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Land — the word has a variety of connotations. It signifies solid ground or terra firma, the physical environment at large, a rural farmstead, an urban industrial site, and private property; it also holds deep, personal meaning for some people. This diverse association of ideas about land shows the extent to which the concept is interwoven with culture and points to differences in the ways in which land is perceived and valued in Canadian society, differences that in turn give rise to some very difficult land-use issues. 4
Only about ten percent of the land mass of Canada is privately owned. Forty percent is federal Crown land, almost all in the northern territories. Fifty percent is provincial Crown land. 5 In British Columbia, an even smaller percentage of the land is privately owned. So it might seem that conservation efforts to protect land should be directed first at governments rather than at private property owners.
Indeed, that is largely the history of environmental activism and land protection in Canada. Governments have responded to concern for the environment by setting aside land to be conserved in its natural state or to be used only as park land. And they have responded to concerns about the environmental impact of industry by limiting the potentially damaging activities of industries. Environmental organizations have focused primarily on two areas: demonstrating the negative effects on the environment of current human activities, and demanding that those activities be restricted; and identifying particularly threatened parts of the environment and the consequences of those threats for species, and demanding that threatened land be preserved or conserved. But for many years there has been an interest in the protection of land that is privately owned — an interest that is an important complement to focusing efforts on government to protect land. This interest in protecting private land and the concept of stewardship of land has grown significantly in recent years.
Land stewardship implies that owners and users of land and its resources:
This increased interest in protecting private land has occurred in British Columbia for a number of reasons, including the following:
The 1991 edition of The State of Canada's Environment describes the evolution of the concept of land ownership in Canada as follows:
Before European explorers and settlers came to what is now Canada, human activities had impinged little upon the land. The native Indian and Inuit people lived mainly by hunting, fishing, and gathering — an economy and way of life that, compared with modern-day culture, had only minor effects on the land base. Some had permanent settlements, but these were not major intrusions on the natural landscape. The aboriginal peoples' attitudes towards the land were spiritually based as well as ecologically sound. They saw the land and the living things it supported — including humans — as indivisible.
European settlers introduced a new concept of land. Coming from societies based on permanent agricultural and urban communities, the newcomers brought with them a more human-centered, utilitarian view of the land — it was the medium through which they supported themselves, by felling its trees for fuel and lumber, cultivating it for food, and building permanent settlements on it. They also brought with them the view of land as personal property. This concept of land 'ownership' originated in a settled, agrarian society with a need to designate particular tracts for the exclusive use of individuals or families. Unfortunately, property boundaries often bore little relationship to the natural form or characteristics of the land itself. 6
When European and other immigrants came to what is now Canada, they came with an expectation that the land was to be owned, but also with an expectation that the land was hostile — there to be conquered and exploited. The ethos of pioneering, commerce, and development saw the land itself as harsh and unwelcoming; a force against which human energies had to be pitted. Humans were not a part of nature, but in opposition to it.
Historically, the ethos of Canada and Canadians has been a development ethos. Canada has been, economically, a hewer of wood and drawer of water. Natural resource extraction has been the backbone of the Canadian economy.
The concept of ownership of land and the image of the natural environment as hostile often have obscured Canadians' understanding of the complex and fragile ecological relationships that make up what we refer to as land. And the sense of Canada as a vast, hostile and undeveloped land at times has made it difficult to grasp the connectedness of human life to the life of the land and to other species.
Governments are beginning to address land use questions as environmental issues, recognizing the link between biodiversity and liveability of communities, and are beginning to act on the philosophy of sustainability. Internationally, the Brundtland Report Footnote: (7] -- 7. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). End of Footnote]] z focused attention on the imminent environmental catastrophes which the planet faces, and on the concept of sustainable development. 8 Nationally, the federal government's Green Plan is moving in that direction. Provincially, developments such as the establishment of the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) to deal with provincial land use planning, the Protected Areas Strategy (PAS) and the publication of British Columbia's first State of the Environment Report are steps to address land and resource use questions in a way which takes into account land and non-human species. At a local level, citizens are becoming more involved in the fate of the regions in which they live through mechanisms such as the Islands Trust and the development of municipal official community plans. 9 For example, the long range community planning program for Nanaimo, known as Imagine Nanaimo, has as one of its goals to "ensure that the Official Community Plan and the Parks, Recreation and Culture Master Plan identify and preserve natural areas within Nanaimo." 10
The duration over which a particular individual has title to a piece of real property is but a fleeting moment in the history of the land. Individual property owners shall be encouraged to consider themselves as stewards of the land and give proper regard to the long-term environmental interests in proposing any change to their land. To be stewards, we have to develop a renewed respect for the land, knowing that the quality of our natural environment is as much a part of our quality of life as our jobs, wealth and health. — Regional Municipality of Halton, Ontario, land use principles 11
The traditional legal and social notions of private ownership have two important elements. First, owners of land are entitled to do what they wish with their land and have no individual responsibility for its stewardship, although they are limited by federal, provincial and local laws 12 and by some narrow restrictions in the common law. Second, owners are entitled to dispose of land, that is, pass land from one owner to another, unencumbered by restrictions on its use. Together, these elements have allowed many owners of private property to look after their land only to the extent that is required for their own activities on it.
This report is an invitation to private landowners to act on stewardship principles, to think differently about how to put the land to its best uses, and to ensure that environmentally significant parcels of land will continue to be protected after the landowner no longer owns the land.
In particular, this report is intended to encourage land stewardship by describing legal tools available to owners of private property to voluntarily protect their land.
There are two elements to stewardship in this context. Owners must understand the land and the reasons to protect it. Then, with that understanding, they will be able to use the law to protect the land.
Protecting land sometimes means leaving it in its natural state, with essentially no human use. For some environmentally critical areas that is all that the land can sustain. But that is by no means the only way to protect land and many types of human uses will be compatible with protecting some parcels of land.
There are a number of reasons to protect land or some aspect of it. In Economics of Protected Areas: A New Look at Benefits and Costs, the authors set out an impressive list of reasons to protect the land:
All of these reasons for protecting land apply to private as well as public lands.
Turtle Island Earth Stewards' list of advantages to a land trust include:
There are also excellent long-term economic benefits to protecting land for ecological reasons, starting with the basic notion that unless land — both public land and private land — is treated on a sustainable basis, its ability to support human economic activities will erode.
While this report is intended to encourage the development of land stewardship, there is a big gap which this report is not intended to fill: the lack of a central resource available to assist people to learn about their land and its limitations. Although some conservation groups such as Nature Trust of British Columbia and Ducks Unlimited Canada are willing to do biological assessments of property, they can only offer their services to landowners whose properties may be of significance to their respective mandates. And while the Conservation Data Centre 15 is collecting information about the incidence of species in the province, it usually is not able to provide individual owners with an assessment of land. The American experience of partnerships between land trust organizations and governments, described in Chapter Four, may provide some models for British Columbia.
The South Okanagan Conservation Strategy:
Integration of Government and Non-Government Efforts
The South Okanagan Conservation Strategy (SOCS) arose from the coordination of the Nature Trust of B.C.'s South Okanagan Critical Areas Program and the B.C. Environments' Habitat Conservation Fund (HCF) Okanagan Endangered Species Program. The Strategy has set priorities for management activities for the conservation of natural habitat and its unique flora and fauna for the five year period 1990-95.
Its steering committee consists of representatives from B.C. Environment Wildlife Program (Penticton), B.C. Environment Integrated Management Branch (Victoria), the Nature Trust of B.C., Canadian Wildlife Service, Royal British Columbia Museum, the University of British Columbia, Ministry of Forests, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, B.C. Parks, B.C. Lands, Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen, and First Nations.
To identify critical habitat for the region's rare and endangered species, biophysical mapping has been done, species status reports have been prepared, and the naturalist community has been invited to contribute its observations. The naturalist community in the south Okanagan, as part of the Federation of B.C. Naturalists, Land for Nature Project, has identified 104 vulnerable areas, more than half of which are privately owned.
SOCS is developing a series of management plans which include a significant "landowner contact" component. — The South Okanagan Conservation Strategy, 1990 - 1995 (Victoria: Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, 1990)
As private property owners become more aware of their individual stewardship role, and the opportunities which exist for them to participate in stewarding land for future generations, the strategies to protect land will improve. More information about the legal tools to protect private land may result in a greater willingness to be involved in land stewarding, both on an individual level and on a community level. In turn, that will mean a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of parcels owned by different people, and a greater sophistication in community planning around conservation issues.
There will come a day when we live in harmony with the land.
4. Canada, Government of Canada, The State of Canada's Environment (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1991) at 5-4.
5. Ibid. at 5-17.
6. Ibid. at 5-4.
8. The concept of sustainable development has been criticized as too vague, having too many meanings to different people, and carrying the idea that development as traditionally understood is compatible with sustainability. Today, many use the term sustainability instead, to overcome these criticisms.
9. Authority for an official community plan is contained in sections 944-949 of the Municipal Act, R.S.B.C. 1979, c. 290.
10. Imagine Nanaimo Steering Committee, Focusing the Vision of our Future: Nanaimo's Community Goals and Strategies (Nanaimo, B.C.: Imagine Nanaimo Steering Committee, 1993) at 21.
11. Mark Roseland, Toward Sustainable Communities: A Resource Book for Municipal and Local Governments (Ottawa: National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 1992) at 140.
12. Laws which restrict the use of private land include environmental and zoning laws. An owner's unfettered use of his or her land may also be affected by charges registered on title to the property.
13. John A. Dixon & Paul B. Sherman, Economics of Protected Areas: A New Look at Benefits and Costs (Covelo, California: Island Press, 1990) at 57-58.
14. Jeffery Tyhson Banighen, "What is a Land Stewardship Trust?" (Vancouver: Turtle Island Earth Stewards, 1990).
15. Operated jointly by the Wildlife Branch, The Nature Trust of British Columbia, the Nature Conservancy of Canada and The Nature Conservancy (U.S.).
