Water Stewardship Information Sources
| Citation | Bella Coola Watershed Conservation Society. 2007. Bella Coola Watershed-based Fish Sustainability Plan, Stage II. Prepared for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. |
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| Organization | DFO |
| URL | http://bellacoolawatershed.com/data/WBFSP_Stage_2.pdf |
| Abstract/Description or Keywords | The Bella Coola Watershed Conservation Society (BCWCS) was formed in 2001 to act as a Planning Team or Technical Committee in order to prepare a Watershed-based Fish Sustainability Plan (WFSP) for the Bella Coola watershed. Since this time, various individuals have collaborated to complete a Stage I report, a draft Stage II report, and this Stage II “living document”. This living document is intended to be updated on a regular basis as new fisheries related information becomes available. This Stage II report contains information on the WFSP process and how it is applicable to the Bella Coola watershed. The Stage I report provided a watershed profile; however, this report expands on this profile to include a description of the past and current land and water uses within the Bella Coola Valley. The Fisheries Resource section contains watershed specific fisheries data on the five salmon and other fish species present within the watershed. Past and current information on the fisheries and enhancement of Bella Coola stocks is also discussed. The section on “Factors Affecting Fish and Fish Habitat” describes the land and water use activities that have a major impact on the watershed based on various habitat assessments and general fisheries literature. The “Priority Issues” and “Objectives and Strategies” sections of this report were the most challenging to produce; however, these sections will likely play the most significant role in developing Stage III and IV of the WFSP. Therefore, this section is key to the report. It identifies 44 priority issues and 25 objectives with strategies outlined for each. The issues and objectives are divided into five sections: Priority Fish Stock Issues, Priority Fisheries Management Issues, Priority Land Use Management Issues, Priority Fish Habitat Issues, and Priority Data Gap Issues. A few of the difficulties that were faced in the preparation of this plan included: • increased workloads have limited input from the Technical Committee • population size greatly restricts the number of people that are actively involved in watershed activities • many documents have been moved or miss placed with government shuffling • lack of community interest • Some of the benefits of the planning process to date have been: • the formation of a local planning team or round table (BCWCS) • the development of a local Resource Centre • receiving commitment from the Ministry of Environment that staff were able to participate in activities carried out by the BCWCS Please contact the Bella Coola Resource Centre at (250) 982-0007 or at [email protected] if you have additional information that would be relevant to the Bella Coola WFSP. |
| Information Type | report |
| Regional Watershed | Central Coast |
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| Project status | complete |
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