COMMENTARY –A new approach to land use

Several jurisdictions across the country are engaged in consultations designed to develop plans for the future use of Crown land. Much of the struggle hinges on finding a balance between two apparent opposites: resource development and conservation.

Crucial to resource development are access to land and certainty of title. Fundamental to conservation objectives are biological diversity, wilderness protection, and preservation of unique and exceptional areas.

Total landscape management is a concept that offers a more coherent and integrated approach to achieving both resource development and conservation objectives. It is an approach that incorporates the principles of inclusiveness, flexibility, adaptiveness and sound science, while, at the same time, encompassing many of the tools currently at our disposal, an example being the setting aside of protected areas with unique and exceptional features.

In the 1970s, there were growing demands for better resource management for industrial sectors and for an increasing awareness of ecosystem management. However, the management approaches were piecemeal and failed to involve all land users. Gradually, a visionary new concept, total land management, emerged. This concept is an integrated ecosystem approach to land use that establishes as an absolute priority the conservation of biological diversity. It is based on the premise that landscape, including both natural and man-made disturbances, should be managed in its entirety rather than for specific sectoral purposes. This approach sees that the fundamental ecological characteristics and dynamics of the landscape are reasonably conserved.

Total landscape management incorporates:

o management of entire ecological landscapes, employing the over-arching principle of conservation of biodiversity;

o a system of floating reserves designed to accomplish protection in a constantly changing landscape;

o Adaptive management, allowing the flexibility to accommodate new information, evolving ecosystems and natural disturbances; and

o co-management, ensuring the provision of community input.

Total landscape management is initially applied through the use of sound science, which may be substantially refined of fine-tuned through adaptive management. As the landscape constantly changes through natural processes, so its management adapts and changes. Human activities are planned within this ecological context and designed to mimic natural patterns of disturbance and transformation. Such activities are subject to a two-tier management process.

If a proponent desires to undertake an activity in the landscape, it must demonstrate the existence of a comparable ecological area — even in existing parks and protected areas — with the same ecological components. This ensures that there is no loss of biodiversity for the duration of the project.

Under most circumstances, demonstration of a comparable area would be relatively simple. However, if the area is demonstrated to have unique features that require some measure of protection, a determination would be made whether the proposed activity is compatible and what special conditions may apply. Following conclusion of the activity, the site is returned to an ecological state that replicates the original as closely as possible.

The flexibility and responsiveness of total landscape management are characterized by the concept of floating reserves that have the ability to follow representative and special values across the landscape. As landscape features such as age-class distribution of forests and migration of animals evolve, various levels of protection and management can be applied. For example, as specific areas of mature forest become classified as old growth, a certain percentage can incur protection and be designated as a floating reserve. As these old growth areas die off and other areas of the forest achieve old growth status, the floating reserves can be reorganized to accommodate them.

By its very nature, total landscape management affords protection to the landscape without unduly compromising other land uses. It thus offers a more flexible land-use approach than areas protected by a blanket prohibition on development. It also minimizes conflict over the use of Crown land through impact assessment of human activity in areas with special features and allows, under the tool of co-management, compatible activities under special provisions.

The preceding is an excerpt of an article that appeared in “Communiqu,” published by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.