Produced in Collaboration with the CVCS Community Partnership by Lynda Fyfe, Juniper Environmental Services

Acknowledgements

Thank-you to: the CVCS Steering Committee and Community Partnership members for supporting and believing in the importance of this work; Kerry Dawson for her extraordinary patience and persistence on the journey of creating and editing this document; Don Chamberlain for his masterful digital mapping; David Stapley, Jack Minard, Caila Holbrook and members of the Estuary Working Group; Ian Moul, Lora Tryon, Art Martell, Vanessa Scott, and Kathryn Clouston for their edits and contributions; Elmar Nabbe for all the support and valuable feedback; and Ginny Alliston for her help with graphic design and layout.

This project is made possible through all the hard work and dedication of CVCS steering committee members and people in our community who - past and present – have contributed to the protection of nature, through community planning, citizen science and personal actions. Many thanks to our funders for their ongoing financial contributions to the work of the Comox Valley Conservation Strategy including: the Real Estate Foundation of BC, RBC Blue Water Fund, Comox Valley Grant in Aid and Comox Valley Land Trust Community Gaming Grant.

NATURE WITHOUT BORDERS – Second Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary ...... 1 1 Introduction ...... 3 1.1 Purpose of this Report ...... 3 1.2 Background ...... 7 1.3 Report Format ...... 10 2 Guiding Principles ...... 13 2.1 Precaution ...... 13 2.2 Connectivity ...... 15 2.3 Conservation of Ecosystem Services ...... 18 3 Vision, Goals and Objectives ...... 20 3.1 Vision ...... 20 3.2 Goals and Objectives ...... 20 4 Priority Conservation Areas ...... 22 4.1 Priority Ecological Areas ...... 22 4.1.1 Proposed Biodiversity Corridors...... 22 Aquatic Habitat Corridors ...... 22 Upland Habitat Corridors ...... 23 4.1.2 Sensitive Ecosystems ...... 25 4.1.3 Water Resources ...... 27 4.2 Priority Recreational Greenway Trails ...... 30 5 Strategy Implementation Tools ...... 32 5.1 Conservation Database ...... 32 5.2 Regional Conservation Atlas ...... 32 5.3 Regional Priorities Map ...... 33 5.4 Property Evaluation Tool ...... 33 5.5 Environmental Status Reporting ...... 33 6 Recommended Actions and Measures ...... 35 6.1 Establish Effective Regional Administrative Structures for Conservation ...... 36 6.2 Conserve and Protect Remaining Sensitive Ecosystems ...... 38 6.3 Restore Degraded Ecosystems ...... 39 6.4 Maintain Natural Systems Function...... 39 6.5 Maintain and Improve Landscape Connectivity ...... 39 6.6 Maintain and Restore Riparian Areas ...... 40 6.7 Conserve and Protect Estuaries And Foreshore Areas ...... 41 6.8 Conserve Healthy Water Resources...... 41 6.9 Develop and Maintain A Regional Recreational Trail Network ...... 42 7 Opportunities and Challenges for Conservation ...... 44 7.1 Gaps in Environmental Information ...... 44 7.1.1 Sensitive Ecosystems ...... 44 7.1.2 Watercourses ...... 45 7.1.3 Aquifer and Water Use ...... 46 7.1.4 Transitional Ecosystems ...... 47 7.1.5 Wildlife ...... 48

-i- Rev. January 2013

NATURE WITHOUT BORDERS – Second Edition

7.2 Land Tenure ...... 48 7.3 Leadership and Cooperation ...... 49 7.3.1 Data Collection and Mapping ...... 49 7.3.2 Traditional Ecological Knowledge ...... 50 7.3.3 Consistent Terms and Definitions ...... 50 7.3.4 Regional Administrative Structure ...... 51 8 Maps ...... 53 9 Appendices ...... 55 9.1 Methods Used to Derive Sensitive Ecosystem Inventory (SEI) Statistics for the Comox Valley ...... 56 9.2 Glossary of Terms ...... 58 9.3 Assessment of Upland Habitat Corridors ...... 64 9.4 Descriptions of Priority Recreational Greenway Trails ...... 70 9.5 Conversion Database Bibliographic Entries ...... 73 9.6 Criteria and Measures to Evaluate Projects at the Property Level ...... 74 9.7 NWB First Edition Recommendations to Local Government ...... 79 9.8 Species at Risk .