Tag Archives: Gov of BC

Animals

Government protection of Species at Risk ineffective, report says

A new report commissioned by the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC found that Federal and Provincial government policy gaps have rendered their protection of Species at Risk ineffective. 

“Our study looked at terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate species in BC We needed to refine the scope a little bit just because there are so many Species at Risk in BC. In order to do this analysis, we had to narrow in on a few representative species. In total, we chose 64 species. Of the 64 species, only two of them have had their critical habitat mapped by the deadlines. The remaining 97% have experienced critical habitat mapping delays anywhere from 2 to 18 years. Then there’s 16 of the 64 species that still don’t even have their critical habitat mapped,” explained Charlotte Dawe of the Wilderness Committee.

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Housing, Poverty

The Campbell River Coalition to End Homelessness Responds

(Editor’s note: While the events described in this article did not take place in the Discovery Islands, the Directors for Cortes Island and Area C both voted in the SRD Board meeting mentioned below. Also, we are part of the ‘District’ that the Campbell River and District Coalition to End Homelessness operates in.)

Last week, the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board decided to step back from involving themselves in Campbell River’s emergency shelter. They were responding to a request from the Campbell River and District Coalition to End Homelessness. The Board considered two options: (A) they could give staff direction to explore what this would entail, or (B) they could inform the Coalition they are not prepared to take on the responsibility of operating homeless shelters. After 42 minutes of a somewhat confused debate that ended in a 7-7 vote, they chose option (B).   

Cortes Currents reached out to the Coalition for comment while writing up an account of the meeting, but neither Stefanie Hendrickson, the Coalition’s Coordinator, or Sue Moen, from the Salvation Army, were available until the afternoon of Monday, November 14, 2022. Both women responded by email. 

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Parks, Rivers & Oceans

A deeper dive into the marine protected network plan on Canada’s West Coast

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

There’s much to celebrate in the proposed plan to create a string of marine protected areas stretching Canada’s West Coast from northern Vancouver Island to Alaska, experts say. 

But the lack of information on specific protection measures for the BC Northern Shelf MPA Network means the blueprint to preserve sensitive ocean ecosystems risks becoming a string of “paper parks” — legally designated areas that don’t actually have effective conservation or stewardship measures. 

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Cost of Climate Change

Talk is Cheap, Part 2: the worst possible choices

Evidence of climate destabilisation — aberrant weather — is now everyday news. “Record-breaking” has become a routine description of wind speeds, rainfall, flood levels, mudslides, wildfires, high temperatures and drought.

The drought which afflicts BC this October of 2022 is a record-breaker and a tragedy; near Bella Bella, tens of thousands of salmon have died trying to return to their breeding grounds in streams now too warm and shallow for them to survive in. Over the last few summers, BC has lost millions of hectares of forest and entire towns to wildfire; “fire season” and multi-day smoke palls are becoming business-as-usual in mid to late summer. In December last year, flooding destroyed livestock and crops in the lower mainland. These events are happening more frequently and their severity is ramping up, slowly, year by year.

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Parks

FOCI: Maintaining Cortes Island’s Regional parks

“A lot of the places people want to go and visit are either down a beach access or they are a park. We’ve got large areas of unfragmented forest in Ha’thayim or Von Donop Park. Mansons Landing Provincial Park is a really bio-diverse lagoon full of marine life. Those parks together make up quite a big parcel of land that’s set aside for conservation and for nature to thrive.  There’s no development pressure, that’s really important. We have those permanent resources protected, and obviously there’s a lot of really interesting ecosystems in them too,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI).

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