"Echo Heights is a recovering Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem.  The CDF Biogeoclimatic Zone,  comprises a tiny 0.3 % of the Province’s entire land area.  And its mainly here, on the East Coast of Vancouver Island.

 

The Douglas firs are beautiful and rare – and vital to our whole region, for water capture and storage, drought protection, carbon storage and oxygen release. Moreover they’re home to more than 200 plant and animal species, many endangered.

 

And the  Garry oak meadows – BC’s rarest ecosystem -- occur only in the Coastal Douglas Fir zone.  

 

Old-growth Coastal Douglas Fir forests once dominated the shores of the Salish Sea, from Campbell River to Victoria. More than 99 % of them have already been lost to human development. Only 0.5% of the land base formerly occupied by CDF forest is now composed of "older forest" (greater than 120 years old). Some of the trees in this particular forest are 80 years old now.

 

For decades, North Cowichan residents have enjoyed Echo Heights as a nature park, turning deer tracks into unpaved trails, posting small signs, providing maps and guest books, bringing school and college classes.

 

For centuries, the Penelakut Nation has held the area sacred -- a prayer station on journeys into the mountains, and one of the area’s richest sources of natural medicines.

 

The  Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments all have policies to do everything they can to preserve these endangered  Coastal Douglas Fir eco-sytem."

 

Councillor Kate Marsh

My contribution to the debate on Echo Heights- June 19, 2013