Conservation Values of the Proposed Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park e c n e r w a L m i J Submission to the Governments of British Columbia and Canada On the urgent need to fully protect the last remnants of rare Inland Temperate Rainforest in the Central Selkirk Mountains, including habitat for a herd of 90 endangered Mountain Caribou June 2011 Valhalla Wilderness Society Box 329, New Denver, British Columbia, Canada V0G 1S0 Phone: (250) 358-2333, Fax: (250) 358-7950, E-mail: [email protected], Web: http://www.vws.org CONTACT: Craig Pettitt, VWS Director, 250-358-7997 Anne Sherrod, VWS Director, 250-358-2610 i TaBle Of COnTenTS SUMMARY INFORMATION ABOUT THE PARK PROPOSAL Support for the Park Proposal ii Executive Summary 1 About the Park Proposal 2 MAP: Location of the Park Proposal and First Nations 3 Why Does BC Need More Parks? 4 Caribou Crisis 5 MAP: The Park Proposal 6 A Conservation Complex for the Central Selkirks 7 A CONSERVATION PROFILE OF INLAND TEMPERATE RAINFOREST What is Inland Temperate Rainforest? 8 Provincewide Protection of Inland Temperate Rainforest 9 A CONSERVATION PROFILE OF THE PARK PROPOSAL AREA Central Selkirks: Biogeoclimatic zones, logging, large wildlife at risk 10 Nearby parks — biogeoclimatic zones — rivers 11 Mountain Caribou Recovery Plan - Central Selkirk herd 12 Fish: Park proposal is the spawning grounds of Kootenay Lake and Arrow Lakes fisheries 13 Park Proposal is in Shrinking Core Grizzly Bear and Wolverine Habitat 14 THE PARK PROPOSAL IS DESIGNED FOR CONNECTIVITY 15 Connectivity across the Badshot Range 17 TABLE: Park Proposal by Sections: Forest Cover - Conservation Values - Status 18 Timber Harvesting Land Base in the UWR and Park Proposal 19 MAP: Biogeoclimatic Zones of the Park Proposal 20 BIODIVERSITY IN THE PARK PROPOSAL Upper Incomappleux/Battlebrook 21 Scientific Research in the Incomappleux 22 Lichens: Major Ecosystem Functions in Temperate Rainforest 23 The Incomappleux Reveals Ancient Forest Legacies 24 MAP: Old-growth Forest of the Park Proposal 25 The Duncan and Lardeau Watersheds 26 Hydro Development Threatens Fisheries 27 THE PARK PROPOSAL AND THE GLOBAL CRISES OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND SPECIES LOSS BC the Last Refuge for Many Large Wildlife Species 28 Harvard Medical School Issues Urgent Plea to Protect Biodiversity 29 CONCLUSION: Extermination Development or a Park? 30 APPENDIX AND REFERENCES A Sample of Incomappleux Lichens and Plants 31 A Forest Profile of Parks of the Interior Wetbelt 32 Old-Growth in the Park Proposal by Biogeoclimatic Zone 32 A Sample of Incomappleux Lichens and Plants`` 33 References 34 ii THIS PARK PROPOSAL IS SUPPORTED BY: Applied Ecological Stewardship Council of BC Conservation Biology Center Golden Chapter, Council of Canadians Pacific Wild Purcell Alliance for Wilderness Raincoast Conservation Save-the-Cedar League Valhalla Wilderness Society West Kootenay Ecosociety Wilderness Committee 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report proposes a 156,461-hectare, fully protected park that would provide connectivity between three existing parks in the central and north Selkirk Mountains of southeastern BC. Establishing a link - age park between the three parks would greatly enhance the protection values of each. The proposal includes a dramatic increase in the intactness and ecological completeness of each park. It contains core areas of intact old-growth forest, con - nected by corridors that contain a mix of large clearcuts and roads and well- forested areas. i r o The proposal has remnant stands of m O i primeval Inland Temperate Rainforest r a with trees up to 2,000 years old, and a bio - M diversity legacy many thousands of years Upper Incomappleux Valley - primeval, very wet Inland Temperate old. These forests abound with rare Rainforest. lichens, mushrooms, plants and many other forms of biodiversity, some of them red-listed (endangered) or blue-listed. Species of lichens never before known to science have been portant Central Selkirk herd could be our only real chance found here, and scientists say it is likely that more will be to keep mountain caribou in the southern Interior Wetbelt. found. These remnant forests are the focus of international About half of the park proposal is already designated scientific research on old-growth biodiversity. as “no-logging” Ungulate Winter Range (UWR) by the Other features of the park proposal include: Mountain Caribou Recovery Plan. However, the UWR is not protected from mining, power projects, roads for same, ‰ Habitat for the largest and most stable Mountain Cari - tourist resorts, glading for ski development. The govern - bou herd in the southern Interior Wetbelt. ment has said the protection may be removed if the caribou ‰ Spawning grounds for the blue-listed Bull Trout and fail to thrive — which would leave many other old-growth other ttrout and kokanee salmon of the important Koote - dependent species unprotected. nay Lake and Arrow Lakes Reservoir fisheries. This park proposal would upgrade 1/4 to 1/3 of the Un - ‰ Core habitat for blue-listed Grizzly Bears and Wolver - gulate Winter Range created by the Mountain Caribou Re - ines. covery Plan to park status. However, the purpose of the park is to protect the overall biodiversity of the area, including ‰ 27,364 hectares of untracked wilderness contiguous to our oldest and highest biodiversity forests that were not pro - Glacier National Park River (upper Incomappleux). tected or even considered for protection by the recovery Old-growth areas in this park proposal remain intact planning process. after 50 years of clearcutting, mostly because they have The overall result of the caribou zones and the pro - been too remote, or steep, or had other issues making it un - posed park would be a conservation complex of fully and profitable to log. A number of loggging companies have partially protected lands representing conservation biology pulle d out or gone bankrupt, leaving these forests behind. principles urged by scientists for the protection of biodi - The Central Selkirk Mountain Caribou herd has been versity. relatively stable at of 85-92 animals since 2002, but this is ___________________ approximately half the numbers since 1996 and 1999.* Every other subpopulation around it has been in steep de - *2010 Mountain Caribou Census found at: cline, and some have too few numbers to survive. This im - http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/siwe/details.do?id=723 2 l h a d g r e B s e m a J Glada McIntyre in the headwaters of the Duncan River. About the Park Proposal There has been a park proposal in the Central Selkirks of the Craighead Environmental Research Institute. since 1993. The first was proposed by the Applied Eco - logical Stewardship Council of BC (AESC) whose BC lichenologists Curtis Björk and Trevor founder, Glada McIntyre, tried to save the Singing For - Goward contributed unimaginable amounts of time. est in Howser Creek. In 1998 the Western Canada Mushroom specialist Dr. Oluna Ceska and Dr. Adolf Wilderness Committee, in collaboration with the Pur - Ceska, the former head of BC’s Conservation Data cell Alliance for Wilderness, proposed a large park Centre volunteered their services in the Incomappleux. called the Bugaboo Extension. In 1998 Dr. James Bergdahl produced a report on bull trout in the Upper Columbia Basin for VWS. In The Valhalla Wilderness Society (VWS) began 2009 Dr. Lee Harding, a former Environment Canada mapping and researching this area in 1998, in collabo - biologist, provided VWS with updated information on ration with the groups above. The VWS proposal fish specific to the park proposal. changed over the years due to a flow of information streaming from the scientific studies and GIS mapping Eminent wildlife photographer Jim Lawrence do - we sponsored, as well as the Mountain Caribou recov - nated the mountain caribou photographs in this report. ery planning process. Professional photographers Mari Omori and Allan Wat - son of Findhorn also contributed photographs. Gary This present proposal was designed by VWS di - Diers and his partner Inanna penetrated the untracked rector and forest technician Craig Pettitt and director wilderness of the park proposal and brought back field and bear biologist Wayne McCrory, with the help of information and photographs. Mushroom researcher Gary Diers of the Purcell Alliance for Wilderness. Jason Hollinger donated his stunning photographs. Funding was generously provided by the late Glen No one could have had access to the Incomap - Davis, the McLean Foundation, and a number of pub - pleux for the last several years without the heavy lic-spirited individuals who do not wish to be named. labour of a small crew of volunteers who collectively brushed out the road and repaired it. The following scientists and technical experts, were in part commissioned by VWS, but donated hun - The Valhalla Wilderness Society deeply thanks all dreds of hours of work on state-of-the-art science and these people. We now turn this work over to the gov - GIS mapping: mathematician Baden Cross of Applied ernments of BC and Canada, to be used to create a last - Conservation GIS; lichen researcher Toby Spribille ing legacy for the benefit of present and future from Graz University in Austria. Dr. Lance Craighead generations. 3 British British Columbia Columbia V Interior Wetbelt V Park Proposal Prince George The park proposal is located Alberta in southeastern BC, in the “Interior Wetbelt.” This re - gion has the world’s only In - land Temperate Rainforest. The wetbelt is formed by the Golden Columbia Mountains, and the Revelstoke park proposal is in the cen - Kamloops tral Selkirk Range of those mountains. Cranbrook The park proposal is in the Nelson Vancouver traditional territory of the Sinixt First Nation, also known as the Arrow Lake In - dians. The area is also Washington claimed by the Okanagan and Ktunaxa First Nations. SINIXT OCCUPANCY Historian Eileen Delehanty Pearkes has provided a summary of his - torical references to the Sinixt people in the area of this park proposal: “The use of the north end of upper Arrow Lake and its sur - rounding watershed (Trout Lake, Incomappleux River, Lardeau River and north end of Kootenay Lake by Arrow Lakes Indians (Sinixt) is well-documented in the ethnographic literature.