A long awaited meeting with BC officials working to save the spotted owl from being wiped out in Canada reveiled some strong improvments in habitat protection. The officials proposed makeing most of the spotted owl management areas 100% off-limits to logging - except some logging would be allowed to "improve" habitat. While we are encouraged that this plan, if adopted would be a significant improvment on the current situation, we believe that the BC government is not going far enough to create the conditions for spotted owl survival in Canada.
Below is the responce letter we, represented by our lawyers at Ecojustice, have mailed to the officials. The new BC government spotted owl plan is schedualed to come into force sometime this Fall. Between now and then there will be some sort of public consultation process. More on that later. Here is our letter...
Ecojustice
Vancouver Office
214 - 131 Water Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 4M3
www.ecojustice.ca
Keith Ferguson, Staff Lawyer
Tel: (604) 685-5618, ext. 287
Fax: (604) 685-7813
E-mail: kferguson@ecojustice.ca
BY EMAIL
Jun 30, 2009
To: Liz Williams, A/Director, Species at Risk Co-ordination Office, liz.j.williams@gov.bc.ca
CC: Kaaren Lewis, Director, BC Ministry of Environment, kaaren.lewis@gov.bc.ca
Ian Blackburn, Wildlife Biologist, BC Ministry of Environment,ian.blackburn@gov.bc.ca
David Cunnington, Senior Species at Risk Biologist, Environment Canada,david.cunnington@ec.gc.ca
Virginia Poter, Director General, Environment Canada, virginia.poter@ec.gc.ca
Dear Ms. Williams,
Re: Redrawing the SOMP boundaries for Northern Spotted Owl habitat in BC
On behalf of myself, Devon Page and Susan Pinkus of Ecojustice, and of Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee, thank you again to you and your colleagues for meeting with us at our office here in Vancouver last week.
We recognize that your team’s boundary redrawing work (as part of the draft Spotted Owl Management Plan II (SOMP II)) is an improvement over the current state of spotted owl management, and we look forward to seeing your newly mapped management areas for spotted owl habitat being put into 100% retention status as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, we do not feel the draft plan is adequate to create a reasonable likelihood that the Canadian Spotted Owl population will persist over time. In particular, we believe that the ‘no net loss to timber harvesting’ principle under which your work is being conducted precludes any scientifically robust attempt to truly address the survival and recovery of the Northern Spotted Owl in BC. To address that and other concerns, we suggest the following eight changes for improvement:
1. Drop the ‘no net loss to timber harvesting’ principle. Rather, the starting point should be the amount of critical habitat actually needed for survival and recovery of the Spotted Owl according to the best available science.
2. Do not allow further ‘logging to improve habitat’ within management areas at this time.
The notion of logging to improve or enhance habitat for the Spotted Owl has been attempted in the past in B.C., such as in the Anderson valley and, we believe, near Silver Lake. Until such areas have been monitored and the validity, let alone effectiveness of logging to improve habitat for the Spotted Owl has been demonstrated, we recommend the precautionary approach is to not conduct any further such logging, especially given the obvious pressures that might come to bear in the future from parties seeking to open
up management areas to such ‘experimental logging’.
3. Designate the Harrison-Chehalis management areas as 100% retention. Our understanding is that your boundary redrawing work has significantly ‘downgraded’ the protections in the Harrison-Chehalis management areas, such as around Chehalis Lake, to allow for logging with only minimal requirements to leave a small number of trees per hectare. It appears these areas are to be ‘sacrifice zones’ in the name of the ‘no net loss to timber harvesting’ principle. Yet these areas were occupied by Spotted Owls in the
relatively-recent past and remain important to provide suitable habitat for the species’ survival in the future as the forest continues to mature. These management areas were also strategically placed and remain important to allow young Spotted Owls to move into new territories. We therefore recommend that these management areas be off-limits to logging and designated as 100% retention.
4. Reinstate the Sea-to-Sky management areas and designate them as 100% retention. These areas also appear to have been sacrificed as a result of the ‘no-net loss to timber harvesting principle’. Yet Spotted Owls occupied these areas in the past and they remain important areas to provide suitable habitat in the future so as to enable successful reintroduction and long-term survival of Spotted Owl.
5. Designate all suitable spotted owl habitat outside of management areas as 100% retention. There still exists some suitable spotted owl habitat (i.e. forest of sufficient age and appropriate elevation) outside of the management areas proposed in your boundary redrawing work and/or discussed above, and this suitable habitat has been mapped already. Given that young Spotted Owl disperse in all directions, and that all existing suitable habitat is insufficient for survival needs of the species, all remaining suitable spotted owl habitat is precious and should be retained in addition to the management areas.
6. Designate 100% retention corridors between management areas. Over the past few years, much modelling work has been undertaken for Spotted Owl, including mapping out connecting corridors between management areas. Connectivity between management areas is important to provide movement corridors for Spotted Owls, and research suggests that such connectivity is necessary for Spotted Owl survival and recovery. Such corridors need to be designated as 100% retention zones.
7. Provide legislated protection for the management areas, for the suitable habitat outside management areas, and for corridors, by designating them as Ecological Reserves under the Ecological Reserve Act. We understand the approach currently proposed is to allow the boundaries of management areas to be adjusted over time by amending orders and measures under B.C.’s forestry laws. However, leaving the door ‘wide open’ for such adjustments will almost certainly lead to pressures to move or reduce management areas, leading to a continuing cycle of dispute and unrest. Given the need for long-term
protection for Spotted Owl habitat, and the benefits that certainty will bring for all, we recommend durable statutory protection be provided for management areas, for suitable habitat outside management areas, and for corridors.
8. Commit to the goal of recovering the population to at least 250 mature Spotted Owls living in the wild in Canada. The Recovery Strategy under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) identifies a recovery objective of 250 birds. We urge B.C. to accept this goal and to explicitly commit to it.
While we consider the above eight points to be necessary to the long term survival and recovery of Spotted Owl, we would not want them to further delay placing the management areas you have identified to-date into 100% retention status. Given the logging on Fire Mountain just this past year, we are concerned that any additional delays may lead to further loss of current or future Spotted Owl habitat. We therefore recommend that the management areas your team has proposed to-date be put into 100% retention as soon as possible, and that additional areas then be added as each of the above eight points above are addressed.
Finally, as we requested at the meeting, would you please make the Spotted Owl Science Review Team’s comments and reports public (which I believe you noted has been the intention all along), and provide us with the opportunity to fully participate in all upcoming WHA/GWM consultations. We also request that you allow us to see any draft section 7 order before it is passed, as well as the full draft SOMP II.
Once again, thank you for meeting with us, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions concerning the above.
Yours truly,
Keith Ferguson, Staff Lawyer
Photo: SigmaEye's photostream, Flickr, Creative Commons - Northern Spotted Owl
It was a WILD summer having 42 WWOOFERs (organic farm volunteers from all over the world) stay with my extended family on our land at Seton Portage. Thanks to the Wilderness Committee for organizing this and thanks for all the help building trails, cabins, working on the farm, and caring for the land. See you in 2010!