Tag Archives: Gulf Islands

Rivers & Oceans

Rays of hope for kelp and climate in south Salish Sea

Editor’s note: Bull kelp grows from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to Santa Barbara County in California. There is a lot of it around Vancouver Island, and in the waters off both Cortes and Quadra Islands.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

It’s not all doom and gloom for the rich underwater kelp forests in the southern Salish Sea struggling to weather increasingly warm oceans. 

Some pockets of bull kelp vital for sea life off southern Vancouver Island and B.C.’s Gulf Islands are proving to be resilient to rising sea temperatures and marine heat waves, a new University of Victoria study has found. 

Continue reading Rays of hope for kelp and climate in south Salish Sea →
Housing

What They Heard: The Cortes Housing Report

The ‘What We Heard Report,’ from Cortes Island’s Housing Forum and the subsequent Housing Survey, has been released. 

“This is a really exciting document for Cortes. The intention of this forum that we did with the Cortes Housing Society and the Housing Survey was really to listen to Cortes and understand what the housing challenges are. We already had a pretty good idea from previous reports and information, but this really gave us a good sense of what the challenges are and then what do people want us to move forward with?” explained Mark Vonesh, Regional Director for Cortes Island. 

Continue reading What They Heard: The Cortes Housing Report →
Water

Small island community launches big effort to develop water security

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Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As a landscape architect specializing in wetland restoration, Bernie Amell knows how water moves across the landscape. 

However, he has had a crash course in drought after Amell and his wife moved to their Quadra Island agricultural acreage on B.C.’s so-called “Wet Coast” three years ago. 

“We arrived in 2021, in the ‘heat dome’ summer, and the shallow well dried up,” said Amell, a member of Quadra Island’s Climate Action Network (I-CAN).

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Animals

Slugs and bugs are worth saving, too

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Conservationists striving to prevent species from going extinct find it tricky enough to save Canada’s most magnificent and iconic animals, like southern resident killer whales, mountain caribou or grizzly bears. 

But most of the 640 wildlife now listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act are flora and fauna that don’t get time in the spotlight. More than a third of at-risk species are plants, mosses and lichens most people would probably walk past without a second glance. 

Another 30 per cent are slimy, slithery, creepy creatures that folks might well notice but find repellent. But critters like slugs, bugs and snakes are critical to ecosystems, too, and deserve a lot more love. 

So, Canada’s National Observer asked three B.C. biologists to champion a less charismatic creature they think is fascinating and deserves a little public adoration.

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Forests, Parks

New land trust creates a rare climate zone ‘backbone’ that stretches Saturna Island

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A new land conservancy on Saturna Island has created a significant green corridor that includes B.C.’s rarest climatic zone.

The Nature Trust of B.C. has purchased 143.5 acres for the Money Creek conservation area on the southwest corner of Saturna, which falls in the moist maritime Coastal Douglas Fir (CDF) bioclimatic subzone, part of the smallest and rarest of the province’s 16 ecological zones

Continue reading New land trust creates a rare climate zone ‘backbone’ that stretches Saturna Island →