gordon-brent-ingram-2009-work-on-conservation-of-northern-garry-oak-ecosystems
Much of my work as an environmental planner and designer has involved conservation and recovery of sensitive ecosystems and an underlying exploration of the relevance of the field of landscape ecology. The group of ecological communities and landscapes with which I have worked for the longest period, going back to my childhood and the land on which I grew up, are northern Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems in south-western British Columbia. Ecosystems with significant presence of Garry oak are typically shaped by summer drought and relatively mild temperatures and extend from the northern edge of the Los Angeles Basin to Savary Island at the northern end of the Straight of Georgia. In much of the southern half of its range, south of north-western California, Garry oak grow more as a shrub in fire-dependent, chaparral ecosystems, often with related oak species. Similarly, the northern half of the range of Garry oak, where it is the only naturally occurring Quercus species, is often described as part of fire-dependent or fire-resilient ecosystems. And the label Garry oak ecosystems are often used for the deciduous savannah and woodland portion of the gradient between Douglas fir forest and parkland and grassland bluffs and balds. Occurring in Olympia and northward, northern Garry oak ecosystems are those that have been shaped by the end of the last Ice Age, the creation of island ecosystems, and the subsequent Hypsithermal period of temperatures that were higher than today’s climate. For at least as far back as the Hypsithermal, of five millennia ago, there has been wildfire compounded by burning by human beings. And virtually all of today’s northern Garry oak ecosystems in British Columbia saw Salish burning, combined with intensive digging and harvesting, as recently as the late nineteenth century and sometimes later.
Nanoose Hill above the the naval base near Nanaimo has one of the larger remaining landscape mosaics of Northern Garry oak ecosystems. Like many of the larger remaining mosaic, Nanoose has largest infestations of invasive plants, notably broom, Cytisus scoparius.
The Tsawout Nation’s ‘Belly-Rising-Up’ is a small hill with Garry oak and camas with a remarkable array of traditional Salish food plants. Protecting and maintaining jurisdiction over the site was also of crucial concern for the Tsawout in one of the first and old treaties with the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island in the early 1850s.
In recent decades, there have been a number of initiatives to conserve northern Garry oak ecosystems. Today because of inadequate research and political resolve there are at least one hundred very rare species, often under risk of extirpation or even extinction, associated with the drier woodlands and grasslands of the islands of the Georgia Strait of British Columbia. One of the weaknesses of the more recent ecosystem recovery goals and programmes have been the poor appreciation for landscape ecology and broader questions of disturbance (and stability) processes across landscapes – in relatively small, shifting islands often on marine islands. Understandings of shifting edges and fragments over time, and in the context of climate change, will be crucial to more successful conservation strategies especially for specific species at risk and their habitats.
Northern Garry oak ecosystems are also cultural landscapes, shaped for food production, where the largely Salish-speaking aboriginal communities remain marginalized and largely ignored in contemporary ecosystem recovery discussions – even where a growing number of legal precedents require consultations. Crucial Garry oak lands on Indian Reserves, that not so long ago where burned until local governments suppressed such traditional activities, remain removed from serious consideration. And of course, landscape ecology, that more than any other environmental science recognizes the human impacts on most ecosystems on earth can help us understand how to live with these dynamic mosaics in very uncertain times.
Over the last three decades, I have contributed to assessments, management documents, and conservation plans for more than a score of landscapes with Garry oak ecosystems. Much of my inspiration has come from learning from one of the largest remaining dynamic mosaics of northern Garry ecosystems on the south-western slopes of Mount Maxwell on Salt Spring Island – an area that I begin to visit in 1978. Other landscapes with northern Garry oak ecosystems, in which I have worked, have been largely obliterated since I began these studies in my teens – and this fact has created a great deal of pain. While I have done much work in temperate and tropical rainforest, the conceptual challenges of respecting and maintaining these dynamic mosaics remain the most interesting – and ‘feels like home’.
A large portion of the images in this posting are from a portion of the Ecological Reserve on the western slope of Mount Maxwell. With fragmentation from urbanization and suburbanization, this slope is one of the last, large remaining ‘dynamic mosaics’ of northern Garry oak ecosystems — especially on an island in Canada.
Since commencing field work on Mount Maxwell in the spring of 1978, I have seen the ecosystems of this landscape shift with the continued suppression of fire (though there was a 7 hectare wildfire in June 2009 in the upper central part of this scene), the decline in feral sheep, the decline in native predators, and the expansion of invasive plants especially Scotch Broom. In comparing the two scenes below (from 1975 and 2001), roughly a quarter a century apart, the shift from oak savannah and grassland, which was in part the legacy of aboriginal burning that continued into the early twentieth century, to oak woodland with some invasion of Douglas fir is most obvious.
Also note the number of ‘white’, dead Dougas fir trees, some of which are large, old snags the products the vestigial Douglas fir parkland. However many of these dead trees appear to have been established in the period since aboriginal burning was suppressed and may also have been vulnerable to higher overall summer temperatures associated with climate change.
scholarly publications
This material is available as PDF files through www.gordonbrentingram.ca/scholarship .
Ingram, G. B. 2007. Unresolved legacies & contested futures: Aboriginal food production landscapes, ecosystem recovery strategies and land use planning for conservation of the Garry oak ecosystems in south-western British Columbia. Undercurrents (issue on Planning, Culture and Space) 16: 15 - 19.
Ingram & Lindsay Upshaw. 2005. Gap analysis in conservation planning for cultural & less culturally modified landscapes: Prospects for northern Garry oak ecosystems in British Columbia, Monitoring the Effectiveness of Biological Conservation, Vancouver. Forrex Journal, British Columbia.
Ingram & Lindsay Upshaw. 2004. Setting goals and priorities for restoration strategies in the context of disparate historical interpretations: An example from the Garry oak and Douglas fir mosaic of Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Proceedings of the16th International Conference, Society for Ecological Restoration, Victoria, Canada. Victoria: Society for Ecological Restoration and the University of Victoria.
Ingram, G. B. in press. Fields or forest? Aboriginal food production landscapes, unresolved legacies and contemporary ecosystem management of Garry oak woodlands in southwestern British Columbia. in Forest and Environmental History of the British Empire and Commonwealth. London: Oxford University Press.
Ingram, G. B. 2002. Thinking like a dynamic mosaic: The relevance of landscape ecology to setting goals for biodiversity conservation & restoration for northern Garry oak ecosystems. Conference Proceedings: Restoring Garry Oak Ecosystems – Progress and Prognosis, University of Victoria April 2002, 96 – 108.
Ingram, G. B. 2002. Thinking like a dynamic mosaic: Towards a strategy for conserving northern Garry oak ecosystems * part 1. Menziesia (Journal of the British Columbia Native Plant Society). 7 (1): 8 – 11.
Ingram, G. B. 2002. Thinking like a dynamic mosaic: Conservation planning for the plant species at risk in northern Garry oak landscapes in BC, * part 2. Menziesia 7 (2): 8 - 12.
Ingram, G. B. 2000. The implications of landscape ecology for conserving the biological diversity of northern Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems. in Workingpaper Landskabsøkologiske Skrifter. The Management of Biodiversity from a Landscape Ecological Perspective. Roskilde, Denmark: Roskilde University. 135 - 176.
reports, plans & designs
This material is available as PDF files through www.gordonbrentingram.ca/studiesdesigns .
Ingram, G. B. 2008. Public input - Salt Spring Island Parks and Ecological Reserves Management Planning. submitted to BC Parks, Victoria.
Ingram, G. B. 2002. The Garry oak ecosystems on the southwest face of Mt. Sutil, Galiano Island: Field notes from 2 9 2002 & some recommendations. Report to the Galiano Conservancy Association & Islands Trust.
Ingram, G. B. 2002. Some information needed for making a list of priority areas with currently unprotected Garry oak ecosystems warranting immediate protection — Discussion paper for the Conservation Planning & Site Protection Recovery Action Group of GOERT.
Ingram, G. B. 2001. Analysis of the January 2001 Catalogue of Site Records of the Georgia Basin Ecosystem Partnership for locations of interest for conservation planning under the terms of the Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Strategy. Report to GOERT.
Ingram, G. B. 2001. Review of Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee Draft Bylaw 365 Schedule 1 on Conservation of Garry Oak Ecosystems. Submitted to the Salt Spring Island Conservancy.
Ingram, G. B. 2001. Review of the Recovery Strategy for Garry Oak and Associated Ecosystems and their Associated Species at Risk in Canada 2001 - 2006. submitted to the Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team.
Ingram, G. B. & Allan Lidstone. 2001. A conservation planning process for northern (Canadian) Garry oak ecosystems & associated biodiversity. A discussion paper for the GOERT (Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team) Conservation Planning & Site Protection RAG.
Vagelatos, K. and G. B. Ingram. 1995. Native plants for residential landscapes: Design and management guidelines for southwestern BC. A Report to the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation of Canada, Ottawa.
Ingram, G. B. 1981. Fragments: Management, protection, and restoration proposals for thirteen ecological reserves in British Columbia, Canada - A report to the Ecological Reserves Committee and Advisory Board and the Ministry of Lands, Parks, and Housing of the Government of the Province of British Columbia, June 1981.
public presentations
This material is available as PDF files through www.gordonbrentingram.ca/scholarship .
Ingram & Lindsay Upshaw. 2004. Gap analysis in conservation planning for cultural & less culturally modified landscapes: Prospects for northern Garry oak ecosystems in British Columbia, Monitoring the Effectiveness of Biological Conservation, Vancouver.
Ingram & Lindsay Upshaw. 2004. Setting goals and priorities for restoration strategies in the context of disparate historical interpretations: An example from the Garry oak and Douglas fir mosaic of Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, 16th International Conference, Society for Ecological Restoration, Victoria, Canada.
Ingram. 2004. Historical assessment protocols in setting ecosystem restoration priorities for cultural landscapes: Prospects for the oak woodland and conifer forest mosaics modified by the Salish of Pacific Canada, Faculté des géosciences et de l’environnement, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.
2003. Fields or forest? Aboriginal food production landscapes, unresolved legacies and contemporary ecosystem management of Garry oak woodlands in southwestern British Columbia. International Conference on the Forest and Environmental History of the British Empire and Commonwealth. University of Sussex, Brighton UK, presented by Richard Grove.
Ingram. 2002. The ecology of Mt. Maxwell & other northern Garry oak landscapes, Salt Spring Island Conservancy, Ganges, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia followed by a field trip on management and restoration.
Ingram. 2001. Environmental planning for biodiversity conservation: Detection of & response to social conflicts in the northern margins of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems. Department of Geography and Environment. London School of Economics.
Ingram. 2001. Thinking like a dynamic mosaic: Conservation planning for the northern Garry oak, Quercus garryana, landscapes in British Columbia. The Richmond Natural History Society, Lulu Island, Canada.
Ingram. 1999. The implications of landscape ecology for conserving the biological diversity of northern Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems. Guest lecture. International PhD Course, The Management of Biodiversity from a Landscape Ecological Perspective, Roskilde University, Denmark.
Ingram.2002. Thinking like a dynamic mosaic: The relevance of landscape ecology to setting goals for biodiversity conservation & restoration for northern Garry oak ecosystems. Conference: Restoring Garry Oak Ecosystems – Progress and Prognosis, University of Victoria.
Ingram and Wayne Erickson. 2000. Revisiting aboriginal burning: Fire to counter encroachment of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, ecosystems in Pacific Canada. A Native Solution to Fire Management Symposium in Hobart, Tasmania. Session theme: Re-establishing local processes. Presented by Grace Nangendo.
Ingram. 1990. The Landscape Ecology of Mt. Maxwell, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Presented as a field trip as part of the May 1990 symposium, Landscape Approaches to Wildlife and Ecosystem Management. The University of British Columbia.
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