News/Reports

Key Biodiversity Areas : Ian Adams … FER AGM. June 2023

 

Note: From Ian Adams: I realized that my presentations to the Friends of ER grossly under-represented the number of Key Biodiversity Areas that encompass, in whole or in part, an Ecological Reserve. As you may recall, my involvement with KBAs is all taxa except birds, which are the purview of Birds Canada. This includes the transition of existing Important Bird Areas to KBAs. In my presentation to Friends, I only looked at the KBAs that I’m involved with and not Ecological Reserves that overlap with existing Important Bird Areas. A bad mistake on my part!
I think I stated that there are 13 KBAs covering 17 Ecological Reserves, plus probably all 4 ERs in Haida Gwaii. We all were surprised at how low these numbers are.
When I included IBAs that currently meet KBA criteria and include at least a portion of a Provincial Park and/or Ecological Reserve, those numbers rise to 60 KBAs partially or wholly in 131 Provincial Parks and Ecological Reserves. Bit of a difference!!
I will look at this again with just ERs and get back to you with updated figures. The 60 in 131 includes Provincial Parks so is an over-representation with respect to ERs. I’ll send a table with what ERs have KBAs proposed for them and what taxa are “triggers.”