1993

FALL

Editorial: This World of Wounds

Hornby Oaks revisited

Marbled Murrelet Team Recovers

Douglas Fir Zone System Plan

Dr. Vladimir Krajina, 1905-1993

Reconsider the Clayoquot Decision!

Sierra Club Mapping Project Highlights

1993

SPRING

Editorial: Our Campaign to Save a Bit of Backyard Biodiversity

Hornby Island's Threatened Garry Oak Grove

Marbled Murrelet Population Trends

Mount Tuam On the Road to Development (3rd in a series)

Protection Imminent for Khutzeymateen

 

FALL 1993

 

Dr. Vladimir Krajina—In Memoriam

 

Dr. Vladimir Krajina, an eminent ecologist and Canadian, died on June 1, 1993, in Vancouver, at the age of 88.  Dr. Krajina was the proponent of British Columbia’s ecological reserve program and the creator of its biogeoclimatic classification system.

 

Vladimir Krajina was born on January 30, 1905 in Slavice, near Trebic, Czech Republic.  After obtaining his doctorate at Charles University in Prague (1927), Krajina undertook studies of plant communities in the Mlynica Valley, in the Tatry Mountains.  In 1934 he was appointed associate professor of plant systematics at Charles University.  World War II interrupted all university programs in the country.  Dr Krajina became a leader of the Czech resistance movement.  He established radio contact with the exiled Czech government in England and supplied the allied forces with valuable intelligence until his capture in 1943.  He barely escaped execution at the hands of the Nazis.

 

After the war, Dr. Krajina was appointed full professor and head of the geobotany department at Charles University.  He became secretary general of the National Socialist Party, the official opposition in the Czech Republic.  When the Communist Party destabilized Czechoslovakia in February 1948, Krajina was forced to flee the country. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

 

A political refugee in Canada, Dr. Krajina was appointed special lecturer in the department of botany at the University of British Columbia in 1949.  In 1958, he was made full professor.  After retiring in 1973, Dr. Krajina continued his scientific work as professor emeritus.  Among the awards and honours he received were the George Lawson Medal, from the Canadian Botanical Association (1972), the Order of Canada (1981), and the Order of the White Lion from the Czech Republic (1990).  Issue 64 of the Czech Botanical Society journal Preslia, dedicated to Dr. Krajina, contains a comprehensive botanical bibliography.

 

For some 40 years, Dr. Krajina and his many students investigated the botanical diversity of the province, systematizing the relationship between plant communities, soils and climatic regimes into the biogeoclimatic zones that are today the foundation for any regional natural history study.  More significantly, Krajina’s biogeoclimatic classification has provided the framework for ecologically-sound forest management practices in BC.

 

In the cause of natural area conservation, Dr. Krajina employed his considerable political skills to obtain passage of the Ecological Reserve Act by the BC Legislative Assembly in 1971, based on the principles established by the International Biological Program.  His oft-stated goal for the program was to protect one per cent of BC’s land area in ecological reserves.  The 131 reserves created to date protect some 160,000 hectares, of which one-third are marine areas.  In over 20 years, we have realised little more than one-tenth of Dr. Krajina’s conservation vision.

Prepared with the assistance of Adolf Ceska

 

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Reconsider the Clayoquot Decision!  Clayoquot Sound: Let’s Have a Second Look

While I heartily commend the NDP Government for its commitment to protect the Khutzeymateen Valley, the Tatshenshini, and the Megin watershed, I must condemn their unfortunate decision on Clayoquot Sound.

 

In the forests of BC we are now witnessing a replay of the scenario on the East Coast, when government officials assured the public that the fish resource as being well looked after.

 

An important difference with the old-grown forest in BC is that while the fisheries might recover in relatively few years, these ancient trees are 200 to over 2000 years old.  Cutting them is virtually a mining operation; we shall never see the likes of them again.

 

Wit the disappearance of the old growth goes countless species dependent upon these ecosystems.  Our removal of so much old growth so fast is certain to cause the extinction of many species.

 

Some of the evidence for this comes from the study of islands.  An island one-tenth the area of an otherwise similar island is likely to have about half the number of species.  The small “islands” of ancient forest we are protecting are much less than a tenth of Vancouver Island.  The outcome is predictable.  One way out of this dilemma might be to log in such a way that old-growth characteristics are maintained.  This has been done successfully through selective logging.

 

For more evidence of the tenuous existence of species, consider the potential fate of many of the top predators such as grizzly bear, cougar, wolverines, and wolves.  Wolves, for example, are thought to need about 5000 ha. per wolf, and at least 50 wolves are needed to protect the population in perpetuity.  The wolves, in turn, depend on deer, which need old growth forests in severe winters.  It is doubtful whether the government’s plan to protect Clayoquot Sound will be sufficient to protect species such as the wolf.

 

Who cares?  Future generations!  No wonder so many of the blockaders at Clayoquot are in their teens and twenties.  People the age of those in Cabinet will not have so long to live with the legacy we are creating—landslides, silted rivers and estuaries, destroyed topsoil and salmon runs, tree farm monocultures, extinct ecosystems and species, huge areas of poorly restocked land.

 

Of course, it is very difficult for a government to reverse such a decision (though even W.A.C. Bennett was famous for his second look).  I imagine the fishing people of the East Coast wish their governments had taken a second look at the fist populations a decade or more ago.

 

Premier Mike Harcourt must be commended for endorsing the national plan to set aside 12 per cent of the land of the province in protected status. But he should consider that only about 4.5 per cent of the ancient, large-treed forest on Vancouver Island is presently protected.  The 12 per cent goal must not be mostly the easily-acquired bog, ice, rock and tundra.  Logically it would include 12 per cent of the ancient forest of Vancouver Island.  To approach this goal, with so little ancient forest left on Vancouver Island, all of Clayoquot Sound must be saved.

 

The government plans to have yet-undefined special forest management at Clayoquot.  Recently I visited a special management zone at Cold Creek, near the Sound, where there were supposed to be cutblocks of only 30 ha, with intervening leave strips.  The strips predictably blew down, leaving a cutblock of over 100 ha.

 

Forest ecologist Jerry Franklin points out it is not a good idea to have many small cutblocks; this fragments the forest and drastically changes the remaining old growth.  Better, he says, go for large cutblocks, preferably selectively logged, and large protected areas.  Anyone who has flown over southeast Vancouver Island or who has looked at satellite pictures can see the enormous cutblocks.  Clayoquot is the best chance for a large protected forest area on the island.

 

 

German foresters have recently stopped the clearcutting of their forests because it is so detrimental to soil health that the productivity of the forests is failing.  Even-aged stands of one or few species results in impoverished soil microfauna and flora.  A rich assemblage is essential for a healthy forest.

 

A new forest act in Sweden balances ecological with industrial needs.  Forestry will try to emulate the ecological model closely: no more few-species, even-aged stands, and no more clearcuts.

 

A few years ago forests royal commissioner Peter Pearse determined that low-elevation, high-quality old growth would be gone in about 17 years.  In other words, since the new forest will not be ready for cutting for years, many loggers will soon be out of work due to lack of trees—whether more areas are protected or not.

 

To protect all of Clayoquot Sound now merely accepts the inevitable and assures a flourishing tourist industry around Tofino and a chance to save a significant amount of our rich biological heritage for future generations.  Loggers must be retrained to make high value-added products from the wood of our precious ancient forests.’

 

And if our society is serious about protecting biodiversity, clearcut logging must be banned on the coast.

Bristol Foster

(This essay appeared in a different form in the Victoria Times-Colonist.)

 

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SPRING 1993

 

Mount Tuam On the Road to Development (3rd in a series)

Sail away from Swartz Bay, near Victoria, on a BC ferry, and you gaze upon the slopes of Mt. Tuam, at the south end of Salt Spring Island. 

 

The ecological reserve ranges across the lower portion of its southeast aspect—probably the largest sea-to-sky sample of this forest type remaining relatively undisturbed on the island.  The sparsely-populated vicinity seems to confirm the myth that the Gulf Islands are quiet, lazy places where you watch butterflies in meadows.  The quiet is about to be shattered by the roar of the bulldozer, as subdivision developments loom for private properties west of the reserve.

 

Last August the Islands Trust granted a development variance permit (DVP) to the landowner next to the reserve, to allow development of the property into five lots without access to a public highway.  The property is officially “water access only”, and previous development applications were refused because a by-law prohibits subdivisions that don’t front a public highway.  The road, which used to be part of the ecological reserve, is apparently not approvable by the Ministry of Highways because it hasn’t been fully “gazetted” as a public highway.

 

What’s so different about this development proposal that the Trust expedited it?  Salt Spring trustee Bob Andrew, also the reserve’s volunteer warden, cites improved density (reduced 50 per cent), a 20 per cent donation of parkland, covenants against tree cutting, a 20-year ban on upgrading the road thorough the reserve, the Trust’s involvement in the layout of lots.

 

Andrew says he had concerns about traffic impacts on the ecological reserve, but outsiders on dirt bikes or in ATVs are, he believes, more likely to cause damage to the ecosystem.  To effectively restrict outside access, a locked gate is needed, says Andrew, although BC’s regional land administration manager has apparently ruled out a gate—because it’s a public road.  And, says Andrew, a full-fig upgrade of the road is highly unlikely because Ministry of Highways doesn’t way the expense, especially if the island, as is bruited, incorporates as a municipality and becomes responsible for roads.

 

Residents of Mount Tuam formed a group to investigate the issue. Briony Penn reports that some members feel the status of the road wasn’t adequately addressed by the Trustees; the title research was done by the developer.  If the track that winds in and out of the reserve and ends up at the foot of the slope at Cape Keppel is, indeed, not really a public highway—or why did Highways reject the subdivision application?—then the Trust, in granting the DVP, buying into the fiction that the road won’t be used, may be compounding an error originally made by taking the right-of-way out the ecological reserve, with no public review and no compensatory addition, to become part BC Hydro right-of-way, partly under the jurisdiction of Crown Lands, part under the Department of Transport (that’s the gazetted part).  By accident or design?

 

On February 9 the Friends of Mount Tuam met with the Islands Trustees and the developer of the Cape Keppel subdivision.  “Status of the road aside,” Briony writes, “We hoped that conservation covenants would be attached to the lots to restrict vehicle use, especially heavy machinery, through the reserve, control land use on these properties, and create a buffer strip around the reserve.  Imagine our shock to learn that the covenant would provide for a 50-metre buffer, no restrictions on vehicle use, a vague tree-cutting restriction applicable to the backs of the lots, with no penalties [since extended to the upper halves of the lots], and no monitoring of adherence to the covenant”.  The suggestion that the Friends of Mount Tuam could assist the Trust in a monitoring role was “met with horror”.  The possibility of a covenant restricting upgrading of the road forever was bruited, but the ability to enforce this covenant is questionable.

 

“We believe the handling o the reserve demonstrates bias against the public right to a say in the use of public lands, and a bias in favour of private—that is to say, developers’—rights of access to those lands.

 

“Now that a subdivision application is pending, there is no basis for more public input.  The way is paved for two other properties to be developed.  In future, the slopes of Mount Tuam could be girdled with a public highway and subdivisions leading to further incremental erosion of fast-disappearing Gulf Island ecosystems.

 

This is an issue worth pursuing,” Briony concludes.  “The slopes of Mount Tuam include a large are of endangered Gulf Islands forest ecosystems.”

 

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Protection of the Khutzeymateen is Imminent

 

The BC Government is moving quickly to protect the Khutzeymateen Valley and its grizzlies.  The plan is to have a protective designation and an interim protection plan in place when the bears come out of hibernation.  Mid-April is Cabinet’s current target for orders-in-council designating the area.

 

The government’s commitment to protect the grizzlies and their habitat in the 44,000-hectare is clearly voiced in the interim protection plan that BC Parks’ northern offices drafted and circulated in January.  The government intends:

· to license only two charter tour operators

· only water-based transport and accommodation—no land-based facilities

· no unescorted visits

· severe restrictions on use of the estuary

· no visitors at all above the estuary, and no motor vehicles to be used by fisheries officers and others visiting in the lie of duty

· no sport hunting or fishing

· buy-out of existing traplines

 

Scenic overflights will, however, be allowed in the short term, according to the first draft plan.  To protect the character of the sanctuary, we would prefer airplanes not be permitted below the surrounding ridges. The difficulty lies in processing the restriction through the federal Department of Transport.

 

Provisions for long-term management of Khutzeymateen Inlet—the common approach to the valley—are missing from the plan, as well.

 

The most unusual element of the protection proposal, through, is the Gitsee peoples’ parallel authority, evidenced in the draft plan’s second goal, to protect traditional cultural activities.

The Gitsee will regulate their own:

· subsistence hunting

· gathering of food plants

· fishing

· logging for traditional cultural use

 

Wardens of the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary will be recruited from the Gitsees, and the protecting authority has a verbal commitment to consult with the hereditary chief on management matters.  Lone hunters, could hypothetically, shoot animals under the noses of visitors sworn and enjoined from unescorted travel or hunting.

 

The Friends’ consulting bear biologist, Wayne McCrory, enjoys good working relations wit the hereditary chief and several elders of the Gitsees, a Tsimshian tribe based in Port Simpson.  Wayne says the Gitsees would not hunt bears.  They would take cedar trees from the inlet only.  Given their claim to own the land—the Gitsees have three small reserves in the valley and participate in the Tsimshian land claim—the band would not tolerate any restriction on their traditional use of the valley.  They would walk, and the process would falter.

 

Designation options for the Khutzeymateen include ecological reserve, although in private officials say it isn’t an option, because to the Gitsee the prohibition on hunting or gathering makes it “occupied Crown Land”, which may prejudice their claim to aboriginal title.

 

At this time the options include:

· Class A Provincial Park under the Park Act and regs, administered by BC Parks

· Recreation Area under the Park Act and regs, under BC Parks

· Wilderness Area under the Forest Act, section 5.1, administered by the BC Forest Service

· Wildlife Management Area under section 12 of the Land Act, administered by the Ministry of Environment

 

The Friends corresponded with the study team, making our case for the strongest possible protection, which is Class A Park, with all the clout and control the Park Act allows.

 

Other troubling aspects of the process relate, first, to the lack of information about the Gitsees’ intended level of use and, second, to the limited opportunity for public intervention.  The process is supposed to be local, and the usual displays and public meetings were staged in three places, all on the north coast. Study team organizers have, however, proven candid and responsive to our queries and concerns.  Negotiations with the Gitsees for this unusual management regime have been difficult, they admit.  The natives want to make agreements in principles, while the conversation community wants the terms of use tightly hedged in.

 

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