State of Environment Reporting

Is the Ecological Diversity of British Columbia’s Forests Adequately Protected?

SOURCE: Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management and Ministry of Forests 2002. NOTES: Protected areas include those which have been designated and those announced but not yet designated, under the Protected Areas of BC Act, Park Act, Ecological Reserve Act or other provincial or national protected areas legislation. Regional parks and urban water supply watersheds in which timber harvests are not permitted are not included. High elevation forests are those found in four biogeoclimatic zones: alpine tundra, spruce-willow-birch, Engelmann spruce-subalpine fir, and mountain hemlock. Forests in all other biogeoclimatic zones are defined as low elevation forests. The total area of forested land at high elevation is 18.5 million ha and at low elevation it is 43.1 million ha.

Percentage of forested area that is protected.

• About two-thirds of British Columbia is forested. The area of forests protected by provincial or national legislation increased between 1991 and 2001 from 2.62 million to 5.84 million hectares (from 4.3% to 9.5% of all forests).

Is the ecological diversity of British Columbia’s forests adequately protected?

• Forests of different tree species, elevations and ages provide critical habitat to various animal and plant species. Protected forests should include a variety of forest types at different elevations and ages to ensure the continued existence of habitat types and the species that are reliant upon them.
  
  
• Protection of high elevation forests increased from 6.8% in 1991 to 15% in 2001. About three quarters of protected high elevation forests are older than 140 years (2.05 million hectares protected in 2001).
  
  
• Protection of low elevation forests more than doubled from 3.2% in 1991 to 7.1% in 2001. Low elevation forests account for 70% of all forests in the province. More than half of the protected low elevation forests in 2001 are older than 140 years (1.67 million hectares protected in 2001).
  
  
• The amount of old forest (older than 140 years) that can be protected depends in part on the amount of old forest available due to natural ecosystem dynamics, such as fire, and on the history of timber harvesting, which generally began in low elevation forests. As of 2001, the total remaining area of old forests in British Columbia was 26.1 million hectares, 14.2% of which was in protected areas. Of the remaining old forests at low elevation, 11.8% are protected.
  
  
• Features indicative of “old growth” forests such as large trees, an open and structurally diverse canopy layer and thick moss, take from 100 to more than 250 years to develop fully, depending on the natural dynamics of each ecosystem.
  
  
• Forests older than 140 years were used to represent mature forests in this analysis because of data limitations.