Beyond Baseline

Creating a “Case” for

Conservation

This Presentation is for:

Non-Government Conservation Organisations

Who is Kathy Dunster?

Professional BiologistGeographer

Landscape Architect

Islands Trust Fund Board(6 years)

Presentation Objectives:

1. To describe what a conservation case is.

2. To share some techniques and tools that I use to prepare cases here in B.C.

Why do we need Conservation

Cases?Or, what does

“Beyond Baseline” mean?

Why?• To find as many reasons why a place

should be protected, in the time available to you to write the case for conservation.

• To provide information of all sorts about a place that fund-raisers can use to successfully “market” the project to potential funders or partners of all sorts.

Baseline is:“The starting point for analysis. This may be the conditions at a point in time (e.g. when inventory data are collected) or it may be the average of a set of data collected over a specified period of time.”

(Dunster & Dunster 1996)

Baseline describes the “here and now”

Baseline does not delve too deeply into describing the special qualities of a place that make it worthy of protection.

Baseline is mostly used to establish starting points

for:

1. Covenant (easement) monitoring

2. Management plans3. The Conservation Case

(but baseline is NOT the case itself.

A Conservation Case

is about….Finding the tangible and intangiblequalities of a place, being seduced by the place, and telling the story about the place to seduce others into helping save it.

Until you are seduced by a place, you cannot tell

its story

Personal qualities essential for case makers/writers:•Eclectic interests in cultural

history, natural science, earth science & geography

•Good research skills

•Ability to glean information from many sources

•Ability to synthesize information

And…

•You enjoy story-telling and writing

•You passionately believe in saving places

And always bubbling away in the back of your mind are the two big issues….

1. Whether the overall resource values justify the potential cost of acquisition;

2. Whether there is imminent threat of losing the place through development and/or lack of sufficient legislative protections.

Essentials for a Good Case

A. Abiotic Information

B. Biotic Information

C. Cultural Information

G. The Gestalt

A, B & C = tangibles

G = intangibles

Abiotic (A)The non-living components of the ecosystem:• Geology and geological history• Geomorphology and geomorphological history• Soils• Water – hydrology, riparian, lacustrine, littoral• Climate• What’s rare, threatened, vulnerable, endemic?

Bedrock Formations on Hornby Island

DeCourcy SandstoneGabriola

Conglomerate

•Local micro-climates •Type locations for named soil types•Faultlines and Earthquake locations•Mass wastage/colluvium and steep slopes•Flood areas•Cool stuff like Wrangellian terrane exposures, sandstone cliffs and formations, coast plutonics, volcanic debris, basement bedrock•Dunes, spits, eroding sand bluffs and other young formations

Biotic (B)The living components of the ecosystem:• Plants and plant communities• Animals and animal communities• Insects and plant-insect relationships• Other invertebrates• Fungi• What’s rare, threatened, vulnerable,

endemic?

……..seasonal migration corridors for insects, birds,

marine mammals and fishwaterfowl staging areas

fish spawning areaseelgrass and kelp bedscritical nesting habitat

vegetation – historical, contemporaryforest fire history

future climate change scenariosrainforest – dry forest types

wetlands of every size and typeconnectivity to other natural systems

Cultural (C)

The human story:• First Nations history, place names• Post-contact history, place names• Old maps, air photos, archival

stuff• Art, poetry, music and literature

inspired by the place or created there

• Your experiences with the place• Genius Loci

More cultural…• historical settlement patterns;

• economic activity (from historical to contemporary);

• archaeological / historical sites;

• analysis of current land use and surrounding land use, zoning, owner intent, location and market conditions.

Places of cultural importance

Saturna Island

Genius LociWhat is the pervasive spirit of the place?

Gestalt (G)The whole place is understood as something more than the sum of its parts.

Putting it all together to make sense of the place and explaining to others what the place is all about.

Ecosystem functions, processes and interrelationships.

Finding the intangibles and articulating them.

What makes the place so unique?

Is there an analog landscape somewhere else

on the planet or is this really it?

Mayne Island

A + B + C + G =The components of a good Conservation Case

The challenge is to find them.

The Salish Sea Bioregion

Next: A look at two conservation

casesBoth projects involved multiple partnerships between different levels of government and large and small non-government conservation organisations.

Savary Island Sand Dunes

District Lot 1375 =147 hectares

(about 1/3 of Savary Island)•Very rare forested dune

ecosystems and coastal dune meadows•Relatively undisturbed property•10,000 years of post-glacial history•Rare plants and animals•Unique (and very rare) plant communities

It’s all about the sand(Quadra Sands)

Savary Island Facts450 hectares

70 year-round residents1710 lots (1910

subdivision)500 lots built

No Hydro, No FerriesSavary Island Land Trust

(1997)www.silt.ca/

Ancient dune

forests

Rare plant communities

Sacred places for islanders

The Case:

The property provides one of the best examples of forested coastal dune ecosystems in Canada.

Verdict: Raise the funds ($2.5 million) to acquire a 50% undivided interest and protect the place forever. Successful completion April 2002!

Princess Louisa Inlet swíwelát

Sacred place of the shíshálh (Sechelt) First

Nation

Historical Images

1947

1933Chatterbox

Falls

2001

OldRainfores

t

ch´ínkw’u

TUK-TAK-A-MIN

The Princess Louisa Pluton

Princess Louisa Inlet Facts

Princess Louisa International Society

Rated by boaters as #1 recreational cruising destination in

the world65 hectares protected as a

Provincial ParkA small, deep fjord – 300 m.

60+ waterfalls

More facts…4,000 visible acres owned by

Weyerhauser and unprotected from logging

Princess Louisa Pluton – 132 myaMalibu Rapids

Chatterbox FallsSea cliffs for nesting birds

Rare and unusual plant communities

Linkages to the Chilcotin

The Case

Princess Louisa Inlet is the best representative and undisturbed example of the southern-fjords landscape of coastal British Columbia. Verdict: Raise the funds to acquire and protect the place forever. Successful completion Autumn 2002!

How much time do you get to build a conservation

case?(usually not a lot)

Biodiversity BlitzesRapid Ecological Project

AssessmentsExperience helps a lot

Having a “knowledge network” helps too

Thank you…