On BC’s North Coast, First Nations Are Building a New Economy – The Tyee

How the Great Bear Sea initiative is using conservation finance to create jobs and preserve nature.

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but in the coastal rainforests of British Columbia, salmon do. After swimming upriver to spawn, the fish are fed upon by bears and birds and other predators who litter the forest floor with half-eaten carcasses; these fertilize Sitka spruce and Douglas fir and literally become part of the forest itself — scientists have found salmon-specific nitrogen isotopes in the uppermost needles of coastal conifers. Those trees return the favour by protecting salmon streams with cooling shade and vast root systems that prevent landslides.

This elaborate system is an example of what conservationists call “ecosystem services.” In addition to sustaining life on Earth, these services generate all manner of valuable goods; commercial fishing and coastal logging, for instance, have poured tens of billions into B.C.’s economy over the past century. But those profits have come at a steep environmental cost, illustrating an age-old cycle with a vicious feedback loop: nature provides the essentials for a functioning society and healthy economy, from clean water and food to energy and wood. The more we harvest, the richer we get; the richer we get, the more we consume; the more we consume, the faster nature unravels.