Why Protect Wild Watersheds?
Recognition of the intrinsic value of nature, wild ecosystems is a recent phenomena. It is becoming more evident that wild ecosystems are the storehouses of genetic information and thus anchor the life processes on Earth. In 1982, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recommended that all countries protect not less than 12 percent of their total area as natural reserves, and that all ecosystems found in each country be included in that country’s protected area system. In its 1987 publication “Our Common Future”, the Brundtland Commission, reconfirmed the need for this level of “wilderness” protection: a tripling, of the existing global level of protection. It must be noted that much of the world’s current protection exists on paper only – maps that delineate an area as a park or ecological reserve – but not in the reality of actual, on-the-ground protection.
The selection of 12 percent as a minimum level of natural ecosystem protection has no basis in science. Many scientists believe that the world needs more, or that natural corridors must interconnect the protected areas in order to prevent them from becoming small islands in a sea of ecologically impoverished, man- dominated landscapes. Because of in-breeding and lack of habitat variety and extent, the smaller the island, the less biodiversity it can maintain.
Both the Canadian national and the BC provincial governments have embraced the internationally acknowledged goal of 12 percent protection. They have endorsed World Wildlife Fund Canada’s Endangered Spaces Campaign, to complete the provincial and federal park systems in Canada to include representation of all significant landscapes by the year 2000. BC’s new NDP government is committed to making “substantial progress” towards doubling the parks system in the province (from the current 6% to 12% of the province’s area) during the next 5 years. In January of 1992 they announced a new land commission, charged with the task of developing a comprehensive land use plan for the entire province, starting with Vancouver Island.
The completion of BC’s parks system – as part of the overall plans for ecologically sustainable development—must be done with biological goals in mind. The system must contain areas that adequately represent all of BC’s biodiversity at the gene, species and ecosystems levels. The protected areas must be based on ecological units such as watersheds, and must be large enough to support viable breeding population of the species highest in the food chain, such as bears, eagles and cougars.
BC’s Opportunities for Wild Watershed Preservation
In the southern-most regions of the coast, we have already lost the chance to protect whole, undeveloped watersheds over 5,000 ha in size. Only fragmented watersheds remain. We must act now to protect the few remaining ancient forests and relatively pristine watersheds in this region: such as the Carmanah and Walbran valleys on southwestern and the Tsitika on eastern Vancouver Island; the fragments of forest left on the Sunshine Coast (the Caren Range and the Tetrahedron area); and in the Fraser Valley (the Nahatlatch valley).
As we move up the coast, opportunities to protect intact watersheds increase. In the mid-Vancouver Island region, there is the opportunity to add the Megin and Sydney watersheds to Strathcona Park. Upgrading Brooks Peninsula Recreation Area to class A park status and adding the Power, Klaskish and East Creek watersheds would provide another large sustainable wilderness area of ancient temperate rainforest and a refuge for the Roosevelt elk.
The Shushartie watershed is the only watershed left intact on the east side of Vancouver Island: it must be protected as the only opportunity to protect a representative area of the Nahwitti Lowlands ecoregion.
On the mainland, the Paradise watershed stands alone as the only example of a pristine watershed left in the south coast. The Ahnuhati, recognized as excellent Grizzly habitat, and its neighbours the Ahta and the Waump should be protected together as a grizzly sanctuary. The Koeye river, which supports all five salmon species, is also excellent grizzly habitat, making it, together with the adjoining Elizabeth Lake, a top candidate area for wilderness preservation in the Hecate Lowland ecoregion.
Northern Graham Island in the Queen Charlotte archipelago boasts 3 complete protected intact watersheds on the eastern side (in Naikoon Provincial Park). The western side is recognized as a different ecoregion and so we must preserve intact watersheds there as well. Duu Guusd Tribal Park, declared by the Haida in 1983, includes the Beresford, Otard, Seal and Coates watersheds on the windward Queen Charlotte, as well as the pristine Jalun River, representative of the Queen Charlotte Lowlands ecoregion. It must be recognized as an opportunity to protect biological diversity in a culturally appropriate way.
Most of the remaining undeveloped watersheds in coastal BC are located in the North Coast region. Here there is the opportunity to create a huge protected area which extends from the coastal divide, and Tweedsmuir Park, all the way south to Fiordland Recreation Area (which must be upgraded to class A park) and the ocean. This magnificent park would contain the largest temperate rainforest watershed in the world, the Kitlope, and much of the longest fjord in the world, the Gardner Canal.
Shark River in Clayoquot Photo credit: Ken Lay
Another large cluster of undeveloped watersheds is centred on the Ecstall River. The Khutzeymateen river, currently being considered as a grizzly bear sanctuary, along with the Khyex and Exchamsics watersheds form a landscape that could provide a major sanctuary to the north coast grizzly.
We have enough information now to say that at least the areas mentioned above should be granted protection right away. But we don’t have enough information to make a reasoned decision as to which of the remaining undeveloped watersheds should be thrown open to development.
What are the resource values in these watersheds? Are they critical habitats which have not yet been recognized? We won’t know until a thorough inventory of all the resources in the coastal temperate rainforest is completed.Until that time, there should be no industrial activity in these last remaining undeveloped watersheds.
