Salmon As A Keystone Species.
And Why You Should Give A Damn About The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project.
We are losing our forests. An estimated 47% of the world’s forests have been lost, and only 34.4% of the remaining global forests are primary forests. Deforestation, the clearance of trees for timber and subsequent transformation of the land into ranches, farmland, or urban areas, has taken place on a global scale. Where deforestation does not occur, forest degradation is rampantly occurring. Degradation is related directly to the health and resilience of a forest. Many people still believe that when a forest disappears that all that is being lost is the canopy — the thick green covering the earth. Yet it is now widely understood that when a forest dies, the consequences are far more detrimental than we initially believed. When a forest is ripped out form its roots, or degraded beyond regenerative capacity, negative consequences include (but are not even limited to); the loss of forests as carbon sequesters, carbon release from forests as carbon storehouses, the loss of habitat for mammals and a surplus of other fauna, a decrease in biodiversity, the loss of water purification systems, the loss of multiple forest functions such as nutrient cycling and photosynthesis, the loss of a source of livelihood for more than a billion people worldwide, and the loss of irreplaceable cultural, ecological, and economic services.
The Great Bear Rainforest is the name given to an area of about 74,000km² that runs along coast of British Columbia — from Northwestern Vancouver Island to the South East border of Alaska. Approximately 51% of the region falls within the Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone. Temperate rainforests are found in only eleven regions globally, and the Great Bear Rainforest is the largest remaining area of mostly intact old growth temperate rainforest in the world. Untouched by vast development projects, this pristine rainforest went unnoticed for generations — eventually being labeled the ‘forgotten coast’ by environmental organizations such as Greenpeace.
This forest consists of thousands of hemlock, spruce, cedar, and other old-growth trees averaging at 350 years, but reaching up to 1000 years and more. Interwoven with streams, rivers, and watersheds, the rainforest gives way to a number of islands so isolated that they can only be reached by boat or plane. This unspoiled ecosystem of fjords, valley’s, islands, trees, streams, rocks, ice, rivers, mountain slopes, alpine meadows, and estuaries, has become the permanent home to the coastal grizzly bear, stitkadeers, wolves, mountain goats, thousands of migratory birds, cougars, the bald eagle, black bears, and a plethora of other flora and fauna. It is estimated that the Great Bear Rainforest not only contains one quarter of the global extent of this ecosystem, but that it also sustains a biomass greater than any other terrestrial ecosystem in the world. The forest, once labeled on the map as the Timber Supply Area, was renamed the Great Bear Rainforest by environmental groups in the 1990’s. This name came partially from the rainforest’s local population of black bears and coastal grizzly bears, but primarily from the white Kermode bear — also known as the ‘Spirit Bear’. The Spirit Bear, named by the local Native communities, is a black bear born with a recessive gene that turns its fur white. The black bear is already unique to the region, but the spirit bear is endemic (and rare) to this specific rainforest.
Although this region of North Western B.C. is renowned for being one of the last remaining ‘undisturbed’ and ‘pristine’ natural habitats in the world, this does not mean that it has remained entirely uninhabited. The forest is called pristine because it bears basically zero evidence of past human or industrial activities. The only disturbances can be found from selective logging of individual trees, patch cutting, or the clearing of less than five hectares of forest. This being said, there are roughly 22,000 human inhabitants in the Great Bear Rainforest. These inhabitants are part of the twenty-seven First Nations living in the boundaries of the GBR. These communities such as Heiltsuk, Gitga’At and Haida Nation are located in places such as Klemtu, Hartley Bay, Bella Bella, Oweekeno, and Kitkatla. The livelihood of these communities has relied on the GBR’s goods and services for thousands of years.
The Great Bear Rainforest nurtures and regenerates one of the most beautiful tracts of land on the planet. With the white coat of the ‘Spirit Bear’ gleaming, the dense and rich canopy and the regions rivers and streams that provide beautiful spawning and rearing habitats for 20% of the entire Pacific Salmon population.
For a while, however, this forest perplexed a number of ecologists. With the amount of rainfall the region receives annually, the soil should not be able to retain enough nitrogen to support the growth of this amount of biomass. Given the amount of rain, nutrients in the soil, especially the nitrogen, should be washed away, leaving a barren land rather than one of the richest forests in the world. High biodiversity is always supported by a rich, nutritious, fertile soil — and this exactly what the soil of the Great Bear Rainforest is. Ecologists stood in bewilderment as their tests came back over and over again showing high percentages of nitrogen in the GBR soil. Where does it come from? Study after study eventually uncovered the source of life for this temperate rainforest: salmon.
The ocean holds a very rich form of Nitrogen — Nitrogen15. Nitrogen15 can also be found in the bodies of the salmon that swim in the waters of the Atlantic. These Nitrogen15 carrying salmon are the same fish that swim into the Great Bear Rainforest to spawn and rear. As these salmon jump waterfalls to reach their spawning grounds, their journey becomes perilous as they become a major source of food for the bears, wolves, and other large mammals of the GBR regions. Mouth open, these large mammals loom over the waterfalls and catch the salmon with their mouths or claws. The fish, however, is not consumed in its entirety. Rather, only the necessary parts are consumed, leaving a large part of the carcass behind.
The interesting part starts here: once these fish are caught and the necessary parts consumed, the remaining carcass is then thrown away. It is not, however, thrown right next to the riverbank. It is thrown away hundreds of meters from where it was caught, because each mammal transports his or her meal to different parts of the forest in order to eat in peace.
The salmon then rots, and the rotting carcass allows the Nitrogen15, once in the body of the fish, to seep into the soil — thus enriching the soil and supporting the growth of the flora. It does not just end there! The same rotting salmon carcass provides food for the maggots and insects of the forest. These insects in turn are primary partakers in the regeneration and maintenance of the soil’s health and the forests ecosystem. These maggots and insects also become a necessary food source for the regions local and migrating birds.
One single species, then, becomes the foundation for which an entire ecosystem relies. One single species becomes the source of life. The salmon becomes the illustrative example of the intricacies of our earth’s ecosystems and the primary example of how the ‘cycle of life’ is truly awe inspiring. The complexities of the earth’s ecosystems are thus beautifully illustrated in this fantastical display of connectivity.
Salmon can no longer be ignored as the Great Bear Rainforest’s keystone species. Spawning salmon have become the foundation for life in the rainforest — whether it is as the major source of food for large mammals, birds, and insects, or as the source of nitrogen to the rainforest’s living soil.
If the region’s rivers and streams that provide spawning and rearing habitat for 20% of the Pacific Salmon have their health and hydrological services compromised, this would compromise the health and abundance of salmon populations. Management objectives must take hydroriparian ecosystem protection into serious focus. Salmon populations must be maintained and their rearing habitats protected. Of course, the nitrogen15 stored in the body of the salmon cannot be passed onto the soil without the transportation of carcasses by large mammals. Thus, protection of salmon populations must occur in tandem with a greater protection of the rainforests bears, wolves, and other large mammals.
But, in the mid 2000’s The Great Bear Rainforest, once named the Timco Timber Supply Area, had a new threat thrown its way. Enbridge Construction has proposed to begin the Northern Gateway Pipeline Project, due to be completed in 2019. This project would allow a pipeline, carrying the dirtiest oil in the world born from the Alberta Tar Sands, to span from Alberta to British Columbia. Once in BC, this oil would be transported by oil tankers off the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest, through Douglas Channel and departing from Hartley Bay, to international buyers such as China.
When it comes to far spanning pipelines, especially those owned by Enbridge, the concern is not a matter of if but a matter of when and oil spill will occur. Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. is the world’s longest crude oil and liquids transportation system and operates in both Canada and the United States. Enbridge (like any mega corporation fighting to appease safety concerns) claims to take pride in safely and reliably delivering energy to people. Despite these claims, from the years 1999 to 2009, Enbridge Inc. was accountable for more than 700 spills — accumulating to approximately 133,000 barrels of hydrocarbon. In 2010, Enbridge Inc. was responsible for a pipeline breach in Michigan where at least 19,500 barrels of oil flowed into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. At the time, the US environmental Protection Agency said that Enbridge (just like its close acquaintance BP) was slow to respond to the initial news of the spill. The EPA then rejected Enbridge’s long-term remediation and testing plans several times, unsatisfied with their quality and completeness. In 1989, the devastating Exxon Valdez Spill caused 11 million gallons of crude oil to be spilled in Prince William Sound, Alaska, consequentially contaminating 1,200 miles of shoreline and killing hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine mammals.
As Naomi Klein mentions in her newest work This Changes Everything, the effects of spills on the marine ecosystem cannot be categorized only by the number of adults species perished. Eggs, larvae, and pregnant mothers are positioned by the vast amount of toxins they are exposed to at stages in their lives in which they are unable to swim away and bear the effect of the toxins. The result? Stillbirths, mutations, early death, and no life at all. The detrimental effects of these Enbridge spills have lasted decades, and continue this way. 2005 sampling tests of the area show a rate of decline in contamination that has slowed to only 4% per year. This is not enough for a recovering ecosystem with the fragility of the Great Bear Rainforest. The concern is not only the corroded and inefficient piping that will run through the area (piping often overused, cheaply built, and neglected in repair to save money), Enbridge’s proposed gateway will mean super-tankers carrying ten times the amount as the Valdez ship. These tankers will not be traveling once or twice; they will be traveling the shores of the Great Bear Rainforest 225 times a year. And don’t assume that these trips will be done on the deep-blue wide-open seas. Rather, this proposed ‘Gateway’ along the Great Bear Rainforest shoreline will be one fraught with hard cutting rocks, narrow water ways, and sharp, fast, unremittingly altering turns that would put any boat of any size to its most trying navigational skills. This is the roughest ocean weather in the world. Boats have crashed on these rocks in the past, and this tight-knit rock-strewn waterway will not become safer over time. Consequently, it is not just a concern of a possible leak or spill from a ship malfunction or pipeline problem, but a question of when one of these mega-tankers will crash. When this spill occurs, there will be no ‘clean-up’ plan able to allay the environmental cataclysm that will ensue. This approximate 110 million gallons of oil will contaminate the water and devastate the salmon population of this volatile temperate rainforest.
When (and ‘if’ cannot be used) this happens, this fundamental and crucial part of the entire ecosystem will be tampered with. This, in turn, will impact the entire ecosystem of the forest — bringing into question the lives of plants, animals, and people. The rainforest will die. According to the short video titled “Enbridge Northern Gateway Flyover Misleads the Public” by activist group ‘Pipe Up Against Enbridge’ Enbridge is not sharing this information with the public. According to the video, Enbridge advertises a path for its mega-tankers very different to the one that exists in real life. According to Enbridge, the Douglas channel leading to Hartley bay is a clear pathway of open water. This illustration, however, disregards the 1000 square kilometers of islands that are distributed along the channel — hundreds of islands imposing dangerous turns and right corners for these super tankers. These islands are simply removed — not mentioned and not regarded. The public is, therefore, lied to.
Adequate rescue tugs and vessel tracking systems that were imposed in PWS after the Valdez Spill will not work for the Great Bear Rainforest Shoreline. The biodiversity and exceptionality of the Great Bear forest must be sheltered if Canada, and the world, is to retain any untouched corner of pristine nature. The Canadian federal government has agreed to fund the protection of this forest from logging, and although the pipeline does not pose as obvious of a threat as logging, it is a just as real a threat (and if the spill happens, unpredictably more damaging). Only about 30% of the rainforest is currently a protected area.
Due to the fact that the Enbridge Pipeline is a private project, and the Great Bear Rainforest is currently under Provincial jurisdiction, public action in efforts to stop the project are important, and effective, but may, eventually, become futile. Efforts by Greenpeace, National Geographic, local native communities, and Pacific Wild are trampled by the power of private corporations and the dysfunctional nature of the fragmentized Canadian governing system when it comes to environmental protection. One proposal is that the entirety of this forest must be purchased by the Canadian Federal government to be transformed into a protected area. Once it is federally owned land, it is under federal jurisdiction, and any project (including Enbridge) will be subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. But will the conservatives, under Harper, really be the solution to the problem? Right now, the only acts stopping this Project (that has already received a number of green lights) from starting are the blockading movements by local indigenous communities and international non-governmental environmental organizations (fighting for the rights of the forest since the ‘war in the wood’ of the early 1990’s). By literally using their bodies and their voices to block the roads, these people’s valiant efforts do not go unnoticed. It must be noted, however, that the GBR’s only threat is not Enbridge. It’s first wood pulp mill opened in 1912.
Human impacts on the environment never stem from one location — if that was the case then ‘saving the environment’ would be a task easily done. Given the current ecological crisis, man-made threats to the Great Bear Rainforest region and the source of its life — salmon — are extensive. To name a few: overfishing, sea lice (stemming from fish farms), warming waters due to climate change, spawning streams clogged with debris from local logging operations, dams, and faulty ecosystem based management. Enbridge, however, is the problem looming over like the antagonist in a dystopian science fiction.
Some people may still wonder why they should care. Why this forest is any different from any other forest in the world. Or why they should step up against a corporation that, through the Alberta Tar Sands, is giving money and jobs to the Canadian people and Economy. It’s because these jobs are temporary and this money is woefully displaced. Who exactly profits from this 6.5 billion dollar project? Yes the projects may open gates to new suppliers of crude oil off of the Pacific Rim, but at what cost?
We cannot put a price on nature, but can we be run and governed by money hungry corporations benefitting no one but the few people behind its iron doors. When a spill occurs, it will be ecocide. It will not be a few floating fish on the surface of a river, it will be an entire pristine forest vanished from the face of the planet. And the crude oil purchased by international suppliers such as China? This oil will further impact our global warming crisis. Putting more carbon into a world with one less forest to absorb it. We will lose one of the most pristine tracts of land in the world, and the benefits of this billion-dollar project will not be felt by the average Canadian. If anything, the average Canadian will look before them as a part of their country dies before their eyes. We are, at this point in time, too intelligent, informed, and responsible a species to allow a corporation to trample on life in and of itself. The way to stop this? To give a damn.
