former BC Solicitor General and Minister of Public safety and a retired RCMP Superintendent who served most of his 32-year career in the northern half of BC, with significant experience in developing and maintaining emergency plans associated to floods and wildfires. As a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of forests, he used his decades of experience as an investigator to conduct a province-wide assessment on the loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat. He continues his research into how the cumulative effects of BC forest practices have placed BC at risk of increased frequency, magnitude, and duration of flood events, increased risk of landslides, and increased risk of wildfires.
DAVE GILL– General Manager of Forestry
Dave Gill has been the General Manager of Ntityix Resources LP since fall 2013. NRLP is a natural resource company owned by Westbank First Nation via the Ntityix Development group located in the central Okanagan Valley. He and his team coordinate the planning, operations, silviculture, community and stakeholder engagement on the forestry tenures held by Westbank First Nation. Dave is a director on the BC Community Forest Association and the Silver Lake Forest Education Society where public education and stakeholder engagement are strong guiding principles for both organizations. Since graduating from UBC Forestry, Dave has worked for industry, his own consultancy, government, and First Nations in various locations across British Columbia. For the past 20 years, he and his family have called Kelowna home. Today Dave’s primary interest is in working with the Westbank Community in developing ways to incorporate Indigenous values into forest management, to earn the support of, and opportunities for, the community he works for, and to build resiliency, health and future opportunities in the forests he works in.
| ELLIOTT TONASKET Indigenous Knowledge Counsel member for the Syilx Okanagan Nation Elliot Tonasket is syilx knowledge keeper who now consults for the Penticton Band and other syilx nations on land management issues. He was a 2-term councillor for the Penticton Band council before retiring to focus on dialogue between governments, the community and licensees, especially when it comes to forestry issues. One of the projects he is particularly fond of is the creation of Syilx Forestry Standards, an indigenous value re-writ of the Forest and Range Practice Act documents placing nature first, commercial profiteering second. The objective of the Syilx forestry standards is to provide a framework within which forestry practices can be guided by Syilx principles and values. Through the collective development and implementation of the Syilx forestry standards, a commitment to ethical forestry practices within this framework is made by all licensees operating on Syilx Territory DANIEL J. PIERCE – Writer, Director, Producer, Editor Daniel Pierce is a filmmaker and journalist based in Vancouver, B.C. For more than a decade, he has documented the forests of British Columbia and the timber industry for his Heartwood documentary series. He’s crowdfunded $50,000, garnered hundreds of thousands of online views, and been published in The Narwhal, Vice and Seeker. His first long-form documentary, The Hollow Tree, was broadcast on Knowledge Network and CBC Documentary. Dan also co-wrote, produced and hosted a six-part CBC podcast called Pressure Cooker, which was nominated for a Webby and named one of Apple’s Top Podcasts of 2022. He also works as a story editor in non-fiction television, including multiple docuseries for Knowledge Network (Transplant Stories and Wildfire). |
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| DR. YOUNES ALILA – Professor of Forest Hydrology, UBC Younes Alila is a professor of hydrology in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC-Vancouver, and a registered professional engineer with EGBC. He teaches and conducts research on climate and land use change effects on water resources. His work over the last 20 years on forests’ effects on floods challenged a century-old wisdom on how forests affect large floods. His work has been the subject of peer reviewed discussions and generated press releases by the American Geophysical Union. Younes served as an expert witness in three court cases: Randy Saugstad vs. Tolko industries Ltd. (logging effects on hydrology, 2015), Waterway Houseboats Ltd. vs. British Columbia (flood hydrology unrelated to logging, 2018), and Ray Chipeniuk and Sonia Sawchuk vs. BC Timber Sales & Triantha (logging effects on hydrology, 2022). Younes continues to do research in the Kootenay and Kettle River Basin. |
| See you there, please invite family, friends and like-minded community members, INTERIOR WATERSHED TASK FORCE www.IWTF.org IWTF@gmail.com Facebook IWTF For more info call: 250 767-6456 |