Healthy forest ecosystems in northwest BC support healthy wild salmon populations and forestry development activities have the potential to directly impact salmon health.

Fisheries are managed by our Federal government, yet the land use activities that impact fish habitat are managed Provincially. This jurisdictional gap presents challenges in maintaining healthy salmon habitat. Fortunately, tools are already available at a federal level to assess fish habitat health. The Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s Wild Salmon Policy (WSP) Habitat Working Group developed thresholds and benchmarks for habitat indicators most impacted by forest development activities (i.e. road densities, streamside vegetation disturbance, equivalent clear-cut area, linear development, and fish passages). Using these habitat indicators to assess resource development in northwest BC and inform decision-making (keep habitats out of the high-risk zone) can help address concerns regarding cumulative impacts on ecosystem health and wild salmon. SkeenaWild, in collaboration with our partners, have used these indicators to assess habitat health in the Kispiox and the Babine Watersheds. We believe that the Province of BC could better consider salmon in land use planning and decision-making by considering such indicators and thresholds.

Consistent with collaborative approach and our focus to support better forestry and land use practices that protect water, salmon and wildlife populations, this Best Management Practice for northern goshawks is published by SkeenaWild. Goshawks are an iconic forest raptor and an indicator of forest ecosystem health throughout forests of the northern hemisphere, as they rely on the presence of old forest structures for nesting and on the presence of abundant and available prey to support successful breeding. In many cases, there are shared values for both goshawks and salmon. What is good for one is often good for the other.

Decades of monitoring, research, and collaboration across the landscapes of central and northwestern BC and Haida Gwaii have shown a precipitous decline in goshawk populations. Through research and monitoring we have learned that this decline is in large part linked to clear-cut forest harvesting, as well as the subsequent even-aged conifer plantations that lack the required forest structure and available prey. If we are not to lose the goshawk, the focus now must be on managing for the remaining individual territories, so that viable populations can be maintained. Through these Best Management Practices, we provide guidance as to approaches to future harvest and landscape management that are required to maintain forest structure and thereby the goshawks and the species on which they depend.