Land Designations in B.C.

The province of British Columbia uses different tools to balance the preservation of nature, biodiversity and cultural values with resource extraction and industrial development. One way to manage natural resources is by establishing different types of land designations which manage, limit, or restrict industry. Land designations are spatially defined areas established through legislation or purchased for conservation purposes by limiting or restricting resource extraction and industrial activities.

Summary of Land Designations for Industry Restriction in B.C. (2022)

Image of interactive map of land designations that contribute to conservation by Ecoregions & Biogeoclimatic Zones Across B.C.

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Summary of Industry Restrictions

For this indicator, land designations have been grouped into five levels of industry restriction: Full, High, Medium, Low, and None. The five categories span a considerable range in industry restriction, with variation in purpose, scope, strength, and length of the term of the designations. In addition, the mosaic of land designations in B.C. is complex and many designations overlap. Note: Land Designations of the three industries should be treated independently and therefore should not be summed.

Full Restriction—23.9% for forestry, 19.1% for mining, and 16.0% for oil and gas.

High Restriction—5.3% for forestry, 0% for mining, and 0% for oil and gas.

Medium Restriction—23.4% for forestry, 3.0% for mining, and 28.0% for oil and gas.

Low Restriction—7.1% for forestry, 7.4% for mining, and 4.4% for oil and gas.

No Restriction—40.2% for forestry, 70.5% for mining, and 51.5% for oil and gas.

More detail on the land designations and the three industries are provided below.

Methods

Overlaps among land designations have been accounted for in the analysis. While B.C. does use aspatial land management tools, this indicator only reports on legal, spatially-defined areas that contribute to conservation. The analysis presents the current status of land designations and the intended contribution to conservation—the effectiveness of land designations has not been evaluated. The Python and R code for repeating the analysis and data visualizations presented on this page is available on GitHub.

Land & Forests

Land Designations in B.C.

Summary of Land Designations for Industry Restriction in B.C. (2022)

Summary of Industry Restrictions

Details of Land Designations and Industry Restrictions

Methods

References and Other Useful Links

Data