U.N. Biosphere Reserve Status for Clayoquot Sound?
Tofino, at the end of the Trans-Canada Highway, overlooks Meares Island Tribal Park with Mt. Lone Cone and Opitsaht Village in the background.
by Adriane Carr, WCWC's Clayoquot Campaign Coordinator
In June of 1993, several months after the B.C. Government announced its disastrous two-thirds logging, one-third preservation Clayoquot Sound and use plan, every household in B.C. received a government newspaper trying to quell the controversy.
Highlighted as a measure to "Secure the Sound for Future Generations" was the following promise:
The government will vigorously pursue an international Biosphere Reserve designation for Clayoquot Sound. The mix of protected areas, special manage-ment areas, and sustainable working forest, makes the Sound an ideal candi-date. Biosphere Reserve status would mean any logging in the Sound will be required to stand up to world scrutiny.
If the government hoped to entrench its 1993 land use plan as a Biosphere Reserve, it was mistaken. The U.N. Man and Bio-sphere Program that designates Biosphere Reserves would not accept an application for an area still fraught with conflict.
Biosphere Reserve designation cannot resolve land use controversies. However, by working out the details of a proposal, all stakeholders
What is a Biosphere Reserve?
The U. N. Biosphere Reserve Program was launched in 1976 in response to the growing threat to the biosphere.
The very resources upon which people depend for their lives are seriously threatened, and the speed with which the threat is growing is
accelerating...Human use of the resources of this planet has to be limited to a
level that can be maintained; beyond this, the human race is itself in
danger.
National Action Plan for Bio-sphere Reserves in Canada. Canada MAB Report.
A U.N. recognized Biosphere Reserve is an area where local people and other stakeholders agree to long-term cooperative research and land use management that achieves a balance between protection of biodiversity and sustainable use. Land use is zoned within a Biosphere Reserve to reflect these complementary goals:
- Core Area
A Biosphere Reserve must have one or more core areas that conserve nature. They must be fully protected (e.g., National or Provincial Parks or legislatively established Tribal Parks) and large enough to sustain biodiversity.
- Buffer Zone
Areas must be designated surrounding the core area(s) to protect the integrity of the core. Use by people is restricted so that it does not negatively impact on the core (e.g., research, traditional native use and eco-tourism).
- Zone of Cooperation
This is an area where sustainable activities (e.g., eco-forestry) occur in harmony with the core and buffer zones.
Local people are strongly involved in land use management within a U.N. Biosphere Reserve. Typically, a local management board coordinates research, monitors activities and encourages cooperation amongst different groups and agencies.
To establish a Biosphere Reserve, a proposal, which must be ratified by all stakeholders, is forwarded to the UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) Program in Paris. Designation is conferred only when all of the conditions of a Biosphere Reserve have been met, including adequate core protection, local involvement in management, rules to ensure ecolog-ically sustainable resource use and the cooperation of all stakeholders. There are currently 276 Biosphere Reserves in 71 countries. Canada has six.
Many good steps have already been taken to deal with issues left unresolved by the government's 1993 Clayoquot decision.
In March of 1994 (and extended for another 3 years in April of 1996), an Interim Measures Agreement (IMA) was signed to address the concerns and needs of First Nations, establishing a local Central Region Board to manage land use and give First Nations a veto over development plans that might compromise their cultural or natural heritage prior to their treaty settlement.
In July of 1995, the government fully adopted the recommendations of a 19-member Scientific Panel of experts that both detailed an ecosystem-based approach to logging and required moratoriums on all pristine watersheds to allow for three things: thorough inventories; further protection of all forest values (including biological, ecological, cultural, spiritual and recreational values); and time for Science Panel forest practices to "prove out" in the already-fragmented areas. The Science Panel's recommendations were endorsed by First Nations, logging companies and environment groups.
Together, the IMA, which establishes the type of local manage ment required in a Biosphere Reserve, and the Scientific Panel, which establishes Biosphere Reserve-type requirements for ongoing research and ecologically sustainable resource use, could successfully shape a Clayoquot Biosphere Reserve plan.
This internationally prestigious designation can't be achieved, however, until the issue of what happens to Clayoquot's pristine areas is resolved.
What's happening now is continued controversy over Clayoquot's magnificent natural heritage. In June, 1996, due to MacMillan Bloedel's logging in the pristine Bulson Valley, Greenpeace and the Friends of Clayoquot Sound again mounted blockades.
Clayoquot's First Nations took the lead to try to solve this conflict. On July 6, 1996, they hosted an all-stakeholders meeting. The point of the meeting, as explained by Elected Chief of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations Francis Frank, was "how to work together within existing processes" and get "the environment groups and the companies to sit down together to resolve their issues". Key issues on the table were the quality of Science Panel inventories, entry into pristine areas and post-inventory decisions to protect more of Clayoquot.
The meeting was cause for some hope. Representatives of the logging companies and the local M.L.A., representing the provincial government, agreed to maintain moratoriums on Clayoquot's pristine watersheds while full inventories are conducted and also to abide by the Central Region Board's decisions (based on the results of the inventories) even if the decisions mean no logging. The M.L.A. for the region, Gerard Janssen, also noted that environmentalists should help set up and be involved in the inventory process.
WCWC trusts the outcome of the inventory process as long as it is driven by the vision of the Scientific Panel, not by the desire to log. If enough time is given to conduct the type of inventories that stand up to world scrutiny, and if First Nations are fully involved in the entire inventory process, we believe that the results will indisputably prove that Clayoquot's remaining pristine watersheds are of such importance to wild salmon and future generations that the CRB will decide to protect them.
