Ecosystem-Based Targets and BC’s Proposed Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework
The forthcoming Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF) offers the greatest chance in BC’s history to direct the expansion of its protected areas system in the right direction via Ecosystem-Based Targets.
The current draft, put on hold in the lead-up to the 2024 provincial election, has many promising components that should be retained, such as creating a Provincial Biodiversity Officer. However, it is still missing key pieces to give it the teeth it needs to be transformational. See AFA’s detailed submission on BEHF recommendations. Help take action by sending an instant message calling on the BC government to enact those changes.
What Happens if BC Doesn’t Implement Ecosystem-Based Targets?
Without legally binding Ecosystem-Based Targets, protected areas in BC will continue to prioritize ecosystems with lower logging value, typically in alpine, subalpine, and northern areas. Meanwhile, the most endangered and least protected ecosystems, usually at lower elevations in southern BC, where biodiversity, species at risk, and endangered ecosystems are concentrated, will remain vulnerable to logging, development, and human settlement.
To end this pattern, BC must commit to protecting the full range of ecosystems in its 30×30 protection plan and ensure their long-term survival.
Instead of the current ad hoc approach to conservation, BC must develop a mandate to proactively pursue the protection of the most endangered, least represented ecosystems, including the big-treed old-growth stands. A Protected Areas Strategy (PAS), which the BC NDP government had in the 1990s, is needed and should guide this and its goals of protecting 30% of BC by 2030.
Using Ecosystem-Based Targets, the province should proactively identify areas for potential protection and then protectively engage and undertake shared decision-making with First Nations to find long-term conservation solutions, utilizing the significant conservation funding available to support this work. See AFA’s detailed policy recommendations for the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework here.
