Gwaii Haanas: Wet Wilderness

Gwaii Haanas: wet wilderness. Huge rains. Swelling, deep seas. Rivers rolling from mountaintops. Water creates the life and breath of this ancient world. It flows as it always has – in a special world that denied glaciation.

Canada and the Haida Nation protect these drenched lands as a national park reserve. But the park’s coastal waters remain vulnerable to harmful human activities, like commercial fishing.

The marine ecosystems of Gwaii Haanas need protection.

By safeguarding these marine ecosystems, Canada and the Haida Nation will create one of the greatest vertically-protected areas on Earth. The park would rise to mountaintops on land and fall 2500 metres below the sea surface to a deep, ocean valley. The interdependent species at every elevation could continue to evolve as nature intended.

People-land-sea: where Haida hug nature

Canada and the Haida Nation already protect the ancient civilizations of the Haida people – a world of archipelago, joined by water. Their ocean connects their people. It is as much a part of their heritage, as the earth and stone on their islands.

Today, remnants of their old civilizations and totem poles defy time in a world heritage site known as SGang Gwaay or Anthony Island. Their incomparable land – a lush, stormy, big-tree wilderness – is a national park reserve.

It’s time that their marine environment gets protection too.

Protection

Twenty years ago, the Government of Canada and the Council of the Haida Nation made a commitment to protect the marine ecosystems around Gwaii Haanas. But today, protection is still just a word. Many disruptive human activities continue, including a variety of commercial fisheries.

Our goal: To finalize a National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) in the marine environment around Gwaii Haanas by 2010 – one of Canada’s first.

What is CPAWS doing?

CPAWS continues working to protect the marine area surrounding Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve through the establishment of a national marine conservation area. Federal, provincial and Haida Nation governments committed to this protection in the late 1980s. CPAWS joined the effort in 1995.

From there, CPAWS became instrumental in getting the needed legislation passed. With legal hurdles now cleared, the next step is for the federal government and the Haida Nation to work with stakeholders, including CPAWS. Our job is to develop an interim management plan for the area that will be tabled with the federal parliament and lead to its designation under the National Marine Conservation Areas Act.

Gwaii Haanas – quick facts

• The proposed National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) around Gwaii Haanas – extending 10 kilometres offshore – would protect 3050 square kilometres of ocean.
• The Queen Charlotte shelf drops 2500 metres from the island creating an underwater “ecological edge” with biological bounty.
• From mountaintop to ocean shelf, Gwaii Haanas would become one of the great, fully protected, vertical ecosystems in the world.
• The Gwaii Haanas marine ecosystems support kelp forests, hundreds of species of fish, seabirds, sea lions, dolphins, porpoises and many different whales, including humpback, orca and minke whales.
• Gray whales pit-stop in these waters on their migration to Alaska.
• In Burnaby Narrows alone, over 200 species of animals, including sea stars and snails have been identified in huge concentrations.
• Coastal B.C. records the greatest rainfalls in Canada.