ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep. 55 Tara Martin, Salt Spring Conservancy

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Ask Salt Spring Answered host Damian Inwood talks to Tara Martin, a board member of the Salt Spring Island Conservancy and also UBC professor in Conservation Sciences, about the issue of loss of biodiversity on SSI.

you're listening to episode 55 of ask salt spring answered in which we speak with tara martin who is with the salt spring island conservancy and and is also a University of British Columbia professor in the conservation field. And we talked about all kinds of things on Salt Spring with regards to conservation issues. Okay, I'm here with Tara Martin. We were at Ask Salt Spring this morning when the subject was nature and biodiversity, plant stewardship, and all kinds of other issues. And Tara, welcome. Thanks, Davian. It's really lovely to be here.

And perhaps you could just tell us a little bit about yourself. I am a longtime Islander. I was born on Salt Spring, grew up here, went to high school here, and then as a young adult, in my late teens in fact, I decided it was time to get as far away from here as possible and I went to Australia and then returned back to Salt Spring to have my kids over a decade ago. Yeah, now you're a board member of the Conservancy, right? Salisbury Island Conservancy,

and you're also a professor at UBC. I am. I'm a professor in conservation science at UBC, and I hold the Libro Aero chair in conservation. I lead a large team of graduate students working in this area of cumulative impact assessment. So that means that we are looking to understand the impacts of all of these different stressors on biodiversity, on islands, in the Salish Sea, in British Columbia, things like climate change, land use change, deer hyperabundance, invasive species, all these things interact to change the ecosystems in which we live. Now you talked about the what you described as the train wreck of biodiversity loss and you're basically working on how to mitigate and reverse that. Tell me, how serious is this on Salt Spring? Salt Spring is an example of a place that has changed remarkably in the recent decades,

in particular over the last 150 years since colonization by non-indigenous people. In my lifetime, I've watched areas transition from wildflower abundant meadows, for example, into more desert-like conditions. When I say desert-like, meaning that there's not a lot of biodiversity, there's not a lot of different types of plants or flowers. So areas that were once rich in wildflowers and pollinators and birds are much more simple now. They still have plants, but those plants are very common plants, generalist plants, not those specialized plants that used to be here so long ago. And the risk of that is that species are at risk because they don't have that biodiversity, right? That's right. So we're seeing a huge decline in things like bumblebees. Bumblebees used to be

hugely abundant across the Gulf Islands. Now we're seeing the loss of the western bumblebee. We don't even find that species in the islands anymore. We're seeing a change in our songbirds, far fewer songbirds. We're seeing loss of alligator lizards and even garter snakes. All of these things that were once common, even common when I was a child, are no longer as abundant as they were. Right. Now, you said, I think, that 23% of the island is under some sort of protection, and the global goal is 30% by 2030, right? So the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is a global consortium that Canada has signed on to,

along with 155 other countries, has set this goal of protecting 30% of the lands by 2030. Salt Spring has 23% of its lands in some form of protection. So we're still below that 30% and that 30% is a low bar. We know that for some animals to thrive, they need more than 30% of their habitat protected. So how will we reach that goal? We've been reaching the goals to date through all kinds of different mechanisms, including buying up land and putting it in protection status through something like the Salt Spring Island Conservancy, which they steward nine different properties across the island. There's covenants that work with private landholders to covenant land to protect elements of the land. Like the llama land. That's right. That's right. So those are another powerful way to protect the biodiversity values or even

the cultural values of a piece of land. We're moving more towards thinking about co-management of land with Indigenous communities. Indigenous protected and conserved areas are becoming much more a part of the conservation estate than the classic national or provincial park. So those partnerships are, I think, are probably the way that Salt Spring will move forward in terms of protecting more lands is working in partnership with private landholders and working in partnership with indigenous communities. Now you said that we need to rethink what conservation is, and you talked about the fortress conservation, which is kind of the old style of keeping people out, locking them up, locking up the land and protecting it from people,

but that's not going to work anymore. So what's the new way of looking at it? The new way is really recognizing that fortress conservation, this idea that everything will be fine as long as people are not in part of the landscape or disturbing the landscape, is actually incorrect. We know that Indigenous peoples lived and worked and stewarded across the lands and seas for millennia, and we know that here on Salt Spring Island and in the Salish Sea, many of those ecosystems evolved in tandem with indigenous stewardship. So things like cultural burning, burning to keep meadows open from invasion by Douglas fir, things like propagating particular plants like camas and cedar, things that these plants that had medicinal use, food value, fiber value, these ecosystems really evolved with that stewardship. And just keeping people out of these spaces is not enough to help those places thrive. Right. So how do we do that? We support either the whole title you said

or support indigenous groups. Those are the main ways of doing it, would you say? There are many different avenues. Most of the Salt Spring Island and across the Salish Sea, we're in the most privatized region of the whole province. And so the only way to really bring about high levels of good stewardship for biodiversity for plants and animals to thrive is through working with private landholders. So that's key. The other piece is where the opportunities arrive is to develop co-management with indigenous organizations throughout the Salish Sea. a whole land and marine departments with people who are trained in land stewardship and so there's

incredible opportunities to work in partnership so for organizations like the Salt Spring Island Conservancy for example to work in partnership with some of these indigenous organizations to co-manage lands together right and that would be the land down in Burgoyne Bay is an example of that right? So that in Burgoyne the work that Stikaiya Learning Society is doing is really remarkable and they're doing that in partnership with the provincial park, Burgoyne Provincial Park, but they are very much leading that work you, they have spearheaded that incredible work and they're very much leading it. I know that there's been, I've been following on some social media, there's been a lot of kickback or pushback, I should say, with some of the work that they've been doing.

Is there a way that you can help get the word out about how good it is that what they're doing and not necessarily, you know, all the dog walkers are up in they're doing and not necessarily you know all the dog walkers are up in arms because they can't you know they don't like what they see down there anymore and all that kind of thing so we we have this we have this um term called shifting baselines which is a a way to um really explain how when we come to a place or when we're born to a place, what we think is normal is what we experience when we arrive there. And so my normal when I grew up on Salt Spring is very different to the normal that my kids experience. And when you think about that ecologically, so the fields of wildflowers that I used to play in as a kid

are no longer there. And when I take my children to those same places, they have a very different experience of that place. They still love that place, but ecologically, much has been lost. When you think about Kwakwem, Burgoyne Provincial Park, what people love and are attached to is this agricultural landscape, this landscape that has been altered hugely from what it was historically. And so, you know, there's a very deep connection to these agricultural fields, to this invasive hawthorn, which has these wonderful hedgerows. That is what people have experienced is normal. What the wonderful folks at Stakaya Learning Society are trying to do is actually to bring back an ecosystem, the first ecosystem that was there this swamp forest the cedar forest these gary oak meadows and to actually revitalize that landscape and bring back a lot of the plants

and animals that are currently missing from that landscape right okay so that's obviously a very important um to do that now you talked about deer as being a major issue on Salt Spring. There are virtually no predators. You said there's 6,000 head of deer here, which seems like an extraordinary amount. And, of course, they eat everything they can get hold of, as those of us who have had to put up fences around our gardens would know. And I thought it was interesting. I didn't really think of this before, but you said they're

changing the structure of the forest by eating through, I guess, the undergrowth and everything. Can you explain that a little bit more? We've been observing and researching the impact of deer hyperabundance for almost 20 years now. So we know a lot about how many deer are on each island in the Salish Sea, and we know a lot about the impacts of those deer over time. And we know that the current numbers of deer across most of these large islands is about 10 times what they were historically. So the impact of having that many deer is that we're losing a whole bunch of plants that the deer love to eat. These delicious plants like camas, like fawn lilies, chocolate lilies, cedar seedlings. We're

losing those plants and what we're getting more of are browsing tolerant plants. Things like salal, things like Douglas fir. These are a lot of invasive grasses that deer don't like to eat. So we're changing the whole ecology, the whole plant species composition of these ecosystems. When you fast forward and think about what that means and what our forests might look like, for example, in 200 years, it means that we're moving from a forest that may be supported 20 or 30 different species of tree will in the future maybe support five to 10 species of tree because the ones that the deer like to eat that are budus for example the gary oak those are not able to reproduce at the moment they're what the the

trees that we see today are what we call the living dead because they're not able to set seed and reproduce because the deer eat all of those seedlings. Right and that obviously has a huge effect on the overall biodiversity of everything else. That's right the vegetation is really the foundation, the health of the soil, the health of the plants. Without that diversity of plants that are providing all of the pollination for our pollinators, for our bumblebees, for all the insects, for all the birds and the bats, if we lose that diversity of plants, we start to lose all of those other things that depend on those plants for food and for shelter.

So if we really only should have 600 deer on Salt Spring, how do we get rid of the rest of them and how do we manage all that? We've been looking at this question for quite some time and we've just finished a large piece of collaborative work with various organizations, including Parks Canada, and including several different indigenous organizations. And we compared and analyzed all of the different potential deer stewardship strategies you could take, everything from sterilization of deer, so giving deer immunocontraceptives, through to hunting of deer. And what we found was when we're thinking about what actions would have the greatest benefit in achieving ecological recovery, as well as achieving some cultural goals around food sovereignty for indigenous communities. Indigenous-led hunting and other types of hunting, so settler-led hunting,

are really the most cost-effective way to go about reducing the deer density so that we have healthy deer and also a thriving plant and animal community. So would we have like a hunting season opening at a certain date and closing at a certain date and then just invite people in to do that? We already have a hunting season. So we have a hunting season that is open to anyone who wants to apply for a hunting license. That is insufficient at the moment. We just don't have enough hunters that are hunting deer on the island. Part of the issue is that there are very few places to hunt. And so unless you're

a landholder with a large parcel of land, if you're someone that's wanting to hunt, if you're a landholder with a large parcel of land, if you're someone that's wanting to hunt, if you're an indigenous hunter wanting to come to Salt Spring, where do you go? So part of the solution is that 23% of conservation lands, hunters need to be able to hunt in those lands. We need to be able to connect hunters with large landholders in order to develop relationships so that hunters can come and hunt on private land. Right. So could the Conservancy say open up all its lands to hunting? It can and it is and it will. That is something that we're working towards okay and um obviously as you said it's a it's a natural form of protein that's uh on the hoof right now sort of thing that we could actually have a venison i guess kind of uh market here on salt right? Imagine a fall fair where instead of the lamb barbecue,

we have a venison barbecue. I mean, it's an extraordinary source of protein that is right at our doorstep. Right. And have you been talking to the local indigenous groups about this and encouraging them to get involved in it? We've been working with the leaders, elders and knowledge holders from Seiout, from Sartlup, Sakem, Spinellacut and Cowichan and we have, there is a huge amount of interest from hunters to be able to access their territories and hunt and provide food for their families and community. And I think you said you were asked sort of which was what's at the top of your list of things to do and this really is at the top of the list isn't it? Managing the deer hyper abundance is you say

one of the most important levers that would change things here right?? It really is. It's one of the things that has gone under the radar for a very long time. But when you look at the impacts of deer on the loss of the vegetation plant community and the flow on effects to other species, it's quite profound. The other thing that we're looking at is the impact of over browsing by deer

on increasing fire risks. So our understory, that understory vegetation, you know, from the ground to about one and a half meters tall, when that understory is intact, it actually provides an incredible fire retardant. It protects the soils. When we look at the soil moisture in areas that have been browsed heavily those soils dry out quicker in summertime and that increases fire risk so there's all of these relationships all of these things that can be connected back to how much vegetation is on the land. And the biggest impact to understory vegetation at the moment is deer hyperabundance. Right.

Now, the subject of cats came up too, didn't it? So about killing songbirds and other kinds of frogs and newts and snakes and different things. That's a tough one, isn't it? It's a really interesting one because we love our cats and we also love our dogs. In Canada, when you look at the numbers, cats are responsible for killing between 100 and 350 million birds a year.

That's the biggest impact to birds of any threat. And on Salt Spring, when you look at bird mortality, cats have a huge influence on the bird population, but not just the birds. Things like alligator lizards, snakes, sharp-tailed snakes, which is a species at risk here on Salt Spring, ground nesting birds like common nighthawks. These are species that are being negatively impacted by cats. We have a huge number of feral cats on the island, but it's not just feral cats eating native species. Domestic cats eat a lot and just kill a lot. They might. Cats are very much killing machines. That's what they want to do. They may not even eat what they kill, but it's part of their nature.

Right. So what can we do about that? There's a lot that we can do about it. One is we should be trapping feral cats and and dealing with those and two if if as cat owners we need to be responsible cat owners we should not be letting our cats roam outdoors freely we should be building exclosures for our cats and not allowing them to hunt at night or even in the daytime freely. Yeah, I think you might get some pushback from keeping the cats in. Okay, something else we talked about was trees. We got into, I guess, that thorny question of, which is, you know, about people on private land being allowed to cut down trees as much as they want without any restrictions. And you had some interesting statistics on big trees on Salt Spring.

Perhaps you could tell me about that. We've been really interested in monitoring just how many big trees are left on Salt Spring and across the Salish Sea. And we use LiDAR, which is a remote sensing tool where we can actually map individual trees and we can estimate their height. And so we know on Salt Spring that there is around 9,800 trees that are over 50 meters tall. Of that, we know that there's approximately 317 of those trees that are over 60 meters tall of that. We know that there's approximately 317 of those trees

that are over 60 meters tall and we know that there's six trees that are over 70 meters tall. When you think about that story what it's telling us is that you know we don't have any old growth left. We have very few old growth trees left on Salt Spring. And that is the same across all of the islands. These islands have been logged at least once, in some places more than once. And what we have are generally fairly young forests, forests that are around 100 you know to maybe 150 years

old or younger. An old growth tree is defined by the province as a tree over 250 years really signifying that it was growing kind of at that you know it's it was growing at the time of contact and it's still present today yeah and what's some predominant species for the big trees so the biggest trees on salt spring are cedar and Douglas fir those are the two largest we do have a couple of Sitka spruce which is really amazing there's a very small grove of those but the the biggest the very tallest tree is a cedar, and the second tallest is a Douglas fir. Okay. Now, if people want to get involved with the Conservancy, how would they do that? The Conservancy is always looking for volunteers,

and it's a wonderful organization to become a member of. It's an organization that supports many programs within the schools, and there are many opportunities to learn about native plants, pollinators, bats, you name it. They run workshops on various issues to do with conservation and understanding our diverse biodiversity on the island. Go to the Salt Spring Island website. There's information there on how to become a member. And there's information there on all of the different activities that are open to the public on Salt Spring. Great. Okay, well, thanks very much for coming in, Tara. It's been great. And you've been listening

to Ask Salt Spring Answered on CHIR. We are the sound of the Gulf Islands. Thanks, Tara.