ER 15, Saturna Island, Terrestrial Ecosystem Inventory, 2001

Ecological Reserve 15, Saturna Island, Terrestrial Ecosystem Inventory, by Harvey Janszen, 2001

For access to the complete report please click on this link to the file ER15TE.

In the summer of 1996 the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks undertook a project to inventory the untenured Crown land of Saturna Island for a proposed woodlot license under the Forest Act. Two of the quarter sections covered are adjacent to the reserve. A bioterrain and ecosystem map was produced for this area in conformance with the Ministry’s Standards for Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping in British Columbia (Ecosystem Working Group, 1995). In January of 1998 I proposed to the South Vancouver Island District of B.C. Parks extending this mapping to the reserve. Chris Kissinger, Resource Officer for the District, arranged pretyping bioterraine units on 1:16,000 colour air photos by a surficial geologist and monorestitution of the pretyped polygon boundaries on a 1:5000 TRIM-based map in the fall of 1998.

Objectives of the study were to:

• visit 100% of the polygons in the reserve and complete a minimum of one detailed ecological plot for each polygon;

• do reconnaissance level checks throughout each polygon after initial classification to confirm the proportion and structural stage of each ecosystem unit;

• produce a biophysical map (1:5000) and legend;

• produce a description of the biophysical units mapped;

• identify and map provincially significant flora and ecosystem units;

• compare and correlate the results with the 1996 work on adjacent Crown land.