Forest Ecology and Management 258 (2009) 495–503
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Forest Ecology and Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foreco
Ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest
Karen Price a, Audrey Roburn b, Andy MacKinnon c,*
a
12895 Cottonwood Road, Telkwa, BC, V0J 2X3 Canada
Rainforest Solutions Project, 302-733 Johnson Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 3C7 Canada
c
BC Ministry of Forests and Range, 4300 North Road, Victoria, BC, V8Z 5J3 Canada
b
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received 15 May 2008
Received in revised form 1 October 2008
Accepted 6 October 2008
Ecosystem-based management is the management system being applied to 6.4 million hectares of the
coast of British Columbia, Canada, an area referred to as the Great Bear Rainforest. This approach,
intended to manage for ecosystem integrity and community wellbeing, is similar in many respects to
ecosystem management approaches elsewhere. However, several novel elements are involved in
application of ecosystem-based management on British Columbia’s coast: shifts in power that have led to
increased aboriginal control and the formation of coalitions between groups that were formerly in
opposition; development of explicit models relating management strategies to land-use objectives and
separating knowledge from values; use of ecological thresholds and natural variability to establish
management targets. Current management is based on transitional targets that differ from science-based
targets. Many challenges remain in moving to full implementation of ecosystem-based management,
including the difficulties involved in moving from one management model to a fundamentally different
one, limited resources for implementation, dealing with complex systems, the lack of freely available
multi-disciplinary data, and the difficulty of bringing concepts of uncertainty and risk into public policy
discussions in a transparent manner.
ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Ecosystem-based management
Ecosystem management
Great Bear Rainforest
Ecological integrity
Human wellbeing
Coastal temperate rainforest
1. Introduction
Ecosystem management emerged from concern that conventional resource management threatens ecological integrity. Over
the past decade, the concept has permeated land management
discussions worldwide, addressing a variety of ecosystems from
oceans to savannahs and forests (e.g., Didion et al., 2007; Gillson
and Duffin, 2007; Ariza et al., 2008; Ruckelshaus et al., 2008).
Motivations driving ecosystem management have expanded from
concern about loss of biodiversity and of the intrinsic value of
ecosystems (Ludwig et al., 1993; Holling and Meffe, 1995; Hilborn
et al., 1995) to concerns that conventional practices also limit
social and economic options for future generations (Grumbine,
1994; Brussard et al., 1998) and to the realisation that stakeholder
participation in management is crucial for success (e.g., Fabricius
et al., 2007; Berghöfer et al., 2008).
Definitions of ecosystem management vary, but usually include
a similar suite of concepts: an emphasis on ecosystem sustainability rather than ecosystem products, inclusion of humans within
ecosystems, consideration of multiple spatial and temporal scales,
understanding of the dynamic nature of ecosystems and human
communities, the need for clearly defined management goals and
objectives, the need for management strategies based on the best
available knowledge of ecological systems, recognition of the
limits of knowledge and uncertainty, and agreement on the need to
learn and adjust (e.g., Grumbine, 1994; Christensen et al., 1996).
This paper describes how ecosystem management is defined
and implemented for the area of coastal British Columbia termed
the Great Bear Rainforest. Although the approach in general is
similar to that used elsewhere, and includes the concepts listed
above, several novel elements facilitated the development of
ecosystem management in the Great Bear Rainforest: shifts in
power that have led to increased aboriginal control; the formation
of coalitions between groups that were formerly in opposition;
development of explicit models relating management strategies to
land-use objectives and separating knowledge from values; and
use of ecological thresholds and natural variability to establish
management targets. We elaborate on these elements in the hope
that they may be useful to others struggling with similarly
immense processes.
2. The Great Bear Rainforest
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 250 952 4432; fax: +1 250 952 4119.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Price), [email protected]
(A. Roburn), [email protected] (A. MacKinnon).
0378-1127/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2008.10.010
The Great Bear Rainforest, so named by environmental groups
early in land-use planning (McAllister et al., 1997), includes 6.4
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K. Price et al. / Forest Ecology and Management 258 (2009) 495–503
million hectares of western North America’s coastal temperate
rainforest (Fig. 1). Coastal temperate rainforest is rare globally,
covering 0.1% of the earth’s land surface (Kellogg, 1995). A quarter
of the world’s unlogged coastal temperate rainforest is in the Great
Bear Rainforest.
Coastal temperate rainforest is characterised by abundant
precipitation (3–5 m annually in the Great Bear Rainforest), a
moderate climate, and mountains (Schoonmaker et al., 1997).
Coniferous forests dominate the British Columbia coast. Due to
extremely low natural rates of stand-replacing disturbance – with
Fig. 1. The Great Bear Rainforest includes 6.4 million hectares on the central and north coast of British Columbia, Canada.
K. Price et al. / Forest Ecology and Management 258 (2009) 495–503
return intervals in the order of millennia – gap-phase dynamics
dominate (Daniels and Gray, 2006; Gavin et al., 2003; Lertzman et al.,
2002). Structural elements develop over centuries, resulting in a
landscape dominated by ancient forests with large trees and
complex structure (MacKinnon, 2003). While bears, wolves, salmon,
and large trees are integral ecosystem components, inconspicuous
species such as mosses, lichen, fungi, canopy and soil fauna comprise
the majority of species in the region (Marcot, 1997).
About 22,000 people live in the Great Bear Rainforest (about 0.3
people/km2), half of them of aboriginal ancestry (generally referred
to in Canada as First Nations). The region includes the traditional
territories of 25 culturally (and often linguistically) distinct First
Nations. As elsewhere in North America, European colonization
devastated First Nations’ populations and cultures, and replaced
subsistence economies with natural resource extraction.
The economies of the area are generally depressed. Many
communities face high unemployment rates, low incomes, poor
health, low high school graduation rates, substandard housing, and
limited economic opportunities (Smith and Sterritt, 2007).
Economic benefits of resource development have for the most
part not accrued to local residents. For example, in the period
between 2003 and 2005, residents of the Great Bear Rainforest held
about 10% of the direct harvesting jobs for timber harvested in the
region (Pierce Lefebvre Consulting, 2006).
Past logging has already removed much of the most valuable
and easily accessible timber in the region (Prescott-Allen, 2005;
Green, 2007), which in many cases is found on the highest
productivity growing sites. High-productivity sites make up less
than 10% of the forested land-base in the region. Little of this area
remains as old forest (e.g., about 10% of productive cedar-leading
ecosystems; Holt and MacKinnon, 2006).
3. Setting the stage: shifting power and coalitions
3.1. Power shifts
Two significant power shifts made ecosystem-based management possible in the Great Bear Rainforest (Smith and Sterritt,
2007).
The first major shift in power involved First Nations governance. A series of court decisions made clear that First Nations had
rights to their traditional territories that had not been extinguished, and that any decisions about the management of these
lands required the input of First Nations (e.g., Persky, 2000). As a
consequence, land-use planning in the Great Bear Rainforest was,
and continues to be, led jointly by the two governments—
provincial and First Nations. This has been referred to as a
government-to-government process.
The second major shift was a change in the power of
environmental non-government organisations. For decades controversy had surrounded land-use decisions in the coastal regions
of British Columbia: the most productive forests were sought after
by both environmental groups and logging companies. In the mid
1990s, when it seemed as though most of the remaining valleybottom stands would be logged, international market campaigns
by environmental groups, targeting buyers of wood derived from
old growth coastal temperate rainforests, brought global attention
to the region. Over 80 companies, including Ikea, Home Depot,
Staples and IBM, committed to stop selling wood products made
from these forests, forcing logging companies to negotiate with
environmentalists. With roughly a billion dollars of sales of BC
wood products and their associated revenues to government at
risk, environmental organisations that previously had little
influence on decision-making became real power players in
land-use planning processes (Smith and Sterritt, 2007).
497
3.2. Coalitions
The agreements that initiated ecosystem management in the
Great Bear Rainforest would never have occurred without
coalition-building of a kind never before seen in British Columbia
resource management. Formal and informal coalitions arose
within and among stakeholders, among First Nations, and between
stakeholders and First Nations (Smith and Sterritt, 2007).
Following the market campaigns, the forest companies
operating in the Great Bear Rainforest formed one coalition; the
environmental groups formed another. And in an approach never
before seen in BC, where environmental groups and forest
companies have typically been locked in bitter conflict, the two
coalitions agreed to work together to generate solutions. Perhaps
even more remarkably, the environmental–industry coalition
parties agreed to work out their differences together before
discussing issues with the provincial government. That the
environmental groups and the forest companies were conveying
the same messages greatly increased their influence.
At the same time, First Nations leaders from communities in the
Great Bear Rainforest were meeting to discuss their shared
problems and potential solutions. The result was the formation
of a broad coalition of First Nations of the Central and North Coast
and Haida Gwaii, called Coastal First Nations. First Nations in the
southern Central Coast formed a second coalition, now known as
the Nanwakolas Council. In 2001, the Coastal First Nations and the
Province of BC signed a protocol affirming that the parties would
interact as governments, a fundamental shift in the Province’s rules
of engagement with First Nations. Individual First Nations
developed their own land-use plans for their traditional territories,
then entered into negotiations with the Provincial government.
Previous land-use planning processes in BC have always been
led by the provincial government. This fundamentally different
planning model based on coalitions was unsettling for many in the
provincial government, but in the end was essential in building a
degree of consensus among historical antagonists.
4. The decision: ecosystem-based management
In 2001, the Coastal First Nations, industry–environment
coalition parties, and other First Nations and stakeholders, agreed
to a framework to guide land-use planning on the coast. The
framework included commitments to ecosystem-based management, to logging deferrals in key areas while planning proceeded,
to independent science to guide land-use decision-making, and to
a new economy that would help shift the region’s reliance on
natural resource extraction to a ‘‘conservation economy’’ that
could support both healthy ecosystems and healthy communities.
The term ‘ecosystem-based management’ was deliberately chosen
over ‘ecosystem management’, to emphasise that the intent was to
manage human activities, rather than to manage ecosystems.
The consensus definition for ecosystem-based management for
the Great Bear Rainforest includes both ecological integrity and
human wellbeing components: ‘‘Ecosystem-based management is
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 those spatial and
temporal characteristics of ecosystems such that component species
and ecological processes can be sustained, and human wellbeing
supported and improved.’’ This definition was an attempt to
reconcile the recognition of ecosystem precedence (Grumbine,
1994, 1997; Christensen et al., 1996; Haynes et al., 1996; Noss,
1999) with the need to focus extensive effort on understanding and
incorporating people and how they interact with ecosystems
(Slocombe, 1993, 1998a,b), and on improving wellbeing in a region
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where human communities are struggling with loss of languages
and traditional cultures, serious social problems, and limited
economic opportunities (Prescott-Allen, 2005).
To ensure separation of knowledge and values, the approach to
ecosystem-based management was to be developed by an
independent advisory body, the Coast Information Team. Altogether, 10 project teams and over 100 subject experts completed a
comprehensive series of peer-reviewed reports, including an
Ecosystem-based Management Handbook, by 2004 (www.citbc.org) for a total cost of $3.3 million.
Using the independent knowledge to inform their value-based
decisions, two multi-stakeholder Land and Resource Management
Planning tables, one for BC’s North Coast and one for the Central
Coast, made consensus recommendations on land-use goals,
objectives and strategies in the region (Central Coast LRMP
completion table 2004; North Coast LRMP Final Recommendations
2005). These recommendations were adopted by BC’s provincial
government as their bargaining position, and then fed into
government-to-government negotiations between the provincial
government and First Nations. Ultimately, the negotiated outcome
was announced in February 2006 in the Great Bear Rainforest
Land-Use Decisions, decisions which are now being implemented
with oversight by the First Nations and provincial governments on
a government-to-government basis.
5. Elements of ecosystem-based management
5.1. Addressing human wellbeing: conservation financing
Human wellbeing can only be addressed within the context of,
and with leadership from, communities (Keough and Blahna, 2006).
In order to stimulate a new economy in the Great Bear Rainforest, a
conservation financing initiative was developed, ultimately securing
$120 million: $60 million from private funders (raised by environmental non-governmental organisations), and $30 million each
from the provincial and federal governments. Half of that amount
forms a permanent conservation endowment, the interest from
which will support work to protect and manage ecosystems. The
other half will be spent over the next 5–7 years to support
ecologically sustainable First Nations businesses and economic
development within the communities of the Great Bear Rainforest.
This initiative is a cornerstone of ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest, because it aims to address the
human wellbeing element of the consensus definition in a way that
does not compromise ecological integrity. Rather than feeding into
the resource extraction paradigm of a trade-off between ecosystems and people, it ‘‘expands the pie’’ by providing new economic
opportunities that do not rely on damaging ecosystems.
5.2. Addressing ecological integrity: protected areas
Similarly to approaches elsewhere, implementation of the
ecological integrity component of ecosystem-based management
relies on two general strategies: the creation of protected areas and
other reserves off-limits to resource extraction, and management
targets and practices elsewhere. The 2006 land-use decisions
added 1.3 million hectares of protected areas and 297,000 hectares
of ‘‘biodiversity areas’’ (logging, but not mining, is excluded) to the
existing park network. These areas were selected via negotiations
informed by an ecosystem spatial analysis developed by the
independent advisory team (www.citbc.org). The ecosystem
spatial analysis combined information on environmental gradients, special elements such as rare habitats, and models of focal
species habitat to identify candidate areas. Most of the new area
protected entire watersheds, or added to existing protected areas.
The protected areas fall under new legislation developed to
allow for First Nations cultural uses within them, a significant
change from past approaches to protected area management in
British Columbia, and an explicit recognition that people have been
part of these ecosystems for millennia.
The total area protected from logging in the Great Bear
Rainforest is over 2 million hectares, 33% of the area. This
proportion is similar to other examples of protection within large
areas of global interest: for example, Costa Rica at 25% protection,
and the Great Barrier Reef at 33% protection (Green, 2007).
5.3. Addressing ecological integrity: explicit management models
Beyond protected areas, forest management strategies recommended by the independent advisory body were designed based
on a complete management model. They considered the full suite
of objectives hypothesised to contribute to the overarching goal of
maintaining ecological integrity, and designed management
strategies for each one. Models of relationships among these
objectives provide a high-level view of the full management model
for ecological integrity (Fig. 2).
For each objective, the independent advisory body prepared
explicitly drawn relationships between objectives (e.g., maintain
water quality) and management strategies (e.g., harvest level per
watershed). Strategies were represented by implementation
indicators (e.g., equivalent clearcut area; Fig. 3). Indicators were
selected for their ability to strongly influence an objective, to
describe the full spectrum of a management activity, and to be
measurable at an appropriate scale. In some cases, these relationships were based on peer-reviewed meta-analyses; others were
based on expert workshops. Uncertainty around the relationships
was described explicitly.
These relationships synthesised current knowledge and
assumptions as hypotheses. They modeled the presumed shape
of relationships, and expressed thresholds clearly. Exploring
thresholds, particularly in the relationship between habitat and
species response, has received considerable attention over the past
10 years because thresholds can indicate regions where ecological
risk increases rapidly (e.g., Andrén, 1994; With and Crist, 1995;
Muradian, 2001; Huggett, 2005). One of the most important
features of the explicit hypotheses is that they are presented in a
manner that can be recorded, communicated and updated easily,
facilitating learning (Bunnell and Dunsworth, 2004; Tear et al.,
2005). Expressing targets quantitatively frequently clarified
strategies during expert workshops and subsequent negotiations
among interest groups.
The hypothesised relationships were used to determine
strategies that had high and low probability of achieving
objectives. ‘‘Precautionary targets’’ were defined as those management strategies that were fairly certain to achieve objectives;
‘‘high-risk limits’’ were defined as the upper extent of acceptable
strategies. Precautionary targets were intended to be applied at the
sub-regional scale. Management at smaller scales (landscape,
watershed and stand) could exceed these targets, but could not
exceed high-risk limits. In some cases, exceeding a precautionary
target was permitted only if the area was subject to an adaptive
management experiment. This approach was designed to allow
flexibility and to provide an economic incentive to learn.
5.4. Ecosystem representation
Ecosystem representation provides a good illustration of the
general methods and approach. Ecosystem representation is widely
accepted as a primary objective of ecosystem-based management
(Christensen et al., 1996). Maintaining representative ecosystems
K. Price et al. / Forest Ecology and Management 258 (2009) 495–503
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Fig. 2. Conceptual model of relationships among the principal objectives aiming to achieve ecological integrity.
in suitable abundance and distribution across watersheds, landscapes and regions may be the only way to maintain myriad
unknown species and ecological processes (Franklin, 1993).
Ecosystems were already classified and, to a lesser extent,
mapped in the Great Bear Rainforest; British Columbia has a
well-developed terrestrial ecosystem classification system based
on climate, soil moisture, nutrients and vegetation (Banner et al.,
1993).
In the Great Bear Rainforest, habitat loss is primarily a shift in
seral stage and stand structure, as ancient forests with complex
structure are converted to younger, more uniform forests by
logging. (Conversion of forested habitats to non-forested use is
almost non-existent in this area.) Estimates of the amount of forest
over 250 years old in unlogged watersheds range from a low of 43–
73% in inland fluvial ecosystems to 95–98% in upland hypermaritime areas (www.citbc.org). Because old forest dominates natural
coastal landscapes and because it is the seral stage most altered by
Fig. 3. Example hypothetical model for risk to hydrological function posed by
equivalent clearcut area based on an expert workshop. Equivalent clearcut area
describes a second-growth block in terms of its hydrological equivalent as a
clearcut. As second-growth develops, the hydrological impact on a site is reduced.
Dotted lines represent uncertainty. Twenty percent was selected as a precautionary
target for this indicator.
harvesting and with the longest recovery, representation targets
focused on old forest.
Defining precautionary targets for old forest representation
required answering the question ‘‘how much is enough?’’
Traditionally in BC, this question has often been answered on
social or economic grounds—for example, a management system
may be designed to generate a certain number of jobs, or to have a
minimal effect on timber supply. Answering the question on
ecological grounds was considerably more difficult. Literature on
this question has centred on thresholds—points where ecological
function shifts rapidly (Holling, 1973; Scheffer et al., 2001).
Abundant evidence supports the existence of habitat thresholds,
but there is no consensus on how much habitat is required to avoid
thresholds, beyond an agreement that amount will vary among
organisms and across ecosystems (Bender et al., 1998; Lindenmayer and Luck, 2005). Several authors have suggested using
habitat thresholds relevant to the most sensitive regionally
occurring species to set targets (Jansson and Angelstam, 1999;
Mönkkönen and Ruenanan, 1999; Fahrig, 2001). In the Great Bear
Rainforest however, no research into habitat thresholds had been
conducted. Faced with little regionally specific information,
independent advisors searched for an alternative approach suited
for precautionary guidance. The solution was to review studies on
thresholds where loss of suitable habitat in any landscape was
shown to affect a population or community (Price et al., 2007).
This review indicated that more than one-third of species or
communities crossed thresholds before their habitats dropped to
50% of total area; nearly two-thirds reached thresholds before their
habitat dropped to 30%. Few species had thresholds above 60%,
suggesting that maintaining more than 60% of suitable habitat
would pose low risk to most species. There remains uncertainty
about how the risk to ecological integrity increases as old forest
levels drop below 60%, but the review suggested that risk is no
longer known to be low below that point.
Other lines of evidence suggested similar targets. Theoretical
work predicts similar thresholds (e.g., Gardner and O’Neill, 1991;
Stauffer and Aharony, 1992; With et al., 1997; Boswell et al., 1998;
Fahrig, 2002). The American marten, the best current candidate for a
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sensitive, regionally occurring species in the Great Bear Rainforest,
has been found to have a high threshold – about 60% – within
regenerating clearcuts or natural openings (Hargis et al., 1999;
Chapin et al., 1998; Potvin et al., 2000), although lower when harvest
retains structure (Buskirk and Ruggiero, 1994; Chapin et al., 1997).
The representation targets in the Great Bear Rainforest were
designed to be applied to different ecosystem types, as defined by
the biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification (Banner et al., 1993),
separately. These ecosystem types are similar in concept to the
International Vegetation Classification and Nature Conservancy’s
‘plant associations’ (e.g., Maybury, 1999), stratified by climatic
zones. This approach was intended to ensure that all ecosystem
types – including highly productive ecosystems targeted by
forestry – are represented (Lindenmayer and Luck, 2005). In
addition, 100% of ‘red-listed’ ecosystems (extirpated, endangered
or threatened, typically with fewer than 20 high-quality occurrences in the province) are reserved.
Ecosystem management often uses the frequency and patterns
of natural disturbance to inform management (e.g., Morgan et al.,
1994; Haynes et al., 1996; Cissel et al., 1998; Landres et al., 1999;
Swetnam et al., 1999). In the Great Bear Rainforest, old forest
targets were designed to be applied as a proportion of the natural
amounts of old forest in each ecosystem type. The risk associated
with an absolute level of habitat loss is hypothesised to vary among
ecosystems because these systems, and the species within them,
have evolved with different levels of disturbance (Bunnell, 1995).
Because natural disturbance rates are so low throughout the
British Columbia coast, using estimates of the range of natural
variation to set old forest targets is relatively simple (though also
more constraining) compared to more disturbed ecosystems.
Precautionary targets for old forest were set at 70% of the area of
old forest that would exist under natural disturbance conditions for
each ecosystem, translating into 34–68% of the total forested area
per ecosystem (and averaging about 60% across ecosystems). For
example, the target for an ecosystem with 97% of the forest expected
to be older than 250 years under natural disturbance regimes was set
at 70% 0.97 = 68% of the total area of that ecosystem.
No single scale is sufficient to assess or maintain ecological
integrity. Because ecosystems exist at multiple spatial scales,
conservation efforts at multiple scales increase chances of success
(Poiani et al., 2000). The largest, sub-region scale (about 1000–
30,000 km2) is the appropriate scale to consider cumulative impacts
of maintaining representative ecosystems. To ensure that cumulative risks are precautionary, the guideline for sub-regions is the 70%
target. Because natural amounts of old forest vary more in smaller
areas (Wimberly et al., 2000), the guidelines for reserves in
landscapes and watersheds are more flexible, allowing for retention
levels down to 30% of natural (14–29% of total forested area, the
high-risk limit), provided that sub-regional targets are met.
An additional strategy deals with retention at the smallest,
stand scale, requiring 15–70% retention within harvested blocks.
5.5. Hydroriparian ecosystems
Traditionally, in BC and elsewhere, water and the adjacent land
have been considered and managed separately as aquatic and
terrestrial systems. Because the two are tightly coupled, and
because the influence of water in the rainforest extends throughout watersheds, the term ‘‘hydroriparian ecosystems’’ is more
appropriate (Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel, 1995). Hydroriparian ecosystems consist of aquatic ecosystems plus those of the
adjacent terrestrial environment that are influenced by, and
influence, the aquatic system.
Hydroriparian ecosystems are particularly prevalent in wet
coastal forests. In the hypermaritime lowlands, wetlands (bogs,
ponds and small lakes) cover 51–75% of the landscape (Banner
et al., 1986, 1988). Over a fifth of the area within the Great Bear
Rainforest is hydroriparian.
The ecosystem classification system used to define the
terrestrial ecosystems of the Great Bear Rainforest is largely a
stand-level, terrestrial classification. It does not directly consider
hydrological features, provide landscape context or combine sites
into ecosystem complexes—all important aspects of hydroriparian
ecosystems. Hence hydroriparian ecosystems were defined separately for the Great Bear Rainforest, and additional strategies were
designed to represent these ecosystems.
The scientific advisory panel recommended that planning for
hydroriparian reserves should occur at the watershed scale. Such
plans would include protection of unstable terrain, reserves around
a portion of small streams, and reserves, including buffers, of all
areas where vegetation is influenced by water. The extent of
influence of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on each other
differs depending on whether adjacent land remains forested or has
been harvested (Brosofske et al., 1997). As an initial practical
hypothesis about the extent of hydroriparian ecosystems, boundaries were to be drawn at one and a half site-specific tree heights
beyond the edge of vegetation influenced by water (45 m in the
absence of inventory). The first tree height was intended to capture
the influence of the terrestrial system on the aquatic system; the
additional half tree height was intended to protect conditions within
the buffer. In valleys, this definition of hydroriparian ecosystems
includes the entire valley flat plus one and a half tree heights.
Hydroriparian reserves were designed to capture differences in
ecosystem sensitivity. Particularly sensitive hydroriparian ecosystems (e.g., estuaries, steep streams with high susceptibility to
debris flow) had high precautionary targets of 97% of natural levels
of riparian forest; others ecosystems had lower targets down to
70% (equivalent to terrestrial ecosystems).
6. Discussion
Though ecosystem management is becoming increasingly
common, implementation of ecosystem-based management in
the Great Bear Rainforest is novel in several respects. The first is in
its geographic scope: few other projects cover such a large area.
Notable exceptions, also on the northwest Pacific coast, are the
Northwest Forest Plan (e.g., Thomas et al., 2006), which covers
approximately 10 million hectares in the northwestern United
States, and the Tongass National forest management plan (e.g.,
Everest, 2005), which covers 6.8 million hectares in southeast
Alaska. Neither of these management plans is explicitly premised
on ecosystem management, though both incorporate aspects.
The second novel aspect of BC’s experiment in ecosystem-based
management is the co-management of the process by BC’s
provincial government and aboriginal peoples (First Nations).
We cannot find other examples of aboriginal resource comanagement on such a large scale.
A third element of the Great Bear Rainforest example that is of
global interest is the leadership role of coalitions in defining
ecosystem-based management in the region. It was ultimately an
agreement reached by the environmental–industry coalition that
formed the core of the consensus agreements at provincial landuse planning tables. In previous land-use planning processes in
British Columbia, the provincial government had led, and
managed, the process. In the Great Bear Rainforest, by contrast,
stakeholder groups and First Nations often took leadership roles
and worked together to reach consensus. This trend toward ‘‘smart
regulation’’, where groups resolve their differences and propose
solutions to governments, is growing in North America, Australia,
and elsewhere (Webster and Cathro, 2007).
K. Price et al. / Forest Ecology and Management 258 (2009) 495–503
Fourth, the scientific recommendations for management in the
region have been based on explicit models developed to separate
values from knowledge. In dealing with complex decisions about
environmental management involving multiple parties, explicitly
described relationships between management objectives and
strategies are useful to replace the implicit models that all
stakeholders hold in their heads. They document assumptions,
data and knowledge transparently, and hence focus and clarify
discussion. The benefits of explicit models are well recognised both
for combining expertise and for involving stakeholders (e.g.,
Holling, 1978; Walters, 1986; Fall et al., 2001; Failing and Gregory,
2003). These explicit models also serve as clear testable
hypotheses, thus providing a framework for an ongoing programme of adaptive management.
The ecosystem-based management experiment in the Great Bear
Rainforest is still in its early stages. As a transitional strategy, an
interim suite of legal targets has been adopted for the region, with
agreement to move to full adoption of ecosystem-based management by 31 March 2009. Full adoption will be reached through
additional planning processes and the revision of legal targets.
The interim legal targets differ from the scientific advisory
committee’s recommendations in several ways. First, they do not
adopt precautionary targets for old growth ecosystem representation. Instead, interim targets of 30% of natural levels of old forest
(14–29% of total forested area) were applied to 94% of the landbase, with the precautionary 70% target applying only to the rarest
ecosystems. Hence, management of most of the forested land-base
could push representation of many ecosystems to the high-risk
limit, at least in the interim phase. This decision was based solely
on an analysis of timber supply because little information exists to
examine the impacts of ecological targets on broader economic and
human wellbeing goals. Second, the interim targets are not based
on a flexible multi-scale planning system. Whereas the initial
recommendations took a multi-scale planning approach that
allowed for the application of a wider range of targets at
successively finer scales, the current regulations apply a single
target at each scale. Third, with the exception of grizzly bear, the
interim targets do not account for protection of focal species
habitat or populations. Fourth, the interim targets have dropped
the understanding of integrated hydroriparian systems, instead,
buffering ‘‘aquatic’’ features, and assigning management prescriptions on the basis of the presence or absence of designated fish—
the standard approach in British Columbia that the scientific
advisory committee explicitly attempted to avoid for consideration
of more ecologically relevant measures.
The differences between the scientific advisory committee
recommendations and the interim legal targets highlight some of
the key challenges to implementation of ecosystem-based
management in the Great Bear Rainforest. First, the inertia
involved in such a large project is immense. As people and
institutions become fatigued with the slow process, it is easy to fall
back on status quo modes of thinking rather than tackling the
challenges inherent in a complex, systems approach. In particular,
the view that timber harvest rate is tightly linked with human
wellbeing, and that ecological factors are merely constraints on
timber harvest, is well entrenched (Bourgeois, 2008). Despite
conservation financing efforts to provide new economic opportunities to local communities, some stakeholder groups continue to
see measures to protect ecological integrity as opposing economic
benefits. The lack of knowledge is problematic. There is no clear
relationship between timber harvest and human wellbeing,
especially in regions where most timber benefits have been
exported. However, the relationships between human wellbeing
and contributing factors are so complex and case-dependent
(Rubus EcoScience Alliance, 2007) that it is difficult to replace the
501
accepted old model with a new one. This problem is particularly
intractable due to the temporal offset between changes that are
required to improve human wellbeing and the shifts in ecological
management that are required in the short term.
The perceived challenge of legally enforcing a flexible management approach has led to prescriptive, single target rules. Again,
the complexity of a systems approach seems to challenge existing
structures.
A second challenge has been lack of multi-disciplinary data,
availability of which is a key factor required for successful
implementation of collaborative ecosystem-based management
(Keough and Blahna, 2006). There is a dearth of suitable cultural
and socio-economic data, and incomplete ecosystem and focal
species habitat inventories for the region. In other cases, forest
companies that hold land-base data are reluctant to release
existing information.
Although Great Bear Rainforest ecosystem types have been
extensively sampled, classified and described (e.g., Banner et al.,
1993), detailed ecosystem mapping (generally at a scale of
1:20,000) is available for only 20–25% of the area. The lack of
inventories, coupled with lack of resources to complete inventories, has been one factor leading to reluctance to plan at large
scales. Regional planning cannot currently use ecosystem maps to
define target levels of retention. Planning thus is based on a
surrogate system that considers tree species and timber productivity within climatic zones. Preliminary analyses have found
inadequacies in the surrogate as it does not match well with the
described ecosystem types (Price, unpublished data). This can lead
to over-representation of low-productivity ecosystems and underrepresentation of high-productivity ecosystems in reserved areas if
harvesting plans select the most productive stands first.
A last challenge is the difficulty in bringing uncertainty and risk to
values of interest into public policy discussions in a transparent
manner. Decision-makers have generally avoided explicit statements
that they are willing to accept higher levels of ecological risk in
exchange for increased timber harvest potential, although legal
targets to date reflect tolerance for high ecological risk. There has
been inconsistent willingness on the part of all parties to implement
existing agreements. Although all parties intend to fully adopt
ecosystem-based management by 2009 – including a commitment to
‘‘seek to achieve low ecological risk’’ – it is not yet clear whether the
outcomes will include the complete suite of precautionary targets.
Ecosystem-based management is being implemented in the
Great Bear Rainforest in a complex and mercurial political context.
Twenty-five individual First Nations with different cultures and
interests and overlapping territories; a provincial government
attempting to implement a fundamentally different management
system; forestry companies facing tight global markets; and highprofile international environmental groups intent on protecting
ecosystems, are all pulling the implementation of ecosystembased management in different directions. Ecosystem-based
management in the Great Bear Rainforest is an experiment in
collaborative, adaptive ecosystem-based management on a grand
scale—and the results will not be known for many years to come.
Acknowledgements
We thank Dave Daust, Jody Holmes and two anonymous
reviewers for comments on the manuscript, and Dave Leversee for
providing access to unpublished data.
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