A VISION FOR BETTER LAND USE PLANNING
IN THE NORTH CENTRAL LAND USE PLAN AREA

The North Central land use planning area (NCLUP) occupies 3.2 million hectares in north-central Saskatchewan.

The area straddles a large section of the Churchill River and lies within two major eco-zones: the Boreal Plain and the Boreal Shield. Most of this forest landscape is in excellent ecological condition.

The land use plan produced by government opens 90% of the land base up to industrial development. This places the ecological health of the region at huge risk.

A Vision for Better Planning

CPAWS believes that good planning for this region is an attainable goal.

CPAWS worked with a diverse group of citizens to bring information to the North Central land use planning table about the ecological sensitivity of the region, the areas of high conservation value, the concerns of traditional land users, and the economics of forestry and tourism. Through information gathering and analysis, we developed an initial vision for this area that we believe will do a better job than the government's plan to protect the land, culture an economies in the region. Our information was provided to the planning table, but little is reflected in the government plan.

We envision a plan that is premised on:

good information stemming from best science and best local and traditional knowledge of the land;
cautious land use zoning and decision-making, recognizing that the NCLUP ecosystem is fragile, that there is a lot that humans don't know about the ecosystem, and there is much that we do know about impacts from industrial activities such as forestry, mining and roads on the land;
modern planning techniques that mimic new and improved planning processes underway in other parts of the world. These modern processes include gathering good information from all sources and pursuing meaningful discussions and decision-making about human and ecological needs. Maintaining the long term health of the ecosystem is foundational to all planning decisions. The same is true for the needs of local people.

	-Black Bear Island Lake. Churchill River, Photo by B. Gjetvaj

Our objectives are to ensure:

maintenance of the region's ecological integrity.
maintenance of indigenous culture,
sustainable economic development
preservation of ongoing recreation opportunities.

Information collected over a four year period is documented in a report known as the Uskiy Puhco report. The report is entitled Towards Ecosystem-based Conservation Planning in the North Central Land Use Plan Area (May 25, 2005). It provides background information about the planning area, data analysis (economic and ecological), land use recommendations and a zoning structure designed to help protected the ecosystem.

In 2006, the Uskiy Puhco conservation plan received positive reviews from four independent Canadian scientists who were asked to analyze the work. The scientists indicated that the Uskiy Puhco plan is a rigorous and defensible plan in terms of taking care of the land, the Cree culture and the local economies.

Major Research Findings

Key Ecological Findings...

The NCLUP landscape is ecologically sensitive to unnatural disturbances like logging and mining. Mistakes will be long-lasting. Land use decisions must be cautious, focusing on the side of protecting the land and maintaining future options.

Most of the NCLUP is not ecologically appropriate for timber harvesting, due to the sensitive, generally poor productive soils and severe climate.

The effects of fire are significantly different from the effects of clearcutting. Logging practices used in Saskatchewan and promoted by the government will remove the framework necessary to sustain forest ecosystem functioning, particularly in the long-term.

Key Economic Findings...

Non-timber resource harvesting (trapping, wild rice, fishing, wildcrafting) has high value and is important to the people in the region. Large-scale industrial forestry will eventually result in the loss of most non-timber resource harvesting.

An initial analysis of industrial logging in most of the NCLUP indicates that it is not economically sustainable because of high costs, poor timber quality, low timber values and highly competitive world markets. Logging costs will increase if true ecosystem-based forestry practices are used. Moreover, proceeding with large-scale timber management plans will foreclose on many readily viable, non-timber activities, from cultural pursuits to wilderness tourism.

The region presents large challenges for human activities dependant on road access because the landscape patterns are complex, ever-changing and water is everywhere. This provides for rich biological diversity but also results in poor economic viability for industrial timber management.

The region offers high wilderness tourism values. This provides for perhaps the most valuable, readily sustainable economic resource in the region. In wilderness canoeing along, the potential is $9.7 million annual revenue, employing 390 people for a 3 month season with significant number of employment extending beyond the 3 month season.

Planning Issues...

The complex landscape has provided the foundation for the rich Indigenous culture of the area. The future of the culture is in doubt due to extensive plans for large scale industrial development.

Key information is missing to assemble a complete ecosystem-based conservation plan for the NCLUP at this time. This includes vegetation classification, habitat assessments for a range of species, improved fire history, and complete information regarding ongoing and planned commercial and recreational uses of the NCLUP area.

The current protected areas proposed by government in their land use plan (Pink Lake and Geikie River) do not constitute a satisfactory network of ecological reserves for the long-term maintenance of biological diversity and ecological integrity.

The rating system by the government for mineral potential is skewed to "high potential", so that just about everywhere is considered "high". This imbalanced system has the apparent effect of giving undue emphasis to the importance of minerals. Mining by its very nature is non-sustainable. An ecosystem-based plan needs to provide a system that accommodates some mining while protecting the ecological integrity and sustainable human activities over most of the NCLUP area. See Page 241 in Uskiy Puhco report for discussion on this issue).

The boundary for the NCLUP planning area is inappropriate because it is not ecosystem-based (i.e. not based on ecological units like watersheds or ecodistricts). This makes it difficult to design effective networks of protected areas that are necessary to ensure the long-term health of the forest region.

Proposed Zoning

Zoning is the foundation for any land use plan. It outlines where, what and how human activities will take place on the ground. Setting areas aside from industrial development, coupled with appropriate land uses inside and outside of protected areas, is necessary to maintain ecosystem-functioning.

The Uskiy Puhco report offers a proposed zoning structure that attempts to integrate conservation science, local knowledge and regional data, to determine where best to zone for protection and potential industrial land use. The Uskiy Puhco plan offers a more cautious and information-based zoning structure than the government's plan. This caution is premised on the understanding that the North Central forest in is a fragile landscape, susceptible to long-lasting damage from human resource extraction activities.

The map below shows the proposed zoning map produced by Uskiy Puhco. We view it as a meaningful starting point to determine boundaries for protection in the region.

The protected zone (dark green and lime green): This zone shows an interconnected network of protected areas that would be open to many soft, low consumption activities like tourism, hunting, fishing, trapping, small-scale wildcrafting, etc. The zone would be closed to industrial developments such as logging and mining.

	Draft Land Use Plan Zoning Map Uskiy Puhco 2005

The network provides an initial understanding of what is needed to help take care of natural health of the region. While the precise boundaries need to be refined using additional information (see Uskiy Puhco report), the general location and size of the network are correct and necessary to maintain ecological integrity at the landscape level. It is designed to be large enough to absorb large natural disturbances that are typical of the natural landscape while maintaining their ability to provide a full range of ecological processes, including habitat for all species in the landscape. (click here to see pdf map with detail)

The protected zone captures some major waterways in the region including the Churchill River, the Foster Lakes/river system and the Paul River system. Connectors (in lime green) help to provide for unimpaired wildlife movements in the region.

Values considered in the design of the zone include landform patterns, watershed units, fire history, rare species and ecosystems, and water features. Vegetation data was not available.

The conservation emphasis zone (yellow): This zone captures unique landscape ecology patterns in the planning area (e.g. high density of water). It is identified to ensure that cultural, recreation and habitat values are maintained, while still allowing some timber and other resource extraction. A full range of human activities may be carried out, but these activities are subject to more stringent constraints than are imposed on general ecosystem-based resource areas. For example, riparian areas would be larger in this zone and larger areas would be reserved for the protection of old-growth forests and/or unique or naturally rare ecosystem types.

The community forest area (dark pink): This zone is located on the boreal plain ecozone.The southern portion of the NCLUP contains better growing sites and more favourable terrain for timber management than the northern areas, and is the area with the best chance of economically and ecologically successful forestry operations within the NCLUP. The community forest would ensure local control of timber resources, to support local small scale forest harvesting and milling opportunities and to provide a working model of ecologically responsible, sustainable forest use.

Ecosystem-based resource area (white): The remainder of the NCLUP area is available for resource uses where activities are carried out in ways that maintain the ecological integrity of the land, particularly in the long term.

Major Recommendations
Our research lead to some important recommendations:

Assemble missing, necessary ecological and cultural information to determine the ecological limits of the land and to design networks of protected areas to complete a culture-based and ecosystem-based conservation plan for the NCLUP. Examples of missing information = forest cover mapping, indigenous knowledge, wildlife use and habitats mapping.

Carry out further field assessments of the character and condition of ecosystems to confirm and improve the design of the protected area network.

Review and refine the proposed protected areas network, using new information assembled in first recommendation (above) and results of field ecosystem assessments.

Assemble missing economic information to designate human use areas and design a community economy as part of completion of the plan. Examples of missing economic information = disclosure of economic information related to large-scale industrial timber management held by Saskatchewan government, actual timber management cost data and timber value data for the NCLUP, complete information on mining and non-timber forest uses.

Conduct a competing demands analysis comparing ecologically appropriate harvesting of timber and non-timber forest products, cultural activities, and wilderness activities with large-scale industrial timber management and mining. This compares not only monetary returns, but also social and ecological costs and benefits of various activities to arrive at recommendations for a mixture of activities.

Review and improve the Community Forest analysis.

Designate and describe activities within human use areas for the NCLUP area through a process of community review of ecological, cultural and economic mapping information for the NCLUP area.

Refine the economic analysis and develop a structure for a community-based economy.

Support the development of Uskiy Puhco, the planning group representing people from rural communities, as a means of broadening discussion and completing the ecosystem-based conservation plan for the NCLUP area.

Use the Uskiy Puhco report as a foundation to develop an ecosystem-based plan for the NCLUP.

LEARN MORE:

Towards Ecosystem-based Conservation Planning in the NCLUP Read the Uskiy Puhco research report prepared for the NCLUP process. Main report Summary report

CPAWS comments on Government's draft land use plan for the NCLUP CPAWS discusses some of the content of the draft (#2) plan