Researchers urge shift in Canadia environment management

Globe and Mail (Toronto): British Columbia has become a last refuge for a growing number of species in North America, but if the "biodiversity ark" is to be maintained in the face of global warming, government will have to change the way it manages the environment. That's the conclusion reached by researchers at Simon Fraser University who have formed a group known as the Adaptation to Climate Change Team that is exploring the risks of global warming and proposing possible policy responses.

In its first report, released this week, the group argues the B.C. government needs to shift to a model "that integrates ecosystem management with the resource-based economy," and brings land and water management under one umbrella organization. The group's lead policy author, Jon O'Riordan, a former deputy minister of sustainable resource management in B.C., says the government has many environmental initiatives under way, but it is not moving fast enough and lacks overall co-ordination, putting the environment and the provincial economy at risk.

"Our ecosystems provide a rich array of services such as: controlling flooding, helping to clean drinking water sources, storing carbon and moderating air and water temperatures," he writes in the report. "Climate impacts will have such profound effects on these values that a significant adjustment in governance of these resources is required. ... Otherwise, the combination of habitat fragmentation by uncoordinated human activities, together with unprecedented changes in temperature and precipitation, will impact the province's economic health and impair the ability for the environment to function." Mr. O'Riordan says the situation poses "profound threats to B.C.'s unique biodiversity ark."

…Eric Kimmel, a policy analyst and author of an annex to the report, says the government should also factor into its management plans the economic value of ecological services such as carbon storage, temperature moderation and water conservation. "The costs of environmental damage, the depletion of natural capital, and the full value of indirect ecosystem services do not show up on accounting balance sheets," he writes. "As a result, natural capital is often undervalued and not accounted for in the decision-making process."

Clouds over Howe Sound, from the Plane by Stewart Butterfield (http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewart/87665/). Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 license