Ecosystem-Based Management

Today, two million hectares of the Great Bear are protected from logging. Logging in the remainder of the rainforest will be guided by a lighter-touch approach, called Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM).This approach takes ecological and First Nations community requirements into account before decisions are made about where and how much to log. 

Transitional logging regulations made legal in March 2009 require that:

• the amount of old growth forest that can be logged across the landscape, in each watershed, and in each ecosystem type is restricted. Over the entire region, 50 percent of the natural level of old growth forest of each ecosystem type has to be maintained  - or restored where forests have been heavily logged. This so called “moderate risk management” translates into an additional 700,000 hectares of forest set aside from logging.
• estuaries, streams, wetlands, and lakes are  afforded more protection with increased forested buffers.
• large portions of grizzly bear habitat are being maintained
• First Nations cultural features and monumental cedar for First Nations use are being maintained 

The first step in EBM is an Ecosystem Spatial Analysis, which gathers information on species within an ecosystem. It focuses especially on the habitat different wildlife species need in order to maintain viable populations, as well as the distribution of representative ecosystems.

For instance, grizzly bears need large swathes of undisturbed habitat and connecting corridors between them. Marbled murrelets can nest only in old-growth trees. Salmon need pure water and spawning beds clear of silt and debris from logging.

An Ecosystem Spatial Analysis also identifies rare and endangered plants and animals—as well as intact habitat left untouched by resource extraction such as mining or logging, or by human settlement.

EBM offers significantly more conservation measures than provincial environmental legislation and regulations. EBM was developed by the Coast Information Team, a group of independent scientists jointly commissioned by government, logging companies, First Nations and environmentalists. Their reports are available on the CIT-website. Each report published by the science team underwent peer review.

EBM and Global Warming