Restoration Areas
We must restore severely logged areas so that large blocks and corridors of healthy forestlands can be re-established in ecosystems which have been largely modified. Some areas of the Island have been so extensively damaged that it will take centuries before forests and ecosystems can repair themselves to an "old growth" state. Shown on the Conservation Vision map are only some of the Island's areas which need to be restored. Others must still be identified.
Community Forest Reserves
WCWC is calling for complete tenure reform on all public forest lands. The creation of Community Forest Reserves could be accomplished with Forest Land Reserve legislation, similar to the Agricultural Land Reserve Act, as part of the provincial government's new initiatives to change forest practices in B.C.
Community Forest Reserves will place forestry lands under native and non-native community control. Placing these lands under local management will lead to greater employment, community stability and economic and social well being. Forestry at the community level - where decisions are made by the people who live and work there and whose children will live and work there - is the only viable alternative for the sustainable future of Vancouver Island's forests and forest-dependent communities.
Principles of management in Community Forest Reserves include selection logging, natural regeneration, natural pest control, and sustainable production of old growth quality timber through setting appropriate site-specific annual cut levels and "rotation ages".
A CONSERVATION VISION FOR VANCOUVER ISLAND
Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Cartography - Ian Parfitt and Andrew Blodt
Conservation biologists believe that protecting biodiversity requires preserving 25% to 75% of the land base. The wide range of what is considered adequate relates to how lands outside the preserved areas are managed. Because WCWC is proposing a new system of land management - Community Forest Reserves - we believe that we need only set aside an additional 29% of our productive forest lands to adequately, and for all time, protect the Island's unique and diverse wild ecosystems - the parts and blueprints for a sustainable living environment.
Existing Protected Areas
Ten percent of Vancouver Island is currently protected in parks including the areas recently added in Clayoquot Sound. But our parks do not adequately represent the range of ecosystem types on Vancouver Island, especially the low elevation, big-treed forests. They do not include sufficient critical habitat for species such as Roosevelt elk. They need to be expanded and linked. Current parks protect:
Proposed Protected Areas
A major expansion of Vancouver Island's protected area system is needed to represent the Island's full range of ecosystems and preserve its biodiversity. The proposal presented in the Conservation Vision map targets remaining original forest cover and uses watershed boundaries to define areas proposed for protection. Its goal is to create the most ecologically sound and potentially sustainable reserve system possible.
Large, undeveloped watersheds function like complete ecosystems. Keeping entire watersheds intact is the best way to maintain natural ecological processes like water flow regulation and salmon spawning cycles. Linking together large wild watersheds gives wildlife the best chance for long term survival.
On Vancouver Island, there are five regions of largely undisturbed, unprotected old growth forest that follow watershed boundaries - Clayoquot Sound, the Greater Brooks/Kyuquot Region, the Upper Carmanah/Walbran-West Coast Trail Rainforest, the North Coast and the Lower Tsitika. These five areas and ten smaller, fragmented, but still very significant areas form the core of the Conservation Vision proposal. These fifteen areas are highlighted on the map and discussed below. The best suited jurisdictional types of protection - Provincial, Federal or Tribal Parks - are not as yet determined.
h3>Protected Areas Proposed for the North IslandNorth of the Alberni Inlet, fragmentation has not been as severe. All of Vancouver Island's nine remaining undeveloped watersheds over 5,000 ha in size are found on the North Island - five in Clayoquot Sound `and four in the Greater Brooks/Kyuquot area. The large wild areas proposed for protection on the North Island are:
6. Clayoquot Sound's remaining intact rainforest. 115,000 ha. It includes:
- Sydney, Ursus and Clayoquot watersheds (all over 5,000 ha)
- All small islands and the three large ones - Meares, Flores and Vargas
7. The Greater Brooks/Kyuquot Region. 40,000 ha.
It includes the
intact watersheds of:
- Nasparti, Power, East, Battle Bay, and Klaskish
- Lower Tahsish-Kwois
8. Northern Coast of Vancouver Island between Cape Scott
and Port Hardy.
73,000 ha. It includes:
- Nawhitti, Shushartie, and Irony watersheds
9. Lower Tsitika Valley. 29,000 ha.
Corridors and other old growth fragments north of the Alberni Inlet must be
protected to link and further protect critical habitat and ecosystems. These
areas include:
10. North Nimpkish Lake Wilderness. 40,000 ha.
11. Stathcona/Schoen Lake Corridor (Sutton Highlands). 30,000 ha.
12. Woss/Alava Wilderness. 62,000 ha.
13. Port Eliza. 6,000ha.
14. West Coast of Nootka Island. 16,000 ha.
15. Barkley Sound-Nahmint. 30,000 ha.
Cartography - Ian Parfitt and Andrew Blodt
Protected Areas Proposed for the South Island
Because of the extensive loss of original forests on the South Island (the Sierra Club of Western Canada estimates that only 15% - 111,000 hectares of an original 745,000 - remains), we have identified most of the remaining old growth forests on the South Island (south of Alberni Inlet) for protection. Most of the old growth fragments are high elevation mountain hemlock - the "snow forest" - yet some lower elevation forests and Douglas fir pockets do remain. Lower elevation forests around the San Juan/Jordan Ridge and the West Coast Trail provide critical habitat for old growth dependent species like marbled murrelets.
Areas proposed for protection on the southern part of the Island include:
1. Qualicum Wildlife Corridor. 30,000 ha.
- Urban sprawl and development between Port Alberni and Parksville/Qualicum may soon be so extensive that it will create an insurmountable physical barrier to the movement of wildlife between the northern and southern halves of Vancouver Island. This would be devastating to animal populations and gene pools. Even now, all animals must cross the Port Alberni Highway to move up and down Island.
2. South Island Highlands. 60,000 ha.
- These pockets must be protected as the basis for a natural corridor between the North Island and the West Coast Trail Rainforest.
3. San Juan/Jordan Ridge.42,000 ha.
4. Greater Victoria Watershed and the Gowlland Range. 31,000 ha.
- Less than 1% of the original forest cover remains in the Coastal Douglas Fir ecoregion. The Greater Victoria Watershed features the largest stand of old growth Douglas fir left on the Island.
5. West Coast Trail Rainforest. 70,000 ha.
- This is the only large contiguous area of old growth forest left on South Vancouver Island. It includes:
- Walbran and Upper Carmanah Valleys
- Lower klanawa Valley
- Cullite, Logan, and an unnamed creek - the only undeveloped unprotected watersheds over 1000 ha left on South Vancouver Island. Only one undeveloped watershed of this size - the Tsusiat - is entirely protected.
Click on image for detail.
Click on image for detail.
