IS THE GREATER ECOSYSTEM CONCEPTRELEVANT FOR CONSERVING THE INTEGRITY
OF AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS IN THE CANADIANROCKY MOUNTAINS?
David W. Mayhood
Freshwater Research Limited, 1715 Seventh Avenue NW, Calgary AB
Canada T2N OZ5 E-mail: [email protected]
SUMMARY
Greater ecosystems as typically envisioned consist of a core protected area
surrounded by a defined region of controlled development or some form of
cooperati ve management. A case study of one such greater ecosystem in the
Canadian Rockies, the Central Rockies Ecosystem, shows this concept to be
inappropriate for managing for integrity and biodiversity of aquatic ecosys-
tems. The existing greater ecosystem does not incorporate waters that are inte- I
gral to this ecosystem, while it does group a variety of disparate, unconnected I
aquatic systems. An alternative concept of open-ended major river basins as
greater ecosystems is proposed and shown to be both more realistic and more
useful as a basis for managing aquatic ecosystems. Groupings of open-ended
major basins also group influential landscape features such as riparian corri-
dors in ways that are ecologically meaningful for many terrestrial organisms,
reducing artificial boundaries between protected areas, surrounding control-
led development zones, and the "Real World." As a result, open-ended major
river basins may prove to be a more realistic and useful concept of the greater
ecosystem for managing many components of the landscape.
1. INTRODUCTION .
One of the more intractable problems in managing parks and other protected
'. a~eas is that the ecosystems are inevitably subject to degradation by human
. irtfluences outside their boundaries. One way of dealing with this problem is to
make parks large (1,2,3). A related approach has been to surround the park
with one or more "buffer zones", which may incorporate existing public lands,
and in which there are various restrictions on development. This latter ap-
proach might be termed the classical Greater Ecosystem Concept of park man-
agement, as exemplified by the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (4). A third
strategy is to attempt to protect protected-area interests on surrounding lands
through some sort of cooperative mechanism among adjacent jurisdictions, as
is contemplated in the Central Canadian Rockies Ecosystem (5). This is an-
other conception of the Greater Ecosystem idea.
Some limitations of greater ecosystems as conservation tools are rather
obvious. They would appear to be of greatest use for managing certain
populations, such as those of large mammals, that may range over regional·:
772 SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTECTEO AREAS
scales. They are of less use in protecting populations of species such as migra-
tory birds that rang~ over entire continents, or even across entire hemispheres.
All greater ecosystem management schemes suffer from the general problem
of jurisdictional subdivision and the accompanying conflicts in mandates.
Nevertheless, some formulation of the greater ecosystem approach would ap-
pear to be necessary for dealing with many regional-scale conservation prob-
lems.
The question examined in this paper is whether the greater ecosystem
concept as presently envisioned is relevant for conserving the integrity and
biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems in Canada's Rocky Mountains. It is first
shown that a representative greater ecosystem in the region, the Central Cana-
dian Rockies Ecosystem (CCRE), does not satisfactorily incorporate the criti-
cal structures and functions of aquatic ecosystems in that region. A concept of
the greater ecosystem that is more suitable for maintaining the integrity and
biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems in the Canadian Rocky Mountains is then \
proposed, as are certain propoerties that make it a potentially useful concept
for many terrestrial ecosystems.
II
I
•2. THE EXAMPLE OF THE CENTRAL CANADIAN ROCKIES
ECOSYSTEM
The Central Canadian Rockies Ecosystem surrounds and includes Banff, Yoho
and Kootenay national parks. Its area of 43,427.5 krn2 straddles the Continen-
tal Divide, with two-thirds in Alberta and the remainder in British Columbia
(Figure 1) (5). The western slopes of the ecosystem are drained by the Colum-
bia River and its tributary the Kootenay River; the eastern slopes lie in the
drainages of the North and South branches of the Saskatchewan River basin.l
It is sufficient for illustrative purposes to consider only one element of
the aquatic resources of this greater ecosystem, the fishes. I surveyed existing
information in historical documents; technical publications and reports;
selected file data held by Parks Canada, Alberta Fish and Wildlife and the
British Columbia Ministry of Environment Lands and Parks; and interviewed
reliable observers knowledgeable about selected waters to determine the na-
tive and present distribution of fishes within the CCRE. This analysis has been
reported in greater detail elsewhere (5,6).
Fifty-four species of fish have been recorded in or near the CCRE. Of
these 33 are, or once were, native to some part of the ecosystem or connected
adjacent waters. Thirteen species were native exclusively to the waters of the
west slopes, and 13 are native to waters only on the east slopes. Just seven
species were native to waters on both sides of the Continental Divide, but
three of these were represented by different subspecies or morphotypes on
I The terms "basin", "drainage basin" and "catchment" are used synonymously in thiS paper."Watershed" is used only in its strictly correct sense to mean the drainage divide, as
opposed to its alternate usage as a synonym for catchment or drainage basin. "Drainage"
used alone means the branchwork of watercourses in a basin.
SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTECTED AREAS 773
·Figure J. The Central Canadian Rockies Ecosystem. showing existing nominally protected
areas (hatched). BNP, Banff National Park; JNP, Jasper National Park; Kootenay National
Park; YNP, Yoho National Park; ELPP, Elk Lakes Provincial Park; MAPP. Mount
Assiniboine Provincial Park; PLPP, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park; GRW. Ghost River
Wilderness; SW, SifJIeur Wilderness; WGW, White Goat Wilderness.
each side. Thus only II percent of the fish fauna native to the CCRE was
common to waters on both sides of the divide.On these grounds alone, it is clear that the CCRE as presently conceived
does not comprise an appropriate unit ecosystem for fish conservation and
management. With such distinct fish faunas,'the CCRE is at least two greater
systems with respect to aquatic resources.But there are other problems. While some fish populations complete their
life history entirely within the boundaries of the CCRE, many do not. For
example, the introduced kokanee that spawn by the thousands in the Kootenay
774 SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTECTED AREAS
River as far upstream as Mount Wardle in Kootenay National Park complete
the rest of their life history far outside the CCRE in the Kookanusa Reservoir
of Montana and extreme southern British Columbia. Anadromous fishes na-
tive to the Columbia mainstem in the CCRE (before impassable dams blocked
them) spent much of their lives as far from the greater ecosystem as the North
Pacific Ocean. On the east slopes, bull trout formerly used the major river
mainstems far out onto the plains, far beyond the boundaries of the CCRE.
Similarly, the native west slope cutthroat trout ranged well beyond the CCRE
in the Bow system to below Calgary. The present CCRE boundaries thus are
not meaningful for these species.
3. GREATER AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS IN THE ROCKIES: ANALTERNATIVE CONCEPT
At the very least a useful natural ecosystem for aquatic conservation and man-
agement should include all waters within which frequent, natural genetic in-
terchange among aquatic populations is possible. It should also be functionally
integrated such that the physical, chemical and biological elements and proc-
esses with which aquatic organisms interact are included within the ecosystem
boundaries, while those with which there is little or no interaction are ex-
cluded. The fishes of the North Saskatchewan drainage, for example, do not
interact with those in the Kootenay drainage. The physical, chemical and bio-
logical elements and processes of the Red Deer basin are not an integral part of
the ecosystem of the Columbia drainage. What is of direct and intimate rel-
evance to the Red Deer drainage fish stocks are the physical, chemical and
biological elements and processes of the Red Deer basin. The North Saskatch-
ewan basin fishes interact among themselves, and not with those on the~a~side of the Continental Divide. .
Ideally, an ecosystem would incorporate the entire range and all critical
habitats of each population within its boundaries. Critical habitats are all those
key habitats required by aquatic organisms to complete their life cycle. For
fishes, these include places for spawning, egg incubation, rearing, feeding,
refuge (from predators and extreme events such as floods), and overwintering.
All these critical habitats are only rarely in a single location, therefore safe and
passable migratory routes between them likewise are critical.
What functionally connects aquatic organisms with their habitats, and
both of them with terrestrial organisms and their habitats on a regional scale is
the drainage basin (7,8,9,10). The regional drainage basin therefore is a poten-
tially useful concept of the greater ecosystem for aquatic resource conserva-tion and management.
That the drainage basin has a fundamental relationship to the ecology of
aquatic habitats has long been recognized. As D. S. Rawson put it, summariz-
ing much previous limnological work:
It is self-evident that the nature of the drainage area must in a large
measure determine the kinds and amounts of primary nutritive materi-
als in a lake. The composition, age and weathering of the rock, the soil
SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTEaED AREAS 775
and vegetation cover, the extent ofthe drainage area and the amount
of run-off are all important considerations. (11)
In fact for any given climate, the edaphic influence of the drainage basin
is the primary factor detennining productivity of lakes, while morphometry
plays a secondary, though still powerful, role (II, 12).
Despite its long-known and obvious importance to the ecology of aquatic
habitats within it, the drainage basin has been promoted only much more re-
cently as an especially useful concept of the ecosystem. In this view, streams
are seen not as purely aquatic phenomena (as individual lakes reasonably can
be, up to a point), but as integral parts of the valleys that they drain (13). As H.
B. N. Hynes put it in his landmark summary of the concept,
We.may conclude then that in every respect the valley rules the stream.
Its rock determines the availability of ions, its soil, its clay, even its
slope. The soil and climate determine the vegetation, and the vegeta-
tion rules the supply of organic matter. The organic matter reacts with
the soil to control the release of ions, and the ions, particularly nitrate
and phosphate, control the decay of the litter, and hence lie right at the
root of the food cycle. (13)
As a result of this tight ecological connection of the stream to its valley,
we should not be surprised that disturbances in a drainage basin, whether caused
by nature or humans, can have profound effects on the ecology of its aquatic
habitats ( 13).Of particular importance in the ecology of the drainage basin is the ripar-
ian zone (7, I0, 14,15), that three-dimensional corridor of variable dimensions
within which land- and water-based ecosystems interact (7).1 This zone is in-
fluential to the ecology of a catchment far out of proportion to the actual area
it occupies. Water, air, dissolved and particulate matter, plants and animals
. move into and along the riparian corridor. The riparian ecosystem links the • ~I
hillslopes and uplands to the valley floor, altering the microclimate, mediating I ,
the passage of light, water and nutrients, contributing organic matter to the
channels, trapping sediments and debris during floods.
It is in the riparian zone of a catchment that geomorphic processes typi-
cally are most active. Here seasonal flow changes, occasional catastrophic
flows. and a variety of mass soil movements act on the channel, banks and
floodplain to form a changing mosaic of physical habitats. These diverse physi-
cal habitats become a template for diverse plant communities, reflecting the
great variety of habitats available. The riparian plant communities are highly
dynamic, changing successionally and in response to new disturbances, be
they initiated by stream flows in the valley bottom, or by fire and pest infesta-
tions from within the community or from the hillslopes and uplands. The ready
The account in this and the following two pagraphs relies heavily on the riparian
ecosystem model proposed by Gregory et al. (7).
776 SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTEaED AREAS
availability of water, the diversity of the physical habitats, and the diversity
and productivity of the plant communities, commonly support the most abun-
dant, productive and diverse association of animals in the drainage basin.
But most importantly, riparian zones are the great connectors of land-
scapes. They connect aquatic with terrestrial habitats. They connect headwa-
ters and highlands to mainstem rivers and lowlands through a tightly-integrated
branchwork of valleys and watercourses. Materials move downslope to the
watercourses, thence down valley , and then often outward again to floodplains
and lateral channels. Many plants and animals disperse preferentially along
riparian corridors, moving both up- and down-valley.
Bacause they integrate aquatic and terrestrial systems so well, drainage
basins have great functional value as ecosystem units for regional land and
resource management (9,10,16,17,18).
I
II
4. THE CENTRAL CANADIAN ROCKIES ECOSYSTEM
REDEFINED
One possible form of the CCRE redefined in terms of major regional drainage
basin ecosystems is illustrated in Figure 2.
The redefined concept has a number of interesting properties.
1. The region previously known as the CCRE is actually several greater
ecosystems, each one a major regional drainage basin.
2. Most of the new greater ecosystems are open-ended: they lack down-
stream boundaries. Sharp, ecologically-meaningful boundaries rarely
exist at the outlets of drainage basins. For practical purposes, the wa-
tersheds can be expanded or contracted to meet the needs of the mo-
ment.
.3. The open-ended nature of these ecosystem units forces us to view
conservation problems in the region in a much more meaningful con-
text. Instead of thinking of the CCRE as a tidy unitary patch ofland-
scape that we might eventually be able to control, we see it as a vast
open area from which everything we do within the region unavoidablyleaks out.
4. The national parks and other adjacent protected areas are shown in
their true context, not as the centre of the regional ecosystem, but as,
adjuncts to much larger regional ecosystems. Parks have a limited,
albeit a crucial, role to play in these regional ecosystems, but most
ecosystem protection must take place primarily outside parks, in theso-called "working landscapes."
s. FINAL THOUGHTSThe idea of using major regional drainage basins as greater ecosystems is not
necessarily the best approach for all ecosystem management problems. I do
believe it to be the best concept for dealing with aquatic ecosystem conserva-
tion on a regional scale. I encourage terrestrial ecologists to seriously consider
the strengths of the drainage basin ecosystem model for application to their.1.
SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTEaED AREAS 777
~
Figllre 2. SlIggested bOllndaries/or the Central Canadian Rockies Ecosystem/or fish
conservation and management, showing existing nominally-protected areas (hatched).
Lilies mark the bOllndaries o/major regional drainage basin ecosystems. A, Columbia
Mainstem; B, Upper Kicking Horse; C, Upper Kootenay; D, North Saskatchewan
Maillstem; E, Upper Ram; F, Clearwater; G, Red Deer; H, Bow.
own work: its natural boundaries, its strong functionally-integrated nature, and
especially its productive, connective riparian corridors for many of the species
and communities with which they must deal.
Managers of the various protected arcas in thc CCRE are encouraged to
see their lands as lands that protect parts of larger regional drainage basin
ecosystems. Their job is also to protect usually small, but often crucial, parts
of regional catchments so as to protect the ecological integrity and biodiversity
of the basin outside their parks.
Central to my concerns about the conventional greater ecosystem con-
cept already noted is this: greater ecosystems typically are designed to protect
778 SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTECTED AREAS
parks. In particular, they are designed to deal with a small handful of large
mammal populations centred in parks. I suggest that this view misses the point.
Protected area scientists and managers need to remind themselves of what
parks are for. By far the highest use of parks is to protect, not just their own
ecosystem integrity, but the ecological integrity of the regional ecosystem they
represent. They can do this in at least three ways:
1. as models of natural ecosystem structure and function
2. as refuges for regional organisms
3. as sources of regionally-adapted organisms for restoration.
Ifwe begin to view greater ecosystems in this way--as regions in which
we must make our living, served by parks designed to help us conserve the
critical life-support systems of our landscapes--we will begin to focus our
attention where it belongs, on the "working landscapes" that we are destroying
because of the way we work in them.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Portions of this work were supported by Jasper and Banff national parks under
contracts KJP-O1290 and KBP-2059, respectively. The comments of an anony-
mous reviewer were a valuable aid in improving this paper over an earlier
draft.
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780 SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT OF PROTEaED AREAS
Mayhood, D. W. 1998. Is the greater ecosystem
concept relevant for conserving the integrity of
aquatic ecosystems in the Canadian Rocky
Mountains? pp. 772-780. in Munro, N. W. P, and J. H.M. Willison, editors. Linking protected areas with working
landscapes conserving biodiversity. Science and
Management of Protected Areas Association, Wolfville,
NS. xvii+ 1018 p.
.1
I
Ii'
LINKING PROTECTED AREAS
WITH
WORKING LANDSCAPES
CONSERVING BIODNERSI'1Y
Proceedings of the Third International
Conference on Science and Management
of Protected Areas / 12-16 May 1997
Editors
Neil W.P. MunroParks Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage,
Historic Proerties, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J IS9, Canada
&
lH. Martin WillisonSchool of Resource and Environmental Studies,
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4Jl, Canada
A Science and Management of Protected Areas
~Association, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
1998
<0 1998 Science and Management of Protected Areas Association
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication
Main entry under title:
Linking protected areas with working landscapes conserving
biodiversity: proceedings of the Third International conference on
Science and Management of Protected Areas, held at the
University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 12-16 May 1997
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 09699338-4-3
1. Natural areas - Management - Congresses.
2. Natural resources - Management - Congresses.
3. Conservation of natural resources - Congresses.
4. Land use - Planning - congresses.
I. Munro, Neil W.P.
II. Willison, lH. Martin
III. Science and Management of Protected Areas Association
QH75.AIL551998 338.78'17 C87-980254-X
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Citation of this publication:
Munro, Neil W.P. and J.H. Martin Willison (eds.) 1998. Linking
Protected Areas with Working Landscapes Conserving
Biodiversity. Proceedings of the Third International Conference
on Science and Management of Protected Areas, 12-16 May
1997. Wolfville, Canada: SAMPAA.
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