Citation | Rumsey, C et al. 2004. An ecosystem spatial analysis for Haida Gwaii, Central Coast and North Coast British Columbia. Coast Information Team. |
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Organization | FLNRO |
URL | https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/tasb/slrp/citbc/c-esa-fin-04may04.pdf |
Abstract/Description or Keywords | This report presents a comprehensive ecosystem spatial analysis for the Haida Gwaii, Central Coast, and North Coast regions of British Columbia. This region has a land area of 11 million hectares; its sea area is another 11 million hectares. Over 95% or the land area is designated crown land and is managed by the Government of British Columbia. In addition to productive, structurally-diverse old-growth ecosystems and unique bog complexes, important ecological elements in the region include unregulated rivers supporting large populations of spawning salmon and grizzly bears, estuaries, kelp beds, seabird colonies, archipelago/fjord terrain, deep fjord and cryptodepression lakes, and intertidal flats with abundant invertebrates and resident and migratory waterbirds. Haida Gwaii is an especially significant part of the region, containing an insular biota with distinctive, disjunct, and endemic taxa. The diversity of species within the CIT region is far greater than previously thought, but still incompletely known. Two major land-use and resource-management planning processes (LRMPs) are underway in the region: the Central Coast LRMP and the North Coast LRMP. The Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlotte Islands Plan is in development (Map 1). Their purpose is to enable all parties to reach agreement on those lands and resources to be protected and those to be developed, where, and how. The Coast Information Team (CIT) was established by the Provincial Government of British Columbia, First Nations, environmental groups, and forest products companies to provide independent information on the region using the best available scientific, technical, traditional, and local knowledge. The CIT’s information and analyses, which include this ecosystem spatial analysis, are intended to assist First Nations and the three ongoing subregional planning processes to make decisions that will achieve ecosystem-based management. This study is unique in that it integrates analysis of the biological values of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems across this vast region. The purpose of the ecosystem spatial analysis is to identify priority areas for biodiversity conservation and, ultimately, to serve four well-accepted goals of conservation: 1) represent ecosystems across their natural range of variation; 2) maintain viable populations of native species; 3) sustain ecological and evolutionary processes within an acceptable range of variability; and 4) build a conservation network that is resilient to environmental change. In pursuit of these goals, the ESA integrates three basic approaches to conservation planning: • Representation of a broad spectrum of environmental variation (e.g., vegetation, terrestrial abiotic, and freshwater and marine habitat classes). • Protection of special elements: concentrations of ecological communities; rare or at-risk ecological communities; rare physical habitats; concentrations of species; locations of at-risk species; locations of highly valued species or their critical habitats; locations of major genetic variants. • Conservation of critical habitats of focal species, whose needs help planners address issues of habitat area, configuration, and quality. These are species that (a) need large areas or several well connected areas, or (b) are sensitive to human disturbance, and (c) for which sound habitat-suitability models are available or can be constructed. Information obtained from this approach can be used with a computerized site-selection algorithm to create a conservation solution or “portfolio” of landscapes and seascapes, which when taken together and managed appropriately, would ensure the long-term survival of the region’s biodiversity. Our team used the best available information for this assessment but recognizes that new and more comprehensive data will continually become available. Therefore, the ESA should be regarded as an initial step in an iterative assessment process. |
Information Type | report |
Regional Watershed | Central Coast |
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Project status | complete |
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