Last week Charles Kahn responded to a George Gram article on the unique language contained in the object of the Islands Trust with broad claims of ecological uniqueness in the Trust area. Unfortunately, many of the statements made in that response were in error. The science-based, definitive resources that expose those errors are easily accessed and readily available.

Mr. Kahn may have based some of his assertions on erroneous information that was unfortunately presented in some older Islands Trust publications. Note that Islands Trust staff conducted extensive corrective edits to Trust materials in 2023 on these subjects. Their diligence was captured in item 8.4 Coastal Douglas-fir Biogeoclimatic zone language and potential education session – Briefing of the May 2023 Trust Programs Committee meeting.

"Mr. Kahn’s response to George Grams could be dismissed as personal opinion, save one important fact. That fact is that Charles Kahn had recently been serving a second term as a Provincially appointed Board member of the Islands Trust Conservancy that was due to expire this coming August. As such, it is troubling that Mr. Kahn is promoting errant facts about our natural environment as this unavoidably reflects poorly on the Conservancy."

It is important to note that Mr. Kahn’s stated reference in his response article, the Coastal Douglas Fir Conservation Partnership (CDFCP) is not a recognized authority. The CDFCP was founded to try and facilitate conservation cooperation between local governments. The CDFCP is not a recognized authority on the CDF zone, nor its range of ecosystems, nor its extent. Nor is the CDFCP a recognized authority on endangered ecosystem or species classification. Unlike the BC Conservation Data Centre (BC CDC), for example, the CDFCP is not a member of NatureServe, the authoritative source for biodiversity data throughout North America.

Contrary to Mr. Kahn’s assertion, the Trust Area does not contain 97% of all BC ecological communities considered to be at risk. Rather, 11% of all the at-risk or endangered ecosystems in BC might be found in the Islands Trust Area (including both IT Area CDF zone and Coastal Western Hemlock, or CWH, zone portions). Not 97%.

Mr. Kahn’s claim is overstated by ten-fold. With no disrespect intended, this statement is absurd given the vast size of our province with its extensive natural geographic diversity and the comparatively small size of the Islands Trust area. Please consider that the province’s ecosystems range from the Sonora Desert to the Great Bear Rainforest to alpine meadows and to the boreal forest. In comparison to the Islands Trust Area (both the CDF and CWH zone portions), according to the BC CDC’s data the neighbouring CWH zone may contain twice as many at risk ecosystems as are found in the Islands Trust Area.

Please note the qualifier “might be found.”

The BC CDC carefully notes that results from searches of its database “reflect the species or ecological communities that occur or potentially occur in your selected area of interest (emphasis added).” Thus, the BC CDC errs on inclusiveness where there may not be confirming data. And, when one drills down on the BC CDC data, many of the ecological communities that they indicate might be found in the Trust area actually have no corresponding observations here. Thus, the data returned for a search on the Trust area could well include an overcount.

All that said, according to the best research we have conducted as is included in the BC CDC database, there are no endemic, or exclusively occurring, at risk or endangered ecosystems in the Islands Trust Area.

Mr. Kahn’s letter focuses on the word unique, employing it ten times. Thus, the lack of uniqueness of our local natural environment is striking in the context of his letter. No matter how much we local Trust residents may love our islands paradise and their unique beauty, such touted environmental uniqueness of the Islands Trust Area is not supported by science. The IT Area is geographically unique by its location and configuration, but it is not ecologically unique according to science.

The science does not support the assertion that the Islands Trust’s environment and amenities are ecologically unique.

With respect to Mr. Kahn’s assertions in terms of natural or ecological uniqueness it is notable that Mr. Kahn proposes that we change the dialog to focus on “the environmental amenities of the Gulf Islands.” This proposed dialog focus employs more restrictive language than is embodied in the object of the Trust.

By trying to more narrowly specify the language, Mr. Kahn has provided the strongest argument yet that the original reference to environment and amenities within the Islands Trust object was meant to be broad and should be interpreted as such. His proposal fundamentally illustrates and confirms that the reference to “environment and amenities” in the original wording of the Trust object was intended in the broad and general sense that George Grams had observed.

On this point of an overly restrictive point of view, let’s also consider Mr. Kahn’s assertion that the Islands Trust Area is in the heart of the Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) zone and that it is found nowhere else in the world. This is also untrue.

According to the subject experts at the BC Ministry of Forests, the CDF zone extends through Washington and Oregon state into California. The range of coastal Douglas-fir extends to the Monterey Bay area in California. The Islands Trust area represents about a third of the BC portion of the CDF zone and is but a small portion of the overall CDF zone, the range of Coastal Douglas-fir or the extent of Coastal Douglas-fir forests. Setting aside how extensive the actual range of the CDF zone is, we need only consider the much larger nearby islands in Washington state’s Puget Sound with forests virtually identical to ours. Not considering our close island neighbours furthers the errant view that ecosystems are somehow restricted by political boundaries. Ecosystems are not politically bound.

Being part of an ecological area with a larger range does not make the Islands Trust Area itself any less environmentally unique, less environmentally wonderful or less environmentally beautiful. The Islands Trust environment is uniquely beautiful but not ecologically unique.