CRD Parks Long Term Strategy Concerns Mar. 2 2022 At the February 9 CRD Board Meeting, discussion on the CRD Parks Strategic Update revealed that there would be no randomized public survey to confirm that the public still strongly supported the protec-tion of ecological values and that focus groups would be used to ob-tain input. It also appears that no education on current CRD Park Management priorities to the participants would be included. All CRD Parks Strategic Plans since the first in 1998 emphasize pro-tection and restoration of biodiversity. The CRD’s resident surveys continue to support this as reflected in the most recent, in 2017 (Fig 11, page 49). The public also support some public access to wilder-ness areas, especially trails, but only if it does not damage park biodiversity (Table 4, page 22). Hopefully, the most recent survey will be used in determining park priorities. Staff did indicate in the meeting that they did not believe public attitudes had changed. Twenty-five years ago the idea of a Sea to Sea greenbelt in the Capital Region began to emerge and take shape. Surplus lands from the water district were transferred to the CRD along with provincial crown lands. Additional private lands were purchased by the Land Conservancy and transferred with protective covenants to the CRD. More than 100 Sq Km. were protected. The main intent of this initiative was to provide a buffer for the water supply area and to protect the high ecological diversity of the Coastal Douglas Fir and Dry Western Hemlock remaining in these lands, identified in 2020 as among the most threatened in Southern Canada (1). This intent was expressed as management priorities and subsequent goals in the first management Plan for Sooke Hills Wilderness Park in 2001. This plan required sign off from the Provincial Minister of the Environment before becoming a CRD bylaw. The value of these lands was captured and made public in a document titled “The Full Protection Option” submitted by the Wilderness Committee to a BC Provincial Commission in 1996. There was over-whelming public, political and scientific support for protection of these lands. The large regional wilderness parks, contiguous with the protected water supply lands are particularly important in providing habitat and travel corridors for the large carnivores which are essential to the over-all ecological health of the region’s wild lands. Conservation of biodiversity in the CRD is now even more important for natural carbon sequestration, a foundation for policies which support the Regional Climate Emergency Declaration. Our existing parks are under increasing pressure which if not man-aged will damage biodiversity within them. The Parks Department was advised of this five years ago in a report on the Sea to Sea and Sooke Hills Wilderness Parks by Grant MacHutchon, a renowned consulting wildlife biologist. We cannot protect ecological values in our parks if we are not monitor-ing impacts; impacts on plant communities, rare and endangered plants, nesting sites, water quality and animal displacement. Protection of these lands is not just about CRD Parks. The community has an interest, an investment as well and can make contributions. The academic, professional and NGO communities in the field of environment and ecology are all able to cooperate and contribute. For large mammal movements, camera trapping has grown to be the preferred scientific methodology internationally for the last decade or so. We are getting some results from Professor Cole Burton of UBC for protected areas in Southern BC and in South Chilcotin Park in the BC interior. A similar study jointly sponsored by an NGO and UVic in Sooke Hills Wilderness Park has been approved by CRD Parks and is under way. These studies are especially important in studying the needs of large mammals which require large areas of habitat, travel corridors and low disturbance. Coexistence between humans and these large mammals, especially predators is a challenge for park management. Future CRD management plans must deal with this scientifically if the parks’ biodiversity is to maintained as originally intended. Management planning must be evidence based and revised as studies accumulate. CRD Parks is now engaged in the process which will result in a new long term strategy for the parks system. The end product of that process should be a plan which properly manages the demands to which the system is subject and ensures the protection and ecological integrity of wilderness areas. That is a demanding task which, without clear priorities, will be made more difficult. Please contact your munic-pal representative(s) on the CRD ad tell them that preservation of ecological integrity should contoue to be the management priority for CRD Parks.
Alastair Craighead,
Victoria Reference: 1. Kraus,D., Hebb,A. Southern Canada’s crisis ecoregions (2020) Biodiversity and Conservation. Alastair Craighead, former Councillor, City of Victoria, former CRD Director, former Board Member, Greater Victoria Water District Alison Spriggs, former campaigner with The Wilderness Committee, member of the Elders Council for BC Parks and a former member of the Public Advisory Group for Sooke Hills Wilderness and Mt. Wells Regional Parks Management Plan