Strategic Landscape Reserve Planning
Implementing Ecosystem-based Management in the Central Coast of BC
How Strategic Landscape Reserves fit with the Heiltsuk strategy for sustainable management and protection of natural resources
Laurie Whitehead Lands Manager, HIRMD September 12, 2013
Presentation Overview • Heiltsuk Territory and Ecosystem-Based Management • Heiltsuk Planning Processes - Land + Marine Use Plans • Government to Government Planning and Agreements • Forest Stewardship and EBM Implementation ▫ Legal Land Use Objectives for Central and North Coast (Ministerial Order) ▫ Strategic Landscape Reserve Design ▫ Conservancy Planning
• Acknowledgements
What is ecosystem-based management? EBM was defined at G2G level as: ‘‘an adaptive approach to managing human activities that seeks to ensure the coexistence of healthy, fully functioning ecosystems and human communities. The intent is to maintain spatial and temporal characteristics of ecosystems so species and ecological processes can be sustained, and human wellbeing supported and improved.’’
How do we apply ecosystem-based management? Planning: Heiltsuk support concept and guiding principles of EBM in Heiltsuk Land Use Plan and Marine Use Plan Funding: Access to conservation financing to fund stewardship office and projects; there is also funding to enable economic development Government to government processes: •Maintain ecological integrity by protecting areas in conservancies and identifying reserves in EBM areas •Share decision-making responsibilities •Require logging practices that maintain habitat for fish, other species, cultural values and sites •Monitor activities, practices, results over time •Practice adaptive co-management - with university researchers and local knowledge holders do scientific research to inform decisions, update plans as needed
Heiltsuk and Government to Government Planning ▫ Heiltsuk Plans Land Use Plan (1997 - 2005) - Heiltsuk identified areas to set aside as conservancies and EBM areas Marine Use Plan (2001 – present) - Marine Spatial Plan and Best Management Practices to protect Heiltsuk values and ensure sustainable use of marine resources; Regional Central Coast FN Integrated/Harmonized Plan
▫ Government to Government Agreements Strategic Land Use Plan Agreement (2006) - to develop EBM areas and Conservancies within Heiltsuk territory; look at human well-being and develop a framework for shared decision making and economic opportunities Land and Resource Protocol Agreement (2006) - regional approach to land use planning and designations in overlap areas, develop EBM legal objectives, provisions for revenue sharing, Conservancy Management Agreements and Plans, and identify funds to carry out implementation of land use agreements Detailed Strategic Plan (2008) - addresses and maps economic interests, cedar stewardship areas, cultural heritage and traditional forest resource areas, archaeological sites, fish sensitive watersheds, area-based risk targets, wildlife management and habitat areas, and visual management zones Reconciliation Protocol Agreement (2009-2010) – elements include Engagement Framework for shared decision-making replaces provincial consultation policy; carbon offsets/revenues from Conservancies and EBM implementation; economic opportunities in forestry/tenures, tourism in and outside of conservancies; economic strategies via alternative energy, infrastructure projects
EBM Legal Land Use Objective Orders • First Nation Values: ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫
Maintain traditional forest resources Protect traditional heritage features Protect culturally modified trees Maintain “sufficient” volume/quality monumental cedar Retain red and yellow cedar in stands
• Aquatic Habitats:
▫ “equivalent clearcut area” < 20% in important fisheries watersheds ▫ Buffer high value fish habitat – 1.5 tree reserve zones ▫ Maintain riparian forest adjacent to streams, lakes, fens that are not high value fish habitat ▫ Retention around forest swamps, upland streams, active fluvial units
Legal Land Use Objective Orders • Biodiversity
▫ Landscape level biodiversity - old forest and habitat for species at risk, ungulate winter range, and regionally important wildlife including mountain goats, grizzly bears, northern goshawks, tailed frogs, marbled murrelets ▫ Protect rare, threatened, endangered and special concern plant communities ▫ Retain 15% trees at stand level (where clearcut) ▫ Maintain grizzly bear habitat ▫ Maintain Kermode (black bear) habitat
Forest Stewardship Planning and EBM Implementation • Strategic landscape reserve design planning
▫ Ecosystem-based management and land use objectives established through 2009 legal order
• Forest companies and the province developed draft SLRDs through computer modeling processes and pilots, focused on biodiversity and maintaining access to timber (pre-HIRMD) • Approach to Heiltsuk participation in SLRD planning process ▫ Identify priority areas from Traditional Use Studies and local knowledge, archaeological record, and provincial data on productive streams and forest areas ▫ Prepare maps that apply buffers to potentially important sites ▫ Hire field technicians, train, ground truth, revise maps ▫ Community verification, review maps with community focus groups, revise maps ▫ G2G negotiations, identify and set aside as hard reserves areas that will maintain Heiltsuk (First Nation) values in EBM areas over time ▫ Enable improvements in human wellbeing and ecological integrity
Heiltsuk SLRD Project Status 2010-13 - Planning workshop and meetings Oct 2012 – June 2013 - GIS draft layers and scenarios May – June 2013 - Hired eight field staff, a skipper and a boat for site verification – senior technicians have archaeological, stream monitoring, and forest, medicinal and food plant knowledge June – Sept 2013 – Crew travel to areas throughout the territory and confirm presence of fish in streams expected to have salmon habitat, cedar and other plants in forested areas, and the locations of archaeological sites that may historically have been mapped incorrectly. Having entered into confidentiality agreements, the crew are also confirming the locations and buffering recommendations for habitation and other sites identified in the Heiltsuk Traditional Use Map Biography. Sept 2013 - We are now compiling summaries of results and will start holding community and focus group sessions later this month so that all interested Heiltsuk members may review and provide input on draft results.
Data drawn on for Heiltsuk SLRD TUS Sites and Provincial Data • Traditional Use Areas other than most hunting and trapping • Buffered to 100 m • Coast Scenario
• Seek community input on treatment of traplines, deer habitat • Buriel sites ▫ Buffered to 200m • Village sites ▫ Buffered to 500 m • Areas with high potential for monumental and other cedar and forest and heritage resources ▫ Identified as polygons for groundtruthing
Archaeological Sites • Recorded Archaeological Sites • Buffer 100-500 m • CMTs – two scenarios ▫ Buffer to 100 m ▫ No buffering
Aquatic Sites • Streams known to Heiltsuk to be important fish habitat • Buffered 100 m Streams with observed and inferred fish – two scenarios ▫ Buffer to 100 m ▫ No buffering (operational discretion of RPFs, legal objective standard requirements for NC and CC)
Training – in class and experiential Data cards, plants, arch features, streams •
•
Cultural and Ecological Observation Date________________ Reporter(s) ____________________________ Landscape Unit Location description: e.g. on beach, in forest, on island, on water… Camera # ______ GPS Unit # ______ Cultural observation type: Habitation site Midden Fishtrap Clam Garden/Bed Canoe Run Other_________________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #________ Notes______________________________________________________________
• • •
Cultural observation type: Other – Burial Site Rock Art Carved Post Cave Other __________________________________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #________ Notes_____________________________________________________________
• • •
Ecological observation type: Medicinal/Food Plants observed? Plant Name_____________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #__________________ Notes e.g. size of grouping… __________________________________________________________________
• • •
Cultural observation type: CMT - Bark Strips Aboriginally Logged Other ________________________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ DBH_________ GPS Waypoint #________Notes_________________________________________________________________
• • •
Ecological observation type: Monumental Tree observed? Species _____________ DBH_________ Cedar Stand observed? Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #___________ Notes e.g. size of grouping… __________________________________________________________________
• •
Garmin GPS Units
Sample results: King Island Landscape Unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
Implementation of Heiltsuk SLRD Preliminary Implementation • Engagement Framework - As part of information sharing that precedes our referrals process – we overlay proposed log handling sites, roads and cutting permits (engineered and projected) with our draft SLRD GIS polygons ▫ Where areas are already engineered we work with licensees to find mutually beneficial ways for their plans to proceed ▫ Where areas are projected we request they look elsewhere if the projection overlaps one of our SLRD polygons
Site Verification
Conservancy and Protected Area Planning • Class A Parks
▫ Marine Parks: Codville Lagoon, Green Inlet, Jackson Narrows, Oliver Cove, Penrose Island ▫ Parks: Tweedsmuir, Sir Alexander Mackenzie
• Conservancies
• Calvert Island, Carter Bay, Clyak Estuary, Cranstown Point, Emily Lake, Fiordland, Goat Cove, Goose Bay, Kitasoo Spirit Bear, Klekane, Koeye, K’ootz/Khutze, Lady Douglas – Don Peninsula, Lockhart Gordon, Outer Central Coast Islands, Penrose-Ripon, Pooley, Q’altanaas/Aaltanhash, Rescue Bay, Cascade-Sutslem, Codville Lagoon, Dean River, Dean River Corridor, Ellerslie-Roscoe, Hakai Luxvbalis, Hotsprings-No Name Creek, Huchsduwachsdu Nuyem Jees/Kitlope, Jump Across, Kimsquit Estuary, Kwatna Estuary, Namu, Namu Corridor, Nooseseck, Restoration Bay, Troup Passage, Upper Kimsquit River
• Hakai Conservation and Study Area
Acknowledgements
• • • • • • • •
North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative Provincial Government Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management Coast Opportunity Fund Coastal Guardian Watchmen Network QQS Projects Society HIRMD and SLRD field technicians, skipper and boat charters Heiltsuk Traditional Use Study Map Biography participants
How Strategic Landscape Reserves fit with the Heiltsuk strategy for sustainable management and protection of natural resources
Laurie Whitehead Lands Manager, HIRMD September 12, 2013
Presentation Overview • Heiltsuk Territory and Ecosystem-Based Management • Heiltsuk Planning Processes - Land + Marine Use Plans • Government to Government Planning and Agreements • Forest Stewardship and EBM Implementation ▫ Legal Land Use Objectives for Central and North Coast (Ministerial Order) ▫ Strategic Landscape Reserve Design ▫ Conservancy Planning
• Acknowledgements
What is ecosystem-based management? EBM was defined at G2G level as: ‘‘an adaptive approach to managing human activities that seeks to ensure the coexistence of healthy, fully functioning ecosystems and human communities. The intent is to maintain spatial and temporal characteristics of ecosystems so species and ecological processes can be sustained, and human wellbeing supported and improved.’’
How do we apply ecosystem-based management? Planning: Heiltsuk support concept and guiding principles of EBM in Heiltsuk Land Use Plan and Marine Use Plan Funding: Access to conservation financing to fund stewardship office and projects; there is also funding to enable economic development Government to government processes: •Maintain ecological integrity by protecting areas in conservancies and identifying reserves in EBM areas •Share decision-making responsibilities •Require logging practices that maintain habitat for fish, other species, cultural values and sites •Monitor activities, practices, results over time •Practice adaptive co-management - with university researchers and local knowledge holders do scientific research to inform decisions, update plans as needed
Heiltsuk and Government to Government Planning ▫ Heiltsuk Plans Land Use Plan (1997 - 2005) - Heiltsuk identified areas to set aside as conservancies and EBM areas Marine Use Plan (2001 – present) - Marine Spatial Plan and Best Management Practices to protect Heiltsuk values and ensure sustainable use of marine resources; Regional Central Coast FN Integrated/Harmonized Plan
▫ Government to Government Agreements Strategic Land Use Plan Agreement (2006) - to develop EBM areas and Conservancies within Heiltsuk territory; look at human well-being and develop a framework for shared decision making and economic opportunities Land and Resource Protocol Agreement (2006) - regional approach to land use planning and designations in overlap areas, develop EBM legal objectives, provisions for revenue sharing, Conservancy Management Agreements and Plans, and identify funds to carry out implementation of land use agreements Detailed Strategic Plan (2008) - addresses and maps economic interests, cedar stewardship areas, cultural heritage and traditional forest resource areas, archaeological sites, fish sensitive watersheds, area-based risk targets, wildlife management and habitat areas, and visual management zones Reconciliation Protocol Agreement (2009-2010) – elements include Engagement Framework for shared decision-making replaces provincial consultation policy; carbon offsets/revenues from Conservancies and EBM implementation; economic opportunities in forestry/tenures, tourism in and outside of conservancies; economic strategies via alternative energy, infrastructure projects
EBM Legal Land Use Objective Orders • First Nation Values: ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫ ▫
Maintain traditional forest resources Protect traditional heritage features Protect culturally modified trees Maintain “sufficient” volume/quality monumental cedar Retain red and yellow cedar in stands
• Aquatic Habitats:
▫ “equivalent clearcut area” < 20% in important fisheries watersheds ▫ Buffer high value fish habitat – 1.5 tree reserve zones ▫ Maintain riparian forest adjacent to streams, lakes, fens that are not high value fish habitat ▫ Retention around forest swamps, upland streams, active fluvial units
Legal Land Use Objective Orders • Biodiversity
▫ Landscape level biodiversity - old forest and habitat for species at risk, ungulate winter range, and regionally important wildlife including mountain goats, grizzly bears, northern goshawks, tailed frogs, marbled murrelets ▫ Protect rare, threatened, endangered and special concern plant communities ▫ Retain 15% trees at stand level (where clearcut) ▫ Maintain grizzly bear habitat ▫ Maintain Kermode (black bear) habitat
Forest Stewardship Planning and EBM Implementation • Strategic landscape reserve design planning
▫ Ecosystem-based management and land use objectives established through 2009 legal order
• Forest companies and the province developed draft SLRDs through computer modeling processes and pilots, focused on biodiversity and maintaining access to timber (pre-HIRMD) • Approach to Heiltsuk participation in SLRD planning process ▫ Identify priority areas from Traditional Use Studies and local knowledge, archaeological record, and provincial data on productive streams and forest areas ▫ Prepare maps that apply buffers to potentially important sites ▫ Hire field technicians, train, ground truth, revise maps ▫ Community verification, review maps with community focus groups, revise maps ▫ G2G negotiations, identify and set aside as hard reserves areas that will maintain Heiltsuk (First Nation) values in EBM areas over time ▫ Enable improvements in human wellbeing and ecological integrity
Heiltsuk SLRD Project Status 2010-13 - Planning workshop and meetings Oct 2012 – June 2013 - GIS draft layers and scenarios May – June 2013 - Hired eight field staff, a skipper and a boat for site verification – senior technicians have archaeological, stream monitoring, and forest, medicinal and food plant knowledge June – Sept 2013 – Crew travel to areas throughout the territory and confirm presence of fish in streams expected to have salmon habitat, cedar and other plants in forested areas, and the locations of archaeological sites that may historically have been mapped incorrectly. Having entered into confidentiality agreements, the crew are also confirming the locations and buffering recommendations for habitation and other sites identified in the Heiltsuk Traditional Use Map Biography. Sept 2013 - We are now compiling summaries of results and will start holding community and focus group sessions later this month so that all interested Heiltsuk members may review and provide input on draft results.
Data drawn on for Heiltsuk SLRD TUS Sites and Provincial Data • Traditional Use Areas other than most hunting and trapping • Buffered to 100 m • Coast Scenario
• Seek community input on treatment of traplines, deer habitat • Buriel sites ▫ Buffered to 200m • Village sites ▫ Buffered to 500 m • Areas with high potential for monumental and other cedar and forest and heritage resources ▫ Identified as polygons for groundtruthing
Archaeological Sites • Recorded Archaeological Sites • Buffer 100-500 m • CMTs – two scenarios ▫ Buffer to 100 m ▫ No buffering
Aquatic Sites • Streams known to Heiltsuk to be important fish habitat • Buffered 100 m Streams with observed and inferred fish – two scenarios ▫ Buffer to 100 m ▫ No buffering (operational discretion of RPFs, legal objective standard requirements for NC and CC)
Training – in class and experiential Data cards, plants, arch features, streams •
•
Cultural and Ecological Observation Date________________ Reporter(s) ____________________________ Landscape Unit Location description: e.g. on beach, in forest, on island, on water… Camera # ______ GPS Unit # ______ Cultural observation type: Habitation site Midden Fishtrap Clam Garden/Bed Canoe Run Other_________________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #________ Notes______________________________________________________________
• • •
Cultural observation type: Other – Burial Site Rock Art Carved Post Cave Other __________________________________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #________ Notes_____________________________________________________________
• • •
Ecological observation type: Medicinal/Food Plants observed? Plant Name_____________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #__________________ Notes e.g. size of grouping… __________________________________________________________________
• • •
Cultural observation type: CMT - Bark Strips Aboriginally Logged Other ________________________________ Picture Taken? Picture number__________ DBH_________ GPS Waypoint #________Notes_________________________________________________________________
• • •
Ecological observation type: Monumental Tree observed? Species _____________ DBH_________ Cedar Stand observed? Picture Taken? Picture number__________ GPS Waypoint #___________ Notes e.g. size of grouping… __________________________________________________________________
• •
Garmin GPS Units
Sample results: King Island Landscape Unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
King Island – Fog Creek sub-unit
Implementation of Heiltsuk SLRD Preliminary Implementation • Engagement Framework - As part of information sharing that precedes our referrals process – we overlay proposed log handling sites, roads and cutting permits (engineered and projected) with our draft SLRD GIS polygons ▫ Where areas are already engineered we work with licensees to find mutually beneficial ways for their plans to proceed ▫ Where areas are projected we request they look elsewhere if the projection overlaps one of our SLRD polygons
Site Verification
Conservancy and Protected Area Planning • Class A Parks
▫ Marine Parks: Codville Lagoon, Green Inlet, Jackson Narrows, Oliver Cove, Penrose Island ▫ Parks: Tweedsmuir, Sir Alexander Mackenzie
• Conservancies
• Calvert Island, Carter Bay, Clyak Estuary, Cranstown Point, Emily Lake, Fiordland, Goat Cove, Goose Bay, Kitasoo Spirit Bear, Klekane, Koeye, K’ootz/Khutze, Lady Douglas – Don Peninsula, Lockhart Gordon, Outer Central Coast Islands, Penrose-Ripon, Pooley, Q’altanaas/Aaltanhash, Rescue Bay, Cascade-Sutslem, Codville Lagoon, Dean River, Dean River Corridor, Ellerslie-Roscoe, Hakai Luxvbalis, Hotsprings-No Name Creek, Huchsduwachsdu Nuyem Jees/Kitlope, Jump Across, Kimsquit Estuary, Kwatna Estuary, Namu, Namu Corridor, Nooseseck, Restoration Bay, Troup Passage, Upper Kimsquit River
• Hakai Conservation and Study Area
Acknowledgements
• • • • • • • •
North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative Provincial Government Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management Coast Opportunity Fund Coastal Guardian Watchmen Network QQS Projects Society HIRMD and SLRD field technicians, skipper and boat charters Heiltsuk Traditional Use Study Map Biography participants
