The Castle Giant, over 5 metres in diameter, grows in the spectacular Castle Grove in the unprotected Upper Walbran Valley. Photo: Mark Unrau.
Expand Protected Areas Based on Science, Sustain BC Jobs
Vancouver Island is a truly special place. It has some of the world’s finest remaining ancient temperate rainforests; one of the highest qualities of life, and one of the most environmentally conscious populations. Because of all this, Vancouver Island presents one of the best conservation opportunities in the world.This educational report is about a science-based “Vancouver Island Conservation Vision.”
The best available data and latest scientific methodology have been used to create a visionary protected areas proposal that, if implemented, would greatly help to sustain Vancouver Island’s native biodiversity and high quality of life over the long term. This systematic scientific approach to prioritizing lands for protection over entire regions, based on biological criteria, and designing protected areas boundaries based on conservation biology principles, is the most rational approach to conservation. That’s why it is increasingly being used throughout the world by governments, land managers, and environmental organizations. The resulting proposal is called a “Conservation Areas Design” or CAD.
Vancouver Island Conservation Vision comes none too soon
Unprotected giant red cedar in the Upper Walbran Valley. Photo: Jeremy Sean Williams
At the current rate of industrial logging on Vancouver Island, there will be simply no options for protecting any more significant tracts of ancient forests on the Island within a couple of decades. As of 2005, only one-fourth of the original ancient forests of Vancouver Island remain - the other three-fourths have been logged off and largely converted into second and third-growth tree plantations that generally lack the old-growth dependent species of the original forests.
Currently, 13% of Vancouver Island’s land base is protected. However, that only translates into 6% of the Island’s low elevation, productive big-tree forests. Much of our protected lands are alpine tundra, subalpine forests, and coastal bog forests. While those ecosystems are important, it’s a simple fact that the low elevation productive forests are where most of the Island’s biodiversity lives, where most of the big trees grow, and where industrial development is the greatest threat.
The current protection level of 6% of Vancouver Island’s productive forests is inadequate for the long-term conservation of biodiversity. The new and rapidly developing discipline of conservation biology shows that small, isolated protected areas - like all of Vancouver Island’s parks with the exception of Strathcona - become “islands of extinction” as developments occur around them, such as clearcuts, logging roads, agriculture, and suburban sprawl. What this means is that species will continue to go extinct even within our parks and protected areas if they’re too small and isolated from other natural areas to sustain viable populations. Wide-ranging species like wolves and goshawks and sensitive species like marbled murrelets (an old growth nesting seabird) are particularly at risk.
The Vancouver Island Conservation Vision proposes 41% of Vancouver Island be fully protected from development. This is about the same percentage of land that conservation biologists have recommended be protected province-wide.
The time is long overdue for a reinvigorated citizen-lead push for the expansion of protected areas across Vancouver Island to meet the minimum biological needs of the ecosystems and to break the arbitrary, non-scientific 13% cap on protection set for Vancouver Island by successive BC governments for over a decade.
Because conservation can’t happen on a large scale over the long run unless the immediate needs of people are also met, we’re also proposing that BC’s system of forestry be revised so that forestry employment levels can be maintained even as the unsustainable rate of logging is reduced.
By banning the export of raw logs out of the country, establishing regional log markets where logs are made available for value-added wood manufacturers who employ more workers, and expanding Community Forest tenures where the benefits of logging are maximized and retained in rural communities, the manufacturing sector can be expanded while cut levels are reduced. By protecting public lands from privatization and restoring and strengthening laws to protect workers, well-paid union jobs can be sustained. At the same time, Vancouver Island’s tourism industry, our number one employer, will also benefit from an expanded parks system and a reduced rate of cut.
Most importantly, it must be recognized that the majority of land on Vancouver Island is also unceded First Nations territory. First Nations are the rightful owners of their lands. Only meaningful consultation and accommodation of First Nations interests by the BC government will ensure that adequate conservation measures can take effect and persist over time.
The time is overdue for the BC government to undertake a renewed, systematic Protected Areas Strategy for Vancouver Island, based on conservation biology science.
