It all comes back to large protected open spaces with viable inter-connected corridors linking them up.............This, as we all have come to learn is the key for biodiversity of the highest order to exist in any section of the world.............Vancouver based FOREST ETHICS has just issued a report saying that British Columbia falls woefully short in creating this type of land paradigm...........Just as the Harvard University Forest in Massachusetts is calling on the New England States to protect 50% of its remaining open space through it's WILDLANDS AND WOODLANDS INITITATIVE, so is FOREST ETHICS calling on British Columbia to protect half of it's land base so that biodiversity can be maintained and optimized

B.C. land protection

 insufficient

 to conserve species

 biodiversity: report

BY LARRY PYNN, VANCOUVERSUN.COM

B.C. landscape diversity includes this 0ld-growth Coastal Douglas fir forest in Metchosin

 on southern Vancouver Island.Just over 15 per cent of B.C. has designations granting the highest level of protections. TJ Watt photo

Environmental protection of B.C.'s landscapes is fragmented, inconsistent and falls woefully short of what scientists say is
 needed to conserve species biodiversity, according to a
comprehensive land-use review released Thursday by
 environmentalists.

The report by Vancouver-based ForestEthics Solutions
 with assistance from West Coast Environmental Law,
says 15.55 per cent of the B.C.'s land base (including
 private property and water bodies) has been placed
 in the highest categories of protection. That includes
 14.4 per cent as parks and protected areas, and 1.15
 per cent as wildlife management areas and municipal
watersheds.

Another 13.16 per cent has been given moderate
 protection,
 a rating that may allow one form of resource
 extraction
 while restricting others, 20.57 per cent of land
 has a few
 limitations on resource extraction, and 50.72 per
 cent of land has no specific conservation or
 resource-restricted designations.

The existing amount of conservation and resource
 extraction-restricted lands "fail to protect biological
 diversity and ecological integrity at the provincial scale,"
the report says.

ForestEthics recommends a provincewide conservation
 network that connects legally-designated protected
 areas and conservation lands; augmentation of land-use plans
 by all governments using the best available climate-conservation science and cumulative impacts assessments; and updating of
 laws and policies to better protect biodiversity and help B.C.
 transfer to a "clean, green economy."

WCEL executive-director Jessica Clogg said the report
 does not provide specific targets for protection, because
 "ultimately the answer to how much conservation is enough
should be informed by the best available science and
 indigenous knowledge."

The global Nature Needs Half initiative suggests "protecting
 and interconnecting at least half of the planet's land and
 water is necessary to sustain the health, function and diversity
 of all life." Supporters include Joel Holtrop, former deputy
chief of the U.S. National Forest System and now on the board of directors of the Wild Foundation.

Jim Pojar, a former forest ecologist with the B.C. government, recommended in a 2010 report for a coalition of environmental
 groups that half of B.C.'s land base should be managed to
 maintain biodiversity and locked-in carbon, noting "natural
 forests store carbon dioxide better than do industrial forests."

New land designations and tenures will likely be required to
 guide management of the expanded conservation network
outside of existing parks and protected areas, his report
 stated. Only activities "compatible with the long-term
objectives of biodiversity conservation and adaptation"
should be allowed in these new areas, his report said.

B.C. is home to three-quarters of Canada's mammal and
 bird species, 70 per cent of its freshwater fish, 60 per cent
 of its evergreen trees, and thousands of other animals and
 plants, that report noted.