(April 6, 2009 – Vancouver) The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (PFRCC) today released a report titled “Landscape-Level Impacts to Salmon and Steelhead Stream Habitats in British Columbia“ that recommends protecting critical BC ecosystems essential to salmon and steelhead habitats from landscape-level changes due to forestry, agriculture and urbanization.
“Human activities are profoundly changing the landscape, affecting fish and fish habitats,” says Mark Angelo, Vice Chair of the PFRCC (www.fish.bc.ca) and co-author of this report. “Some of the most important salmon and steelhead freshwater environments in BC are physically, chemically and biologically diverse because of the water flowing through a wide variety of landscapes. Changes in the landscape are seriously affecting fish and fish habitats.”
The report reviews these landscape changes and effects, and makes many suggestions to improve the situation for fish in BC. One key recommendations is to have all four levels of government – federal, provincial, local and First Nations – formally recognize the importance of addressing impacts on a broader landscape basis and embed this in appropriate legislation. A more regionally focused approach to land use planning is also recommended.
The radical change in forest landscapes in BC’s Interior, with the large-scale salvage of trees ravaged by the pine beetle infestation, requires an extra-ordinary scientific understanding of the effects of watershed-level hydrological changes. The report recommends a strong commitment of both money and program support to these studies.
Intensive agriculture and growing urbanization have had significant landscape effects in areas such as the eastern Fraser Valley, southern Okanagan and parts of south-eastern Vancouver Island, where large housing projects are being developed in areas adjacent to intensive agriculture or on lands formerly used for farming. Among the report’s recommendations in this area is to incorporate ecological values to benefit salmon and steelhead in the Agriculture Land Reserve.
A full copy of “Landscape-Level Impacts to Salmon and Steelhead Stream Habitats in British Columbia“ by Dr. Marvin L. Rosenau and Mark Angelo can be downloaded at www.fish.bc.ca.
The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (www.fish.bc.ca) was created in 1998 and is an independent advisory body whose mandate is to alert and inform the federal and provincial governments and the public on issues that threaten Pacific salmon and their habitat.
Carla Shore
C-Shore Communications Inc.
P: 604-731-0975, carla@shore.ca
View full report here.