May 27, 2021
Conservationists are urging the BC government to commit to adopting Canada’s protected areas targets and to support the key funding to protect 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 of its land and marine areas, at a minimum.
Currently, 15% of BC’s land area is within legislated protected areas, and 13% of Canada’s land area.
BC conservation groups are also urging the province to:
Provide the critical financing for First Nations Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA’s) plans and private land acquisition including to protect old-growth forests
Embrace the new federal funding of $2.3 billion for protected areas across Canada, of which BC’s share of a couple hundred million dollars or more could save much of remaining old-growth in BC – a golden opportunity to largely end the War in the Woods, if accepted by the BC government.
Ensure stringent protected areas standards, and
Implement protection targets for all ecosystem types that also includes key forest productivity distinctions (ie. the small vs large old-growth forest types, such as subalpine old-growth vs the lower elevation grandest stands).
This call to action is especially timely as currently the BC government is developing new old-growth forest management policies and is deciding on where old-growth logging deferrals and ultimately protected areas should be.
“The rest of the world is moving forward to greatly expand protected areas, and the BC government must get on board this movement to protect endangered ecosystems and its grandest old-growth forests. The success of Canada in meeting its national and international protected areas commitments will be fundamentally determined by the provinces, including BC. Will BC join the North American leadership movement to solve the intertwined climate and biodiversity crisis or get left behind as an anti-environmental conservation laggard?” stated Ken Wu, Executive Director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance.
BC has the greatest ecological diversity in Canada. However, so far the BC government has not committed to the federal protected areas targets and policy framework, nor committed any major funding for new protected areas and old-growth protection in their recent provincial budget.
It is also unclear whether the BC government will allow the potential flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in new federal funding into the province to expand the protected areas system - funding that could help end the War in the Woods in BC by protecting the most contested old-growth stands (ie. the high-productivity stands with the largest trees and richest biodiversity) and endangered ecosystems.
“The new federal Protected Areas funding comes at an absolutely critical time— it’s a game changer. Right now the BC government is being pressured by deeply concerned citizens across BC and beyond for an immediate moratorium on old growth logging of the last remaining most biodiverse forests. This pressure for change also includes support for First Nations who want to protect critical old growth forests in their territory. This is the perfect opportunity for the BC government to quickly move to end the ‘War in the Woods’ by saying yes to federal funding,” stated Vicky Husband, renowned BC conservationist and Order of Canada and Order of BC recipient who has worked to protect old-growth forests for 40 years in BC.
“The BC government has just been handed the keys to ensure much of the grandest, most endangered old-growth forests in BC get protected. Will they keep the door shut or let the solution in? The $2.3 billion in federal funding dispersed across the country won’t quite go far enough to save all the old-growth, but it would go a long way to protect a significant chunk of what remains and help end the battles we’re seeing on the ground every day,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner.
A new action page has been launched to reach millions of British Columbians to speak up for BC to get on board the national and international protected areas movement. It can be found here.
Quebec has already protected 17% of its land area and is the first province to have embraced the international protected areas target of 30% by 2030. Quebec has also allocated $40 million from its provincial budget over 3 years for private land acquisition in the southern part of the province, in addition to receiving a significant fraction of the federal government’s new $3.3 billion fund for terrestrial and marine protected areas. California has already committed to protect 30% by 2030, as has the USA and Mexico, and Canada has joined over 60 nations in the High Ambition Coalition to support the 30% by 2030 target.
In the 2021 Budget, the federal government committed $2.3 billion over 5 years to expand the protected areas system on land, largely to fund Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA’s) and private land acquisition, and $1 billion for new marine protected areas. In addition, another $200 million has been allocated for “green infrastructure” in urban areas, which can include the protection of green spaces like forests and wetlands within municipal boundaries.
The BC government is also being asked to adopt the “three conditions of the land” framework of Canada to help guide appropriate protected areas tools and approaches into all landscapes. The framework divides lands into “cities and farms” (ie. heavily impacted, with key habitat patches remaining), “shared lands” (ie. moderately impacted, with significant natural areas remaining and where major resource industries like old-growth logging are concentrated), and “wild lands” (ie. lightly impacted generally, largely alpine, subalpine, northern tundra, and muskeg landscapes).
Most productive old-growth forests exist in the “shared lands” category and funding for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA’s) and First Nations land use plans is the key to protecting them, while the smaller remnants of old-growth on private lands (technically in the “cities and farms” category of eastern Vancouver Island) will require a land acquisition fund for their purchase and protection. The territories of diverse Indigenous nations span all three land conditions, and numerous First Nations across Canada are developing IPCA plans. Almost all old-growth forests in BC are on the unceded territories of diverse First Nations.
Scientists believe that about 50% of Earth should be safeguarded as nature by 2030 (30% in protected areas, 20% in de facto protected areas or Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures), as it is not possible to meet goal of containing the global average temperate rise to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, the international target of the Paris climate accord, without drawing-down vast amounts of carbon into protected ecosystems (eg. protected forests, wetlands, grasslands, eelgrass and kelp beds, etc.). The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and numerous conservation groups support this target.
Over the next 5 to 6 months in the lead-up to the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity’s conference in October and the United Nations’ Climate Summit in November of this year, there will be a historically unprecedented push to expand protected areas among countries, states, provinces, and First Nations territories across the planet for an “equitable, nature-positive, carbon-neutral” solution to the extinction and climate crises.
MORE BACKGROUND INFO
The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance is calling on the BC NDP government to:
Adopt the national protected area targets of 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 at a bare minimum.
Dedicate sufficient provincial funding for Indigenous Protected Areas, First Nations land use plans, and the acquisition of private lands for protection.
Embrace federal protected areas funding to expand protected areas in BC, including to help protect the last high-productivity and most at-risk old-growth forests.
Commit to the policy framework of the 3 land conditions that drive protected areas policy targets and mechanisms simultaneously across the province.
And implement ecosystem-based targets for new protected areas and for the protection of old-growth forests, including forest productivity distinctions.
Ensure stringent protected areas standards for what they count as “protected areas” to meet those targets
The Canadian government has adopted a framework to help guide protected areas policies and targets based on three land conditions:
Urban and farm landscapes (ie. heavily impacted, with critically important natural habitat patches remaining, over 50% impacted by an industrial footprint per 100 km^2). In BC, these are largely in the Lower Mainland, eastern Vancouver Island, and in portions of some major Interior valleys (eg. Okanagan Valley), and include the greatest concentration of species at risk in grasslands, Garry oak and Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystems, Fraser Valley lowland ecosystems, etc. Land acquisition funding from the province as well as from land trusts, municipalities, regional districts, and the federal government are vital to purchase and protect private lands in these areas, as well as protecting remnant Crown and municipal lands with First Nations.
Shared lands (ie. moderate impact, major resource extraction like logging and natural gas extraction, but significant natural areas and wilderness remain, between 0.5% to 50% impacted per 100 km^2). In BC, most of the medium and high-productivity (ie. grandest old-growth forests) are found in this land condition, as well as productive forests in general of both high conservation value and timber value. Key financing for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and for First Nations land use plans is vital to protect these lands.
Wild lands (ie. low industrial impacts, less than 0.5% impacted per 100 km^2, mostly natural areas). In BC these areas consist mainly of alpine, subalpine, and low productivity old-growth forests, and large parts of northern BC and the highest mountain ranges are in this land condition. Financing for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas is vital to protect these lands.
These land conditions roughly correspond across Canada to the South, Middle, and North, and also to the low, medium and high-elevation landscapes in mountainous British Columbia, and their different conditions require different policy mechanisms and targets to protect their biodiversity.
Under major pressure, the BC government agreed in September of 2020 to undertake a potential policy overhaul and provincial land use planning process for logging deferrals and the potential protection of major tracts of old-growth forests across the province. The BC government has committed in theory to implement all 14 recommendations of their public input panel, the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel, that they appointed in the fall of 2019.
However, the BC government has already missed the 6 month deadline to defer old-growth logging in the most at-risk old-growth forest types (the high-productivity, rarest, oldest and most intact old-growth) as recommended by the panel. It has been over one year since the BC government received the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel’s report, although in their PR-spin they have falsely insinuating that they have enacted these deferrals. In fact, they have placed logging deferrals on 11 areas across the province, of which only 1% consists of previously unprotected high-productivity old-growth forests.
The BC government’s latest budget released earlier this month also fails to include critically important funding for Indigenous old-growth protection initiatives, such as for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas – IPCA’s (in contrast to the $2.3 billion provided by the federal government, largely for IPCA’s) and for conservation financing of sustainable economic alternatives (eg. tourism, clean energy, non-timber forest products like wild mushrooms, sustainable seafood, value-added second-growth forestry) to old-growth logging revenues and jobs in First Nations communities.
The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) released a resolution in September of 2020 calling for the implementation of immediate old-growth logging deferrals based on the criteria of the Old-Growth Strategic Review panel recommendations, and for the province to finance Indigenous old-growth protection initiatives. They also released a joint letter with the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and BC conservation groups reiterating the call for this funding, which can be read here.
Without this critical funding, the BC government is likely aiming for First Nations (whose unceded lands encompass most of British Columbia and whose consent is required for new logging deferrals and protected areas) as a whole to fall back largely on the side of the status quo of major industrial logging of high and medium-productivity old-growth forests due to their dependency on old-growth timber revenues that the BC government has facilitated and fostered over decades. The federal government’s $2.3 billion in funding could provide an economic and political way out from the old-growth timber dependency of First Nations communities and to protect old-growth forests - but the province must not work to obstruct or undermine the free-flow of these federal funds.
The old-growth temperate rainforests of North America’s West Coast store more carbon per hectare than any other forests on Earth – even more per hectare than tropical rainforests do. They are also vital to sustain species at risk (marbled murrelets, mountain caribou, spotted owls, northern goshawks, etc.), First Nations cultures (many who use the ancient redcedars for longhouses, dugout canoes, totem poles, and masks), tourism, recreation, clean water, and wild salmon.