Management of Provincial Lands 2016-2020

However, as biodiversity continues to be lost across all levels due to human and natural disturbances, the associated changes may threaten ecosystem processes and services that humans rely on for well-being (Chapin et al., 2000). To help evaluate whether the balance of efforts to conserve biodiversity are being met, governments, stakeholders, natural resource decision-makers and the public require information on the combined effects of land uses activities and natural disturbances on forest biodiversity.

Biodiversity Objectives

Recognizing the importance of biodiversity, British Columbian’s have expressed the desire to ‘maintain’ or ‘conserve’ biodiversity through objectives developed under land use planning processes and legislation since the early 1990’s. Meeting society’s objective to conserve biodiversity in British Columbia is accomplished through a comprehensive federal and provincial policy and regulatory framework (hereafter referred to as the ‘biodiversity conservation framework’). The framework includes:

• A provincial Protected Area Strategy (Province of B.C., 1995) committed to protect 12% of the land-base through a system of protected areas and reserves (Federal and provincial parks, protected areas, ecological reserves),
• Strategic land use planning processes (e.g. Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMPs) that decide the appropriate use of the land,
• Federal and Provincial legislation that provides for a variety of habitats at the landscape, as well as setting broad objectives (e.g. Species at Risk Act, Migratory Bird Act, Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) or Land Act),
• Regulations that apply to sector-specific practices to provide important attributes at the landscape and stand scale, for example: FRPA Forest Planning and Practices Regulation (FPPR), Government Action Regulation (GAR), Higher Level Plans (HLP) established under the Forest Practices Code (FPC) and continued under FRPA, or Land Use Order Regulations (LUOR) under the Land Act;
• Forest Policy for Forest Biodiversity – FPC Biodiversity Guidebook (B.C. Ministry of Environment, 1995) and subsequent Landscape Unit Planning Guide (LUPG).

In the case of forest biodiversity, the implementation of the biodiversity conservation framework is founded on the conceptual framework outlined in the Biodiversity Guidebook whereby:

• All native species and ecological process are more likely to be maintained if managed forests are made to resemble those forest created by natural disturbance agents such as wildfire, wind and disease.
• Biodiversity management in B.C. recognizes that intensive forestry and other resource development are compatible with the maintenance of biodiversity.
• Recommended targets incorporate trade-offs to integrate society’s desire to both derive economic benefits from the forest and to conserve biodiversity on the landscape.

Management Context

Results from the assessment protocol are intended to inform strategic-level decisions for the management and allocation of land and resources. These decisions can include:

• Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) determinations
• Establishing management targets through land use planning processes or regulatory procedures (e.g. GAR Order designation)
• Major projects

From a management perspective, comparisons between ‘observed’ forest conditions and levels recommended in existing guidance, policy or designated as legal targets also need to be interpreted in the appropriate historical context. Various circumstances and factors beyond the control of current land managers affect forest condition; when interpreting results users should consider the following:

• Legacy impacts resulting from historic disturbances including both through natural processes (e.g. historic wildfires and anthropogenic disturbance (e.g. historic logging B.C.’s coast or forest clearing for agriculture on private land) may affect the ability of the land-base to achieve recommended guidance or policy targets;
• Existing guidance, policy and legal targets incorporated trade-offs to balance biodiversity conservation and socio-economic interests, and may vary from HRV and, in some cases, may exceed guidance recommendations; and,
• Recent management direction in the form of either policy (e.g. post-disturbance salvage) or new legal designations or legal targets (e.g. GAR orders) put in place since the original implementation of the biodiversity conservation framework may have shifted land-base conditions from those originally intended.

Protocol Overview :  Background & Conceptual Model

This Forest Biodiversity Protocol applies new concepts that go beyond the initial conceptual model of the Biodiversity Guidebook. The Guidebook was focused on managing the landscape by Natural Disturbance Type (NDT), but there are other forms of disturbance that affect species. This protocol thus applies a conceptual framework developed by Lindenmayer and Fischer (2007, 2006) to identify hazards12 associated with landscape change and/or modifications that can affect species diversity. The hazard categories correspond to the three main Components in Figure 2 and are as follows:

• Habitat Change – direct loss of forest habitats through conversion to alternate land uses (e.g. agriculture), or alteration or degradation of forest structural conditions resulting in disruption in habitat use.
• Habitat Connectivity – breaking apart of continuous habitat into multiple patches (habitat sub-division) and isolating remaining habitat patches affecting species day-to day movements, dispersal, seasonal migration or range shifts (habitat isolation).
• Species Dynamics – refers to changes in species behaviour, biology or interactions – habitat avoidance, increases in inter-species competition, predation, parasitism or disruption in mutualistic relationships between species.

Assessment Units

The Forest Biodiversity Assessment Protocol uses a multi-scale assessment and reporting structure of overlapping ecosystem units and administrative boundaries (Figure 3). Ecosystem units consist of Landform facets and Biogeoclimatic Subzones Variants (Figure 3, A and B). Ecosystem units follow the Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification (BEC) system (Meidinger and Pojar 1991) that classifies ecosystems based on relatively homogeneous climate and ‘climax’ vegetation cover Administrative units use provincial Landscape Unit (LU) boundaries (Figure 3, C). The multi-scale approach allows for ‘rolling up’ assessment results from one spatial scale to other scales. For example, ecosystem units can be reported at the LU scale, or at the scale of the Biogeoclimatic (BGC) Subzone Variant across multiple LU’s at the scale of a Resource District or Region.

Forest Biodiversity Indicators and Ratings

Within each hazard category (Habitat Change, Habitat Connectivity and Species Dynamics) indicators were selected that characterize both the state of forested habitat conditions (e.g. old forest amount, urban and agricultural settlement), and pressure indicators that measure the extent and severity of factors that modify forested habitats, or that exert influences on species in forest habitats (e.g. disturbance from roads or recreation) (Figure 4).

Habitat Change

Scientific Context

Habitat Change refers to the direct loss of forest habitats through relatively permanent conversion to alternate land uses (e.g. agriculture) or interim loss, alteration or degradation of important forest habitat requisites such as structural attributes (e.g. standing dead and live trees, downed wood) or micro-climatic conditions.

The term ‘habitat loss’ in this protocol refers to the loss of habitat diversity – the full range of habitats that would be expected to occur naturally. This definition is consistent with B.C.’s current biodiversity conservation approach of using habitat diversity as a surrogate for maintaining species and genetic diversity.

The full range of habitats that would be expected to occur naturally is generated by producing the“expected” forest age distribution (seral stage distribution). This can be calculated based on estimates of historic stand-replacing disturbance return intervals (Section 3.1.5). Habitat loss can be estimated by the extent that the observed range of forest habitat conditions deviate from that expected to ‘historically’ occur on the landscape. Habitat loss is estimated through the following steps;

• Defining the Historic Forest Land-base (HFLB), or that area that would have historically provided forest habitats,
• Defining forest habitats, and describing ways to characterize different habitat conditions,
• Estimating the expected amount of different forest habitats based on estimates of historic stand-replacing disturbance return intervals,
• Estimating the likelihood that habitat loss, degradation or alteration has occurred based on departure of existing forest habitat conditions from expected historic conditions.

The protocol applies the concepts of habitat connectivity (pg 19) and species dynamics (pg 21).

It appears that the 2020 Interim Assessment Protocol for Forest Biodiversity in BC and the 2016 Cumulative Effects Framework are still in the implementation stage.