Anne Murray: Ramsar designation for Fraser delta better late than never

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      The Fraser River delta’s designation as a UN “Wetland of International Importance”, or “Ramsar Site”, was welcome news to conservationists. It has taken 40 years. Even now, the designation omits Roberts Bank, a major part of the wetlands frequented by marine mammals, including endangered orcas, and providing feeding habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory shorebirds and waterfowl, and hundreds of resident herons. Roberts Bank is the location of the Tsawwassen B.C. Ferries terminal. It is also the site of Port Metro Vancouver’s proposed Terminal 2, a giant expansion of the existing Deltaport container facility, for which “project definition consultation” got underway in October. A world-class wetland, at risk from imminent development, has been passed over for protection.

      Wetlands, global and local, are in trouble. According to a report from the recent United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in Hyderabad, India, 50 percent of the world’s wetlands have disappeared since 1900. Wetlands regulate climate, store carbon, buffer the land from storms and floods, and provide wildlife habitat. Coastal wetlands produce a quarter of the Earth’s biological productivity, and yield 90 percent of the world’s fisheries. The Ramsar Convention’s deputy secretary general, Nick Davidson, speaking at Hyderabad, was unequivocal: “Business as usual is no longer an option....If we continue to undervalue wetlands in our decisions for economic growth, we do so at increasing peril for people’s livelihoods and the world’s economies.”

      Yet the increasing loss of wetlands seems to have little impact on public policy. The drawn-out process of the Fraser delta’s Ramsar designation illustrates the snail’s pace of government conservation action.

      By 1971, when the first UN Convention on Wetlands of International Importance met in Ramsar, Iran, the global loss of wetlands was already very high. In B.C.’s Lower Mainland, marshes and bogs had been drained and diked, the Fraser constrained into fixed channels, and port causeways thrust into the outer banks, disrupting the natural flow of river water and tides. As an initial conservation move, convention signatories committed to listing their most important wetlands, now over 2,000 in 163 countries. Canada was relatively slow to react, only signing the convention 10 years later, and designating B.C.’s first Ramsar Site in 1982. This was the 586-hectare, federally-owned Alaksen National Wildlife Area, which includes Reifel bird sanctuary. The provincially-owned coastal wetlands at Roberts Bank, Boundary Bay, and Sturgeon Bank were left out in the cold.

      Another five years passed, and a Canadian Wildlife Service report argued strongly for Ramsar designation of the Fraser delta, showing that it far exceeded all the criteria, by 60-fold for shorebirds and 30-fold for waterfowl. The report concluded: “no comparable sites exist along the Pacific coast between California and Alaska. There is no other site in Canada that supports the diversity and number of birds found in winter in the Fraser River delta.”

      More than 20 years after the initial Ramsar meeting, only one percent of the most important estuary on the Canadian Pacific coast was protected. Most of the delay was at the provincial level. In the early 1990s, the late Barry Leach, a naturalist closely involved in the creation of Reifel bird sanctuary in Delta and Serpentine Wildlife Management Area in Surrey, was among those who persistently requested that the provincial government designate Boundary Bay both as a WMA and a Ramsar Site. He met with constant rebuffs. However, public pressure, backed by a strong grassroots environmental movement, eventually caused a greener viewpoint to prevail. The Boundary Bay Regional Park was created on part of the old Spetifore property, Boundary Bay and Sturgeon Banks WMAs were declared in 2002, and much of Burns Bog was purchased for an ecological conservancy area in 2004. Roberts Bank WMA took considerably longer to be gazetted, despite the cause being strongly taken up by the Boundary Bay Conservation Committee, a local environmental group. First proposed by B.C. Ministry of Environment staff in 1996, Roberts Bank was only designated a WMA this year, and portions of the wetland remain excluded.

      Fast forward to October 2012, and Ramsar Site designation finally takes place, 41 years after the original convention. The site is 20,682 hectares of wetland, encompassing Sturgeon Bank, Boundary Bay, Mud Bay, Semiahmoo Bay, Serpentine, South Arm Marshes, and Burns Bog. The only key wetland area missing is Roberts Bank. The lack of its provincial WMA designation prior to 2010, when the Ramsar application was initiated, is now blamed by politicians for Roberts Bank’s omission from the new Ramsar Site. This questionable bureaucratic anomaly must be swiftly corrected, as it makes no sense ecologically.

      What difference will the Ramsar designation make? That remains to be seen. Although it is not supported with legislation in Canada, it draws the eyes of the world to our shores. The recognition of Burns Bog as part of the Ramsar Site has already had an impact on developer MK Delta Lands Group. A recent public meeting on a proposed large-scale development on bog lands immediately to the east of the ecological reserve, was rescheduled “in order to incorporate some of the broader based thinking being undertaken with the North Delta Area Plan review and the recent Ramsar designation for large parts of Delta’s wetlands.”

      Business as usual is no longer an option when the world’s wetlands are in peril.

      Anne Murray is a writer and naturalist, and the author of two books on the Fraser River delta—Tracing Our Past: A Heritage Guide to Boundary Bay and A Nature Guide to Boundary Bay—both available at bookstores and from Nature Guides B.C. She blogs at natureguidesbc.wordpress.com.

      Comments

      5 Comments

      Nic Slater Delta South candidate for MLA

      Nov 2, 2012 at 5:39pm

      Thanks to those with the foresight and understanding as to the importance of such wetlands, these wetlands in Delta and Richmond now have Ramsar status. Ironically, it has also been 40 years since the NDP's Dave Barrett Gov't also had that same foresight to bring in the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Land_Reserve_%28British_Columb... Land Reserve</a>" (ALR) legislation. A controversial piece of legislation at the time and one of a kind in North America in 1973.

      It has taken 40 years for acceptance and would now be political suicide for any politician to criticize the ALR. Recently, Richard Bullock, the Chairman of the Agricultural Land Commission said, "Farmers have accepted that the ALR is here to stay". On a tour of the province shortly after taking over the land commission in 2010, Bullock said he was astounded to find pro-ALR sentiment “almost universal. People want us to do the right thing.”

      Now farming and protection of farmland in Delta has almost become a sacred trust. Except for <a href="http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/profiles-and-spotlights/people/robin-silv... by Port Metro Van. President</a> that <blockquote>"...industrial land must be preserved. Otherwise, the economy will, over time, wither,” Silvester says. “Agriculture is emotionally important, but economically [of] relatively low importance to the Lower Mainland. And in terms of food security, [it] is almost meaningless for the Lower Mainland.”</blockquote>

      Unfortunately, Ramsar status for wetlands and ALR status for farmland still only give limited protection and the battle to protect both continues here on 500 acres without current ALR status, Delta's one and only <a href="http://www.deltafreepress.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i... formerly known as the Spetifore Lands.</a>

      Valerie Fuller

      Nov 3, 2012 at 1:02pm

      Once again, Anne gives us a comprehensive view of the issue. Thanks for the map, Anne. It's so much easier to see the insanity of the decision to leave Roberts Bank out of the
      Ramsar designation when one looks at the overall picture.

      F Harris

      Nov 3, 2012 at 2:21pm

      Anne Murray's article on the need for Ramsar designation for the area now proposed for Roberts Bank 2 is to the point. We need our wetlands for future human and world health, for birds and fish and other wildlife. We do not need another container terminal because container traffic is not increasing and the existing terminals are projected to be underutilized for decades to come. I am glad to see more support for retaining the wetlands and stopping Terminal 2.

      B Densmore

      Nov 5, 2012 at 2:43pm

      I agree with Valerie Fuller's comments - another part of the story is the question why the migratory bird habitat at Roberts Bank was not part of the new designation.

      MLA Vicki Huntington has been asking this - why was Roberts Bank has been excluded from the Ramsar designation? Apparently, one of the major landowners (Port Metro Vancouver?) in consultation with the Province opposed the the Ramsar designation, and it was taken off the list.

      J Witt

      Nov 5, 2012 at 5:43pm

      Great to see so many supporting our natural heritage, the Fraser Delta and its bird habitat. Ramsar designation would clearly help us protect more of the Pacific Flyway and Port Metro Vancouver (PMV) needs to stop acting to protect industrial interests to the exclusion of those of us who live in Ladner & Tsawwassen. Our democratic rights are being bulldozed by PMV, a non-transparent entity whose real motives have little to do with ours.

      We need the next Gov't of BC to protect the Fraser Delta's natural heritage with new protective stategies. Just like the ALR did 40 years ago with our agricultural lands. Only the BCNDP can do this!