This is an extract from an article written by Ken Wu. Ken is the founder and executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance 

The full article is here.

Most Canadians are familiar with the concept of an endangered species act or species at risk legislation. Very few however are familiar with the concept of what an “endangered ecosystems act” would entail. An endangered ecosystems act could in fact be one of the most important conservation tools to protect grasslands – the most endangered ecosystems in the world – including the grasslands in BC. Indeed, such a conservation tool could be a key game-changer to help halt both the extinction crisis and the climate crisis (as native ecosystems including grasslands draw-down vast amounts of atmospheric carbon).

What would an endangered ecosystems act entail?

Similar to with a species at risk, a science team would assess the status of an ecosystem, then determine a target of how much would need to be protected or restored (ie. termed a “recovery plan” for species – for ecosystems, it would be more of a “protection” or “restoration plan”) in order to sustain the long- term ecological integrity of that ecosystem. The long-term ecological integrity of ecosystems, based upon the insights provided by the disciplines of conservation biology and landscape ecology, would be determined by looking at what it would take to sustain a large diversity of ecosystem components over time – rare, sensitive and distinct species, keystone species, wide-ranging species, ecological gradients, predator-prey relationships, hydrological processes, natural disturbance regimes and seral stages, evolutionary processes, maintaining climate resilience, and more. Where such ecosystem-based assessments have been done, typically the protection/ restoration of 25% to 75% of each ecosystem is deemed necessary for there to be a low to moderate risk of losing its ecological integrity over time.

A similar approach was applied in BC’s Great Bear Rainforest, where a science team developed “retention targets” that prohibited logging for a hundred plant communities (site series) such as Douglas-fir-Salal or Western Red Cedar-Skunk Cabbage. As a whole, protecting about 70% of the natural levels of old-growth forests on the Central and North Coast was deemed necessary to ensure a low risk of losing the region’s ecological integrity. Retention targets were achieved through a combination of legislated provincial conservancies and a network of forest reserves.

A provincial Endangered Ecosystems Act (or more accurately, a “Native and Endangered Ecosystems Act”, as the goal would be to prevent native ecosystems from becoming endangered) if applied across the province would also ensure the protection of a large amount of BC’s grasslands from agricultural and urban expansion. Science-based protection/-restoration targets could be applied to the full diversity of vegetative site associations, such as Big Sage-Bluebunch Wheatgrass or Giant Wildrye, and the targets could be reached through a variety of protected and conservation designations.