Water Stewardship Information Sources

Citation Rumsey, C et al. 2004. An ecosystem spatial analysis for Haida Gwaii, Central Coast and North Coast British Columbia. Coast Information Team.
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
Sub-watershed if known
Aquifer #
Comments
Project status complete
Contact Name
Contact Email