As environmental and community groups across the province prepare
to clean up B.C. rivers during B.C. Rivers Day Sept. 28, a team
of UBC researchers has concluded that the lower Fraser River basin
ecosystem from Vancouver to Hope is unsustainable in its present
form.
Without changes to the way we manage population, land and resources,
consumption and waste management in the Lower Mainland, the rapidly
growing urban environment will overwhelm the natural resource base,
warns the recently released $2.4-million Fraser Basin Ecosystem
Study.
“The lower Fraser basin exemplifies all the social, environmental
and economic problems of modern industrial nations,” says Michael
Healey, principal investigator on the project and an ecologist with
the Institute for Resources and Environment and the Fisheries Centre
at UBC. “These problems are not going away and it is high time that
we faced up to them.”
Healey says the degradation of streams, automobile traffic, and
increasing dependence on resources imported from other regions of
the world are local problems with global significance.
Indicators of serious environmental decline in the area include
high nitrogen pollution in groundwaters and the presence of visible
abnormalities on more than 90 per cent of the fish samples taken
from the Fraser River.
As many as 50 streams in the greater Vancouver area that once supported
runs of Pacific salmon have been turned into storm sewers. Many
of the remaining streams are being degraded because of pollution
from automobiles, agriculture and other sources.
The study also indicates a high level of concern among British
Columbians about environmental problems, but suggests concern doesn’t
always translate into action.
The study makes 44 recommendations to help governments and individuals
move the Lower Mainland towards sustainability.
The four-year study involved 23 faculty experts from 20 different
departments and institutes at UBC and more than 40 graduate students.
Copies of the final report are available from the Institute for
Resources and Environment by calling 604.822.4705 or 604.822.6224.
Details of the report can be accessed on the World Wide Web at www.ire.ubc.ca/ecoresearch/.
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