Bryce Klee operates a kayaking tour company out of Queen Charlotte and has been doing so for the past five years. For a time in his earlier life, he was a safari guide in Africa.
In his work as a kayaking guide, he also sometimes takes people fishing in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve. This makes him, like many people on Haida Gwaii and off, someone who profits from the area’s lack of total marine protection. Unlike any other we have yet heard from, however, Bryce, “would gladly give up the right just to do that small amount of fishing if it meant that that leveled the playing field in terms of stopping all fishing.”
Stopping all fishing? He means stopping all commercial fishing in the waters surrounding Gwaii Haanas, specifically. Not everywhere in the oceans. Bryce is a reasonable, thinking man and he has logical reasons for proposing what at first glance may seem unreasonable. As already mentioned, he would even give up his admittedly small piece of that cash pie.
Getting Nothing Out of Something
“You can pick this arbitrary number: 40, 60, 80. It wouldn’t matter what it was. If it’s not everything, then it’s almost nothing.”
The marine area
Bryce says it most eloquently when he tells us, “You can protect 80% of the marines around Gwaii Haanas and leave 20% of the best, most productive regions where fish are…and you’ve in essence protected nothing. Because that other 80% requires that 20% that’s most productive to sort of restock itself. And that’s almost what’s happening right now. You can pick this arbitrary number: 40, 60, 80. It wouldn’t matter what it was. If it’s not everything, then it’s almost nothing. And that’s what’s kind of disappointing about this process is that you get to pat yourself on the back right now because [it looks to the general public like] you’ve done something.”
Spirit, Hope and Pride
While they come every ten years and they re-evaluate the sea management plan, he says, it almost seemed arbitrary to increase the amount of fully protected to 40 percent. Even those with whom he spoke who were involved in the process told him this was so. Forty was a number they chose because they figured it would not ruffle too many feathers. But, he says, “it is not very ambitious as a long-term goal to only partially protect this small area when you don’t have to be an expert in ocean conservation or marine biology in order to see how interconnected all these little spots are…” Put another way, while 40% protection sounds good, because the ocean is not a stable environment and not a lake, nothing is actually protected as far as fish stocks go.
A momentous undertaking and show of cooperation, the Gwaii Haanas Land-Sea-People Management Plan is headed by the Archipelago Management Board (AMB). Making the plan the first of its kind in Canada, the AMB is being supported by a team comprised of members from the Council of the Haida Nation, Parks Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). All have worked closely with the Gwaii Haanas Advisory Committee (GHAC) while taking in thousands of suggestions from the public and working towards a first draft of the plan that will guide policy in the region for the next decade. As it relates to the spirit of cooperation and a hope for future collaborations, the plan is something to be proud of.
True Value of Money
“But, how much does it cost to pay them for their loss of no longer being able to access Gwaii Haanas? It must not be that much.”
Bryce asks a reasonable and interesting question, “What is the true value of Gwaii Hanaas?”
“It’s not,” he goes on to point out, “the weight of the fish that gets sold in the markets. It’s the long-term value of having a functional ecosystem; of having a place where people can go to appreciate the environment. And surely that value is much higher.” Bryce believes, that we should properly value Gwaii Haanas for what it is worth as a functioning ecosystem. But he is concerned that this value will be lost “if we continue to fish it for another ten years before we re-evaluate this and finally figure out that we could just stop.” He goes on to say that “We could just leave this little area alone. It doesn’t have to be, at least in my opinion, for the short-term gain of a few fishermen who…To be quite frank, half of them don’t even live here in Haida Gwaii.” “How much [would it] cost to pay them for their loss of no longer being able to access Gwaii Haanas? It must not be that much. I don’t think, anyway. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, but the value of Gwaii Hanaas is, in my opinion, much greater. So you can improve this whole process by properly valuing the place and the environment versus the economic benefit of fishing.”
We asked Bryce where, as a businessman, he thought the line should be drawn in the tourism of the area between the right amount of impact and the wrong amount of impact, environmentally. Not just in regards to fishing, but as a whole. “In tourism,” he replied, “I think we are constantly having that internal struggle. Especially when you are bringing people to remote and very rich, natural habitats. How do you show somebody that without diminishing it at the same time? And it’s a very difficult thing to do. And of course, where is the line? If you don’t bring people there at all, then there’s almost no appreciation for it. Even though that shouldn’t be the basis for valuing wilderness. Still, there’s got to be a balance. And, of course, everybody who goes to visit Gwaii Haanas is going to burn a bit of fuel to get there. They are going to disturb, in one way or another. I hope that at least as kayakers we have a minimal impact, but I wouldn’t pretend like we have none.”
Figure It Out
“It’s worth also considering that this place used to be home to twenty thousand Haida people and at that time still the environment probably flourished. I think, of course, there was
“So how am I supposed to buy a cucumber from the grocery store that doesn’t come in plastic when they pretty much all come in plastic.”
“Undoubtedly, people can minimize their impact on the environment around them. I think we see even evidence of that around here now. But, moreover, I think that people have a natural place in their environment and that there are many species that benefit from our presence when we live in a more natural type of way. And I would imagine that the Haida people long into the past probably had that relationship with the environment given that it was thriving before colonialism arrived here. We have many examples of how people have lived in harmony with the environment and how, even with greater population numbers, potentially, you can still have a balance there. So, we’ve got to figure that out here, right? And it is difficult because I think we can all imagine in our minds how it is that we might live more in harmony with the environment around us.”
Driving Forces
“But then, of course, we’re driven by money. All of our decisions come down to a cost-benefit analysis because capitalism is the way right now. So, you can’t really even blame the individual for often not making that choice even when they know how it is that they might be more harmonious with the environment.”
So, how do we do this?
Bryce laughs. “How do we do it. Yeah, right?
And who do we look to?
“In my opinion, we look to the government to make this change. As individuals we push and we try to value the environment and the things we know will benefit it. But at the end of the day, if you don’t want to have food wrapped in plastic, the government’s got to, in my opinion, regulate that industry and say no more plastic is allowed. No more plastic packaging. And then the industry will adapt. I don’t think that me as an individual…I can’t choose one product versus the other and expect that to make a meaningful change as much as a policy change. Yeah. That’s just my opinion, but I think it has to come from the top.”
Of course, as we have seen in Gwaii Haanas, one issue that has arisen, not just here, but in many places, is that a small number of people who control something can accrue an inordinate amount of say in policy direction. In this case, in Bryce’s opinion, it’s effect has been to, “prevent meaningful change from happening.”
Did You Know
- Work has been done since the late nineties to advance the idea of calculating the value of living ecosystems to the economy, to people
and tolife in general. This has led to ever an ever more sophisticated understanding of the economic benefits that living ecosystems provide. Opinions on the appropriateness of this idea differ. Some find it enlightening (it shows in concrete terms how much society relies on living ecosystems,) others find that it encourages priorities that are unhelpful in their view–anthropocentricity; a lack of respect for the value of life outside of economic concerns; the analysis of irreplaceable environments and species in cost/benefit terms. - Environmental ethicists can hold the view that what matters is not the value that nature has to human well-being but the intrinsic value of life itself.
Environmental Impacts
- Whatever your views on calculating the economic value of living the ecosystems the numbers can be impressive. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project calculated that marine ecosystem services values start at roughly $100 per hectare per year for open ocean, and increase to $1,000,000 per hectare per year for the most economically important coral reefs.
- Even less impactful ways of drawing value from the environment still have an impact. In the tourism year encompassing 2016/2017, Gwaii Haanas welcomed 3,316 visitors, which is an increase of 93% from just six years earlier when the 2010/2011 season saw about 1,720 visitors. By comparison, Yosemite National Park is approximately twice the area in size as Gwaii Haanas and received over 5.2 million visitors in 2016. These are success stories, but the impact created on the environment is real.
Health Impacts
- The irony of preserving the economic value of living ecosystems is that it requires us to be less greedy. The principle of moderation is believed by some to be one of the keys to good health. Moderation is one of the three core principles or ‘Treasures’ of Taoism, and it is linked directly to the idea that moderation leads to abundance with Lao-Tzu’s declaration that “Only he that is frugal is able to be profuse.”
Lessons Learned
- While many value the ocean as a food resource, there are also those who understand the value of the living ecosystem, whether that value is expressed in purely economic terms, something much more to do with respect for life itself or a mixture of both. It is also true that no matter how you make the calculation, the value of living ecosystems is significant and worth conserving.
What You Can Do
- Experience and appreciate the environment, and do it in such a way that you are supporting tourism operators that are upholding the highest practical standards of environmental impact mitigation.
- Know and understand the environmental laws and restrictions governing the natural areas that you visit and insist that the guide or tour operator you are with adheres to them, even if it means missing out on that perfect photo or the chance to interact directly with a wild animal.
- Reject any tourism practice that alters a wild animal’s natural behavior or encroaches on its habitat in such a way that it is forced to expend extra energy because you were there.
