This is the sixth part of Carbon Cache, an ongoing series about nature-based climate solutions.

The millennia-old red cedars of the Great Bear Rainforest, and the western hemlock, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce rubbing at their shoulders, capture a million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year, holding onto it as long as the giant trees stand.

Since 2012, the work of the trees and plants of B.C.’s coastal rainforest have been generating credits — one credit for every tonne of carbon sequestered — that are bought by the B.C. government, companies and individuals wanting to offset their carbon emissions.

The goal is to create an economy that doesn’t rely on cutting down these carbon-sequestering senior citizens. In turn, the carbon credit revenue has helped to fund Guardian Watchmen programs in nine coastal First Nations. These Indigenous guardians patrol the landscape and conduct fisheries management and species monitoring.

The Great Bear Rainforest carbon project is the blueprint for carbon offset programs in Canada. And with nature-based climate solutions gaining traction globally, quantifying the amount of carbon Canada’s natural landscapes hold is an increasingly important task.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2017 found the simple act of preserving wetlands, forests and grasslands could provide more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed to stabilize global temperature increases below 2 C by 2030 under the Paris Accord.

The federal government is now working to develop a national offset standard for the first time. While offset programs already exist in some provinces and via voluntary carbon markets, the federal standard will mark a new era of carbon markets in Canada.

Another big change is firing up the potential for carbon markets, too: Canada is now including nature-based emissions and sequestration in its biennial reports to the United Nations.

“Previous to 2020’s biennial report, we did not include any nature-based emissions or sequestration in our carbon footprint that we report to the Paris agreement or to Canadians,”  Joseph Pallant, director of climate innovation at Ecotrust Canada, told The Narwhal.

“How crazy is that? This is like six months ago that this has been changed.”

Joseph Pallant, director of climate innovation at Ecotrust Canada, says the development of a national offset standard creates a major incentive for governments to protect nature.

What that means in practice is that when humans impact natural landscapes (by, say, cutting down a forest or destroying a wetland), those emissions are now counted as part of Canada’s carbon footprint.

Pallant said that while some people aren’t fond of the idea of commodifying nature, the development of a national offset standard, along with the inclusion of nature-based emissions in Canada’s climate reports, creates a major incentive for governments to protect nature.

For example, Pallant is working on a forest carbon economy fund that will allow communities to unlock the value of carbon stored on the landscape, offering them options for revenue beyond logging and simultaneously helping Canada meet its climate goals.

“The goal is to make improvements in nature actually affect the Canadian federal government’s bottom line,” he said.

Carbon offsets could also “massively” help fund new Indigenous Protected Areas, according to Pallant.

While the Great Bear Rainforest is the leading example of how carbon offsets can work, it’s also an example of how things can get, well, complicated.

The Great Bear agreement has faced challenges in recent years, with the credits established in the forest struggling to find buyers. Across the country, various carbon offset programs have so far failed to get off the ground due to lack of demand for offsets and hefty costs to get projects underway.

Here’s what you need to know about carbon offsets and nature-based climate solutions.

What are nature-based climate solutions?

Nature-based climate solutions can look like a lot of different things in practice: carbon offsets from forest protection, designation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and national parks, restoring coastal ecosystems like kelp forests or ranchers earning carbon credits for maintaining native grasslands on their properties, to name just a few.

What brings all of these concepts together is the ultimate goal of protecting or restoring nature in part due to its ability to store carbon.

Lisa Young — executive director of Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources, which represents five Mi’kmaq communities on Cape Breton Island — noted that Indigenous people have been practising conservation for thousands of years but new opportunities are emerging through Canada’s desire to reduce emissions and protect biodiversity.

“Not only are they exploring those kinds of concepts around green economy that will also mitigate the impacts of what we’re doing to the climate, but also the land itself is healing that as well,” she says. “It’s a two-pronged kind of thing.”

Api’soomaahka, or William Singer, is working with Blood Tribe Land Management in southern Alberta to convert his cultivated land back to native grasslands. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

How do you monetize nature-based climate solutions?

One of the most fundamental issues at play around carbon offset projects is how greenhouse gas emissions are counted — and, more crucially, not counted.

“Nature is currently managed as a resource,” said Larry Sault, president and CEO of Anwaatin, a company that works with Indigenous communities on carbon sequestration projects. “Its value is only realized by its destruction.”

The concept is fairly straightforward: identify and protect an ecosystem that would otherwise lose its carbon sink functionality due to human impacts, calculate the amount of carbon presently or potentially stored in it and sell credits for the carbon the ecosystem sequesters to other entities to offset their own emissions.

Offsetting can include improved management practices of forests, farmlands, grasslands and wetlands, among others.

The federal government’s 2020 design paper for options for a federal greenhouse gas offset system requires offsets to be quantifiable, additional to a business-as-usual scenario, incremental to other incentives and verifiable.

Carbon credits garnered from offsetting can be sold in two types of carbon market: regulatory compliance or voluntary. On the regulated market, buyers are purchasing credits because of requirements by law to keep their carbon emissions below a certain threshold. If they fail to stay below that threshold, they can buy credits to offset their overage. On the voluntary market, credits are purchased voluntarily — say, to offset the emissions (and guilt) from a flight or a conference.

In terms of how credits are verified on those two markets, there isn’t a major difference, Pallant said. Some voluntary markets have more rigorous standards than some regulatory compliance markets, and vice-versa.

In October 2019, the carbon offset registry Climate Action Reserve adopted the Canada Grassland Protocol for the voluntary market. The Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association, which supported the creation of the protocol, is now evaluating the protocol by working with about 50 private land owners through a four-year pilot program. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

How do you create demand for carbon credits?

Currently, the B.C. government is the only province or territory that has committed to maintaining zero emissions, meaning the province itself purchases a significant portion of the made-in-B.C. carbon credits.

“It’s something other governments should pick up,” Pallant said. “It’s something where they can put their money where their mouth is and, importantly, it can seed the field for development of the other systems.”

The B.C. government recently announced a new five-year agreement to buy carbon credits from the Great Bear Rainforest, for example.

“By the government saying ‘we’re going to backstop demand’ and guarantee there’s demand for around 750,000 tonnes of emissions reductions per year in B.C. … that makes it worthwhile to set up a carbon offset system … and it creates a business case for Indigenous communities like the Coastal First Nations,” Pallant said.

As evidenced by the Great Bear agreement, this system can help build an alternative economy to resource extraction. Regulations that limit the amount of carbon industry can emit, such as cap-and-trade systems, also create demand because those companies that are unable to stay below the limit are forced to buy offsets.

Jordan Wilson, a Heiltsuk Coastal Guardian Watchman, aboard one of the nation’s monitoring vessels in the Great Bear Rainforest. Photo: Louise Whitehouse / The Narwhal

In Alberta, for example, there is a regulated market for carbon credits for companies that have to reduce their emissions under the province’s Carbon Competitiveness Incentive Regulation, which targets companies that emit 100,000 tonnes of carbon per year or more.

While B.C.’s government has committed to net-zero emissions, the cancellation of the province’s cap-and-trade program has been the source of the Coastal First Nations’ struggle to find buyers outside of government for Great Bear carbon credits. The province backed out of its cap-and-trade plan in 2011, meaning there’s no requirement for companies to keep carbon emissions below a certain threshold, so offsets are only sold to the government and on a voluntary basis to companies — resulting in a huge backlog of unsold credits.

Similarly, the cancellation of Ontario’s cap-and-trade system under Premier Doug Ford’s government in 2018 meant aspiring projects had only the voluntary market to sell into. It was a move that swiftly immobilized carbon offset programs that were in the works, said Jason Rasevych, president of the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association, which is working with several Ontario First Nations to develop carbon offset programs.

Putting a price on carbon stored by nature is an awfully complex task that has been attempted since the Rio Summit in 1992 and Kyoto Protocol in 1997 with varying success. Jessica Dempsey, a UBC geography professor and author of Enterprising Nature, said that most forest offset proposals have “failed miserably.”

“It seems simple: let’s just pay people not to cut down forests or clear bogs and then we’ll create an economic interest in it and it won’t happen,” she said. “But in reality, setting all of that up and monitoring it is really complicated and bureaucratic and costly and politically challenging.”

What is the federal government doing about carbon offsets?

Well, one of the biggest things they’re doing is mandating a price on carbon nation-wide through the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. This creates the conditions for carbon offsets to potentially develop.

In early July, the federal government published a position paper on options for a federal greenhouse gas offset program. The government still has to develop a protocol for offset projects, which would include how emissions reductions should be quantified for each type of project — such as forest offsets — as well as monitoring and reporting throughout the project’s life.

Robert Gibson, professor at the University of Waterloo’s Department of Environment and Resource Studies, said the federal government’s new impact assessment legislation and strategic assessment of climate change includes a requirement for decision-makers to consider the direct impacts of a project on emissions and carbon sinks, but so far there has been “no serious effort” made to define how those considerations would be made or what implications they would have.

“We’ve been doing horribly on all matter of greenhouse gas considerations and assessments,” he said, noting that Environment and Climate Change Canada is expected to provide a technical guide to quantifying the value of a carbon sink in the near future.

An oilsands operation butts up against boreal forest in northern Alberta. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC

How can Indigenous communities tap into carbon markets? 

From Thunder Bay, Ont., Rasevych has watched the development of the Great Bear Forest carbon project closely.

“It’s something they do as innovators and leaders — and they are very inspiring for First Nations leadership in northern Ontario to look at and identify potential for opportunities here,” Rasevych said.

There’s no question that there are plenty of opportunities for Indigenous communities to build an economy around Great Bear-inspired protection of carbon sinks such as forests and wetlands. Canada boasts 2.7 million square kilometres of boreal forest, with 70 per cent of Indigenous communities located in forested regions.

Indeed, Indigenous-led, nature-based carbon offsets could be a pathway toward reconciliation — if they’re done right. (Australia’s Aboriginal Carbon Fund is working with the First Nations Energy and Mining Council in Canada to bring the concept here.)

“Given the overlap of Indigenous territories and carbon sinks in Canada, it is unlikely that nature-based solutions could be widely implemented without upholding Indigenous rights to lands and resources and respecting Indigenous governance and knowledge systems in climate change policy,” says a recent paper published in the Canadian science journal FACETS.

Sault of Anwaatin stresses the core challenge in bringing more carbon offset projects online is the matter of Indigenous jurisdiction.

He said many carbon-rich areas remain under provincial governance, and the only way to move forward on the issue is to honour the spirit and intent of treaties, resolve outstanding land claims and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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John Cutfeet, former band councillor for Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation in northwestern Ontario and research fellow at the Yellowhead Institute, agreed: “All those activities like conservation and managing carbon sequestration are done and are premised on the fact that government owns the land.”

“But Indigenous people have said ‘no, we never gave up the land in those treaties, we need to share.’ As long as that whole notion that Indigenous people have no land is in place, that’s one of the biggest challenges that we’re going to have to overcome.”

Sault recommended the creation of agreements to ensure Indigenous people are the beneficiaries of revenues generated from offset programs — including a separate certification for offsets from Indigenous-managed lands, with explicit co-benefits such as Indigenous Guardian programs for fire management and pest control, or cultural revitalization including youth.

“Nature-based solutions policy and projects that are advanced without the partnership or consent of Indigenous Nations can generate significant opposition from communities who consider such actions as ‘carbon colonialism’ and a threat to inherent land rights,” noted the FACETS paper.

A river flows through an area of the Great Bear Rainforest known as the Kitlope. An innovative carbon offset program has helped to fund conservation in the forest. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

What kind of challenges have people faced in creating carbon offsets?

Rasevych works with three Indigenous communities — Eabametoong, Marten Falls and Aroland First Nations — that collectively harvest and manage the Ogoki Forest, about 400 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

He said the First Nations are looking to take the next step to explore an offset project around more ecologically sustainable logging but currently lack capacity to conduct a feasibility study and create an up-to-date inventory of the stored carbon, biodiversity and harvesting volumes in the region. Without that, Rasevych said it’s impossible for communities to properly evaluate the economic trade-offs between commercial forestry and carbon offsetting.

Some money was available for First Nations to get started on this work through Ontario’s carbon pricing framework — until it was cancelled. The scrapping of the cap-and-trade system, Rasevych said, pretty well put an end to the funding for communities interested in developing offset programs.

A year after the Ford government cancelled the cap-and-trade system, a team of scholars from the University of Guelph convened a gathering of representatives from First Nations, Indigenous communities and environmental groups from across the country to hash out the impediments and opportunities in Indigenous-led conservation and carbon storage.

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Mary-Kate Craig, a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph studying Indigenous carbon markets and one of the authors of the FACETS paper, helped to host the gathering. She explained more than a dozen key barriers that were identified by participants, including: a lack of clarity about how to actually make carbon offsets work, absence of carbon markets to participate in, and concerns around financial and organizational capacity of Indigenous communities.

There are also hard-to-meet requirements for verifying carbon offset projects that can be a hindrance to them moving forward, she said. The “additionality” requirement, for example, means proponents have to prove protection or restoration of a forest, grassland or wetland could only have happened through the offset project and not by any other means. So, if there’s no threat, there’s no offset.

And the project proponent has to ensure the carbon emissions mitigated by the project aren’t simply displaced elsewhere — a form of “carbon leakage.” So the onus is on the proponent to prove managing its forest for carbon offsetting, for example, won’t just result in another area logged.

In order for the Great Bear Forest Carbon Project to come to fruition, the province had to sign an “atmospheric benefit sharing agreement” with the nine First Nations behind the offset project. B.C. is so far the only province or territory to sign one of these agreements that establish clear rules about Indigenous ownership of carbon that’s sequestered by their land, and their subsequent ability to sell carbon credits.

Heiltsuk Guardian Watchman Jordan Wilson, right, prepares salmon during “Salmon Days” on Heiltsuk territory in Bella Bella, B.C. Photo: Louise Whitehouse / The Narwhal

It also lays out who gets the benefits. In the case of Great Bear, the Coastal First Nations agreement allocates 80 per cent of revenue from offsets to First Nations and 20 per cent to the province.

Other proposed projects are lacking this critical element.

Take the Poplar River First Nation on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, for example. Over the last several decades it has worked to conserve its traditional territory of Asatiwisipe Aki and collaborate with three nearby First Nations to establish Pimachiowin Aki, a 29,040-square-kilometre UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 2018.

A recent report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development explained that the area’s forests and wetlands store an estimated total of 444 million tonnes of carbon. Establishing a “payment for ecosystem services agreement,” through which the provincial government pays the nation for its work to conserve this carbon sink on a per-hectare basis, would enable a massive range of opportunities for the First Nation, including species and water monitoring, land-based education and jobs in fisheries, tourism and stewardship.

Establishing a carbon finance benefit-sharing agreement between Poplar River First Nation and the Government of Manitoba would mean offsets for the carbon sequestered by these lands could be sold to finance the First Nation’s work.

“They have so much information around the carbon, and they have done so much work to try to create a functioning offset,” said Mary-Kate Craig, a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph studying Indigenous-led carbon markets.

Yet so far, Poplar River hasn’t been able to formalize a conservation economy, which Craig said is “to do with the provincial government not giving them what they need to actually create that as a project.”

The International Institute for Sustainable Development found the forests and wetlands in Pimachiowin Aki store an estimated total of 444 million tonnes of carbon. Photo: Hidehiro Otake / UNESCO

Are carbon offsets just greenwashing?

Many people say that offsets need to be part of an energy transition plan in conjunction with large-scale emissions reductions in sectors like oil and gas extraction and transportation.

Shane Moffatt of Greenpeace Canada pointed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge to plant two billion trees with revenues from the Trans Mountain Pipeline as a worst-case scenario.

“They need to be in addition to drastic emissions reductions, not to somehow offset or balance them out,” he said. “That’s not going to get us anywhere and is just shuffling chairs on the Titanic.”

“Understandably, conservation interests have been pushing for recognition of the importance of maintaining the carbon sinks that we now have: wetlands and forests and so forth,” said Gibson of the University of Waterloo. “That’s fine, but we need to be much more ambitious than that if we’re going to get to net-zero.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once promised to plant trees with revenues from the Trans Mountain oilsands pipeline, a strategy that doesn’t sit well with many environmentalists. Photo: Johann Simundsson

Are there more examples of successful carbon offset projects in Canada?

In 2011, three years after buying 136,000 acres of forest from a logging company in B.C.’s Selkirk Mountains, the Nature Conservancy of Canada sold its first round of carbon credits. That first sale through the Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project was for 700,000 credits — equivalent to 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide  — and netted more than $4 million on the voluntary market. The revenue from credits went back into conservation work on the property — and it continues to each year.

Pallant of Ecotrust Canada has been working for a decade and a half on forest carbon offset projects, trying to develop protocols and “clear the path” for successful projects.

He gives the example of the Cheakamus Community Forest, a collaboration between Ecotrust, Brinkman Climate, the town of Whistler and the First Nations of Squamish and Lil’watt.

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With so much action both from the federal government and Indigenous governments, Rasevych of the Thunder Bay-based Anishnawbe Business Professional Association is convinced the movement toward carbon offsetting only requires a few more sparks to ignite.

“There needs to be a starting point,” he said. “There needs to be one First Nation or a group of First Nations that work together on pushing that agenda. Because it is something that our communities have a common vision about — and it’s something that could assist us globally.”

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

The Carbon Cache series is funded by Metcalf Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input into the articles.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A quiet wetland home to waterfowl and amphibians is at the centre of a clash between a conservation group and the local leadership of Qualicum Beach on the east coast of Vancouver Island.

The green space in the corner of town, called the Laburnum wetland, is favoured by locals for recreation with walking trails a short distance from the sandy beaches of Parksville.

So when the local government decided to approve a 4-hectare housing project on the wetland, it spurred disagreement over what development and environmental protections in the region should look like. Wetlands are recognized by the federal government as sensitive ecosystems. 

Development plans entail the parcelling of two lots for an “exclusive newly created two-lot subdivision” called Seacroft Estates, according to the website of Ballard Fine Homes. The company has already begun clearing trees in the area.

The first lot is listed on their website for $648,000 and a description states the property “gives you the feeling of living in the countryside while living so close to the beach.” The second lot is advertised as “boast[ing] a 2800 sq ft sprawling custom Ballard Fine Home executive rancher” with “exquisite finishing” and is listed for almost $1.6 million.

Ezra Morse, director of communications for the Qualicum Nature Preservation Society, said he is trying to get answers from the municipality as to why it approved the project when the town’s bylaws state the area requires permits that haven’t been granted. 

Morse believes Qualicum Beach is circumventing its own rules to allow the homes to be built.

The battle is not just about this one development, Morse said, but about the potential for future encroachment on sensitive ecosystems — even when there are protections in place. 

“We have a microcosm here, a small picture of what might be happening in a lot of B.C. right now,” Morse said.

Ducks Unlimited Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to conserving wetlands, estimates that 80 per cent of wetlands in B.C. have been destroyed or altered in developed areas.

Clearing work is underway for Seacroft Estates. Photo: Qualicum Beach Preservation Society

Trees have been cleared in the Laburnm wetland for the development project. Photo: Qualicum Beach Preservation Society

Mayor accuses group of fostering ‘dissidence’

The Qualicum Nature Preservation Society launched a petition calling on the town to halt the development until more information is provided to the public on how the housing project was approved. 

“Today, we are trading our vision of sustainability and everyone’s clean air for a few private ~2700 SQFT McMansions during a housing crisis; a sensitive ecosystem torn apart to be replaced by soggy lawns and amenities,” the petition reads. 

The society had collected over 3,600 signatures at publication time. 

Qualicum Beach Mayor Brian Wiese released a statement calling the petition “heavy on emotion.” 

“It is most disappointing to see that there remains a small group of people who actively foster dissidence at a time when our community needs to pull together,” he said in the statement published on April 6.

The statement also claimed the area doesn’t require any special permits. Wiese did not respond to requests for comment.

But under the city’s official community plan, the wetland is classified as a hazardous area and an aquatic greenway. According to Qualicum Beach bylaws both are considered areas that require special permits for development and in some cases call for supporting documentation before work can commence. 

If the terms of those permits are not met, the town’s bylaw enforcement officer can issue a stop work order. Some of these terms include minimizing the area of encroachment and requiring construction to include measures to preserve, protect, restore or enhance habitat. 

A map of Seacroft Estates, showing the location of the housing development within the wetland area. Photo: Ballard Fine Homes / Facebook

The bylaw states the only activities that can take place in the area without a permit are necessary procedures like mitigating flooding or erosion, cutting down hazardous trees or constructing trails.

Qualicum Beach commissioned two reports — one environmental and one geotechnical — that “satisfied” the town’s director of planning, Luke Sales, according to an email from Sales to Morse that was reviewed by The Narwhal.

The environmental report, produced by contractor Toth and Associates Environmental Services, stated Qualicum Beach did not request a permit application for the development “and therefore we will not provide a discussion of ecological greenway [development permit area] guidelines.”

Morse said he was having trouble communicating with Sales until the preservation society retained lawyer Erin Gray, an associate with Arbutus Law. 

According to Gray, Sales indicated he would take the issue to Ballard Fine Homes.

Sales declined an interview request but provided an emailed response.

“Currently the town is addressing those concerns directly with the property owner to ensure that applicable requirements are all being met,” Sales wrote. “I don’t have anything further to report at this time.”

Morse said he wants to prevent the town from creating a precedent for jumping over permits and developing on wetlands or else sensitive areas will be infringed upon until “we’re going to have no protected land at all.”

In a Facebook post, Ballard Fine Homes said the two houses will be “outside any environmentally sensitive or restricted areas.”

“Less than one acre of this site will be cleared for the two home sites leaving the remaining nine plus acres fully treed with protective covenants in place,” reads the post.

The company’s owner, Don Ballard, told The Narwhal he is very disappointed with the situation as has met all of of the town’s demands. He said the town put him through a “relentless” process to meet environmental requirements, but that he was not told about the ecological greenway development permit area until recently. 

The project has not received a building permit, he said, but did  obtain permission from Qualicum Beach to begin clearing trees and installing service infrastructure.

“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve just followed what was asked of me,” he said, adding he is willing to sell the land back the town or to anyone else who may want to purchase it and make it a park.

“I’m open to working with the community in whatever way,” he added. “But I certainly am not in a position where I can just donate the land as an act of goodwill.”

The town issued Ballard Fine Homes a stop work order due to the preservation society’s legal challenge. Ballard said that, as a way of seeking a solution, he has come up with a compromise: if Qualicum Beach lets him build five smaller homes (taking up approximately the same area as the two larger homes) elsewhere, he will donate the remaining wetland back to the town.

He said he has yet to hear back from the town about his offer.

A newt takes a stroll out of a forested area just west of the Laburnm wetland. Photo: Qualicum Beach Preservation Society

Wetlands can help ‘weather the storm’ of climate change

Wetlands play an important role in flood mitigation. They also act as carbon sinks and absorb pollutant runoff from agricultural fields. They store water in the wet months and slowly release water in hot summer months.

Neil Fletcher, manager of conservation stewardship for the BC Wildlife Federation, said wetlands can “help us weather the storm” of climate change by mitigating floods, wildfires and droughts. 

The Auditor General of British Columbia identified flood, wildfire and drought as “key climate-related risk areas” in a 2018 audit on climate change threats in the province.

Fletcher said he regularly gets calls from people concerned about housing developments happening in local wetlands. Not only do they damage habitat, they also pose safety risks to future homeowners and tenants since these homes are often built on floodplains, he said.

Often, these calls are “coming too late,” Fletcher said. “The agreements have been put in place, the money’s been spent by the proponent, and massive lawsuits would probably entail their council, and really the rules are often not strong enough in these communities to be able to say no.”

A small frog in the Laburnm wetland. Photo: Qualicum Beach Preservation Society

Morse said he was told the Ballard Fine Homes development was given a “verbal” exemption. Morse’s lawyer, Gray, confirmed she was told the same thing.

“Any steps that are taken that would irrevocably change an ecologically important area must be taken in a transparent manner. In this case, a verbal exemption is insufficient,” Gray told The Narwhal. 

Development permit areas are commonly used as a means to protect wetlands, but Fletcher said they “are not the strongest piece of legislation.” He added municipalities can be reluctant to make their requirements too strong in case it deters development.

He said he’d like to see more leadership from the province. In particular, he’d like to see the province develop an assessment tool to evaluate how valuable specific wetlands are and have that weigh in on protection and development requirements.

According to a report by the David Suzuki Foundation, which looked at the economic value of natural capital, wetlands range in value from $5,236 to $26,653 per hectare per year by acting as a clean water supply to streams, rivers and lakes.

The Laburnm wetland. Photo: Qualicum Beach Preservation Society

‘Don’t underestimate the power of your voice’

When he felt like he was getting nowhere, Morse approached West Coast Environmental Law, which provides an environmental dispute resolution fund for legal aid. His application was approved, and the firm connected him with Gray.

The resolution fund’s project manager, Barbara Everdene, said part of the reason they selected Morse’s case was because it’s a “common problem” and active citizens seeking details about development projects “are often just not given information.”

“They have been trying for months just to have some basic answers from the town of Qualicum Beach about what is actually happening,” she said. 

Morse has filed a freedom of information request to obtain applications, permits or reports pertaining to the development.

Fletcher doesn’t think initiatives to improve wetland protection are going to come from the federal or provincial government. He believes changes will come from grassroots organizations and citizens pushing their local governments.

“Society has a role to play. Wildlife doesn’t have a voice. Even though 600 species benefit from wetland, it’s only people who can vocalize it at city hall,” he said. “Don’t underestimate the power of your voice in changing things around.”

Update Wednesday 2:36 p.s. PST: This article was updated in incorporate comment from Don Ballard, owner of Ballard Fine Homes.

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A “landmark” wetland and birding hotspot in the Peace River Valley is slated to be destroyed by the Site C dam, after the B.C. government preserved it as a model conservation project.

The area around Watson Slough, which provides habitat for two dozen bird, plant and amphibian species vulnerable to extinction, is scheduled for imminent logging by BC Hydro contractors in preparation for flooding the area for Site C. Preparations are being made for logging crews and security had arrived at Bear Flat near Watson Slough Wednesday morning in prepration for clear-cutting the Bear Flat/Cache Creek area.

Peace region residents say logging the area around the slough this winter will prematurely rob them of a favourite outdoor spot, as treasured locally as Vancouver’s Stanley Park or Beacon Hill Park in Victoria.

“It’s discouraging,” Karen Goodings, a Peace River Regional District director, said in an interview. “Watson Slough is one of the landmarks of this area and I really believe it is irreplaceable.”

News of BC Hydro’s logging plans for the Watson Slough area came as communities across the globe celebrated World Wetlands Day and Australian scientists embarked on a experiment using tea bags to measure the considerable amount of carbon stored in wetlands worldwide.

The B.C. government itself calls wetlands “one of the most important life support systems on earth” and notes there is growing concern over the escalating rate of wetland losses in the province.

BC Hydro says it will compensate for the loss of about 800 hectares of wetlands to Site C  — an area the size of two Stanley Parks — by enhancing existing wetlands and even making new ones.

But scientists say it’s just not possible to recreate a natural wetland like Watson Slough.

The slough took thousands of years to form and is actually a 20-hectare complex of different types of wetlands, including a marl fen, one of the rarest wetlands in North America, noted for rich plant diversity that often includes rare orchids, gentians and carnivorous plants.

“They’re going to be hard pressed to try to recreate that natural system in a different location,” Dawson Creek biologist and forester Mark Phinney said in an interview. “I would agree that it’s irreplaceable.”

“It’s going to look like a black eye if all of the forest is cleared.”

A weathered sign indicates the Watson Slough Wetland Conservation Project area. Photo: Garth Lenz

Even if BC Hydro agrees to a request from the regional district to postpone logging around the slough, the area will be under water when more than 100 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries are flooded to create the Site C reservoir.

The slough draws birders from across the continent, hoping to glimpse rare species that have been documented in what the regional district calls a “wetland of incredible biodiversity.”

Phinney said the slough provides habitat for some of B.C.’s rarest breeding bird species and a dozen species vulnerable to extinction, including the endangered Yellow Rail, a secretive wading bird that calls in the middle of the night, and the Nelson’s Sparrow, an endangered marsh-loving sparrow with an orange face.

The horned grebe, a waterbird known for its impressive courtship displays and tufted facial feathers that it can raise and lower like human eyelids, has also been sighted at Watson Slough in recent years. The grebe was listed as a species of special concern under Canada’s Species at Risk Act just last year.

Watson Slough provides habitat for the western toad, a species so vulnerable to extinction that the B.C. government recently spent $200,000 building a highway tunnel for the toads in the West Kootenay region. The only true toad species in B.C., the western toad is in decline around the province, largely due to habitat destruction.

BC Hydro has said it will capture western toads in the Site C flood zone and move them to other wetlands, but the Crown corporation declined to answer questions about the rescue operation and its cost.

As a condition for receiving an environmental assessment certificate for the $8.8 billion dam, BC Hydro was required to develop a mitigation and compensation plan for wetlands lost to Site C, including rare and ancient tufa seeps.

Cascading pools in a Peace River tufa seep are slated for destruction to make way for the Site C dam and its reservoir. Photo: Garth Lenz

But the strategy, included in a 600-page mitigation and monitoring plan for vegetation and wildlife BC Hydro released in 2015, leaves the Peace River Regional District with many unanswered questions about the fate of Watson Slough.

BC Hydro’s document doesn’t offer a specific mitigation plan for the slough, which prompted the district to ask the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office to investigate.

Goodings said she hopes far more will be required of BC Hydro when it comes to the slough, named after a pioneering family in the Peace.

As part of BC Hydro’s commitment to mitigate and compensate for the loss of wetlands to Site C, it gave Ducks Unlimited a $275,000 contract for “consulting support.”

Ducks Unlimited spokesperson Darryl Kroeker said the preference is for compensatory wetlands to be located as close to the Site C dam and Peace River as possible, but Ducks Unlimited has looked at “pretty much the entire province” for areas that will work as mitigation sites.

One option for a wetland, according to BC Hydro, will be on a new island not far from Watson Slough that will poke up from Site C’s reservoir.

Each wetland is unique and “it is pretty much impossible” to replace Watson Slough, according to Kroeker, a research biologist who is the head of conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited Canada, a nonprofit association dedicated to restoring and conserving wetlands for waterfowl and other wildlife.

Kroeker said he is not perturbed by the loss of the slough and understands why BC Hydro needs to log around it this winter to keep Site C on track.  “It’s a scheduling issue. It’s got to happen sometime. I don’t think people are ever going to be happy whenever it happens.”

While Kroeker described the short-term visual impact of logging on Watson Slough as “large,” he said amphibians and water birds will inhabit the slough after the logging even though “it will look a little different for them.”

“It’s not all over for the slough once it’s logged…I don’t know what the extent of the logging is but the beaver dams will still be there. The water will continue to be there.”

Logging Crew Mobilizes Near ‘Irreplaceable’ Wetland, Slated for #SiteC Flooding https://t.co/BlAXktTgpH #bcpoli #cdnpoli #bcelxn17 pic.twitter.com/PFRm1GmWLb

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 10, 2017

In fact, said Kroeker, Watson Slough will continue to function “at some capacity” even when it is at the bottom of the Site C reservoir. “Even when it’s fully inundated, it will function not necessarily as wetland habitat but as habitat for fish that will occupy the reservoir.”

Phinney said BC Hydro’s plan to leave a 15-metre buffer zone around the slough will do almost nothing to protect habitat for about 20 bird species that nest in trees around the sprawling wetland, including the western tanager, least flycatcher and yellow warbler.

“There are plenty of species, forest birds for example, that just won’t be there anymore. They’ll come back and their habitat will be gone.”

“There’s no need to start clearing that now,” said Phinney. “Why rush it? Every year you can give them is a bit of a help to the populations.”

Kroeker said Ducks Unlimited, which BC Hydro funds to work on a number of wetland projects, has spent $60,000 to restore Watson Slough since it signed an agreement with BC Hydro almost 20 years ago, after the Crown corporation purchased land around the slough in anticipation of building Site C.

The Peace River Regional District gave $28,000 to Ducks Unlimited for educational programs at the slough that Kroeker said were attended by thousands of local school children.

B.C.’s environment ministry and the federal government are also listed as partners in the Watson Slough Wetland Conservation Project, which is promoted as a tourist destination.

BC Hydro told the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C for the federal and provincial governments that the project’s effects on wetlands would not be significant.

But the panel disagreed, saying that “wetlands are hard to recreate and…restoration is uncertain.” It concluded that Site C would have a significant adverse effect on wetlands, especially on valley bottom wetlands like Watson Slough.

BC Hydro said it is considering the regional district’s request to hold off logging around the slough until the Site C reservoir is filled.

The district also asked BC Hydro to spare much of the Bear Flat area from logging, clearly visible from a highway frequented by valley residents and tourists, for at least one more year.

Image: Watson Slough. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

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The volume of a crude oil pipeline spill that occurred in an Alberta wetland remains undetermined although both the pipeline’s operator, Trilogy Energy Corp, and representatives from the Alberta Energy Regulator have been on scene since the spill was first reported October 6.

The cause of a leak in the underground pipeline, located at Trilogy’s Kaybob Montney oil project near Fox Creek, also remains undetermined, according to John Williams, Trilogy president and chief operating officer.

In a telephone interview Friday Williams said he believes the leak to be small in size and therefore “very difficult to detect.”

Williams said he preferred not to speculate on the cause of the spill.

Location of the Kaybob Montney oil project near Fox Creek, Alberta. Image: Trilogy Energy Corp

“I can speculate but that doesn’t do any good,” Williams said.

Trilogy estimates the spill covers three hectares, the equivalent of 21 tennis courts.

In 2011, a spill from a pipeline operated by Plains Midstream contaminated just over three hectares of beaver habitat and muskeg in a remote area near Little Buffalo, territory of the Lubicon Cree First Nation, after releasing 28,000 barrels of oil — almost 4.5 million litres — into the environment.

The Plains Midstream leak, discovered after a leak detection system sounded an alarm, is considered one of the largest oil spills in Alberta's history.

According to the AER the Trilogy leak was detected during an inspection and not because of a leak detection alarm.

“I’m just as interested as anyone else to get the pipe out of the ground to find out what it was that caused the leak, the size of the hole and to find out the volume,” Williams said.

Why We Still Don’t Know How Much Oil Was Spilled in an #Alberta Wetland https://t.co/bDcaRvG2fj @carollinnitt #ableg #cdnpoli #oilspill

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 17, 2016

A spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator said they could not “predict” when the spill volume would be made public and directed DeSmog Canada to Trilogy’s website for further information.

Williams said he is resisting the pressure to release a spill volume until a more accurate measurement can be determined. Crews are currently working to excavate the pipe — a job Williams said he doesn’t expect to be completed for another week or so.

According to a company report, crews are removing contaminated soil as they dig out the pipe. Spilled oil emulsion, a mixture of oil and water, is also being pumped into storage tanks and transported to a disposal facility. The removal of contaminated material will help the company get an idea of the spill’s size.

Research shows oil and gas companies consistently underestimate spill size in their reporting.  

According to the company two dead birds, a woodpecker and “small sparrow like bird,” were found on site, covered in oil. No other impacts to wildlife have been reported.

The spill occurred in a remote wetland location, surrounded by dense bush. The location of the spill reportedly hampered emergency response efforts.

Image: Drilling near Fox Creek, Alberta. Photo: More Bike Lanes Please via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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A crude oil pipeline operated by Trilogy Energy Corp has released an unknown volume of oil emulsion, a mixture of oil and produced water, into surrounding marshland, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Trilogy employees conducting a right-of-way inspection on the pipeline, located at the company’s Kaybob Montney oil project near Fox Creek, Alberta, discovered the spill on October 6.

Both the cause and volume of the spill remain undetermined.

An Alberta Energy Regulator spokesperson told DeSmog Canada that an inspector and staff are on site to ensure “an appropriate response to the incident” but could not provide more details on the spill.

An update published on Trilogy Resource’s website Tuesday evening says the pipeline has been shut in and purged to contain the source of the leak and added, “the volume of the spill has yet to be determined.”

The company, managed by Calgary Flames co-owner Clayton Riddell, estimates the spill currently covers three hectares of land, the equivalent of about 120 tennis courts, in a remote area. 

In 2011 a spill from a pipeline operated by Plains Midstream contaminated just over three hectares of beaver habitat and muskeg in a remote area near Little Buffalo, territory of the Lubicon Cree First Nation, after releasing 28,000 barrels of oil, almost 4.5 million litres, into the environment. It is considered one of the largest oil spills in Alberta's history.

According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, the Trilogy Energy spill location made the incident difficult to respond to.

“It’s tough to access. It’s really densely vegetated. The past few days have been spent creating an access to the impacted area so the crews can begin the deliniation [sic] and remediation work,” a spokesperson for the regulator told the Edmonton Journal.

Cause & Volume of #OilSpill in #Alberta Wetland Still Unknown 6 Days In https://t.co/GcYdBb4Lm7 #cdnpoli #ableg @carollinnitt

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 13, 2016

“Trilogy has developed a diversion plan that will minimize the infiltration of surface water and prevent further disbursement of oil,” the update from the company reads.

“Environmental specialists, wildlife experts and crews are on site assessing the situation, working closely with the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).”

“Sampling and monitoring, recovery, waste management and wildlife and water control plans have been developed and are pending AER approval.”

The statement adds the company is collecting water and soil samples and that wetland and environmental assessments are ongoing. The company says efforts are in place to monitor and deter wildlife from entering the spill zone.

According to research conducted by the Florida State University, oil companies consistently underreport oil spill volumes, especially in instances of small spills and in remote areas.

In July, Husky Energy drew criticism for failing to properly report a pipeline spill that contaminated the North Saskatchewan River, a major source of drinking water.

An incident report on the Alberta Energy Regulator's website claims “there have been no reported impacts to wildlife” from the Trilogy pipeline release, although a spokesperson told the Edmonton Journal that response crews found two dead birds at the spill site as well as impacted beaver lodges.

A request for comment from Trilogy Resources went unanswered by time of publication.

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