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Discovery Islands Protected Areas
Past progress in protecting publicly owned land in the Discovery Islands from clearcut logging has largely taken the form of creating provincial parks. For the most part, these areas are primarily intended to provide recreational opportunities for the boating public. One ecological reserve, which covers the eastern half of East Redonda Island, and one protected area (Small Inlet Protected Area) are the only protected areas that didn’t include boaters as part of their creation rationale.
Very little primary forest is actually protected by the parks. In the case of the Small Inlet Protected Area, almost the entire area had been logged previous to a declaration of future protection.
Some of the best arguments for conserving more of the forested land on the islands, especially to protect biodiversity, are found within the creation rationales written by BC Parks for the protected areas that have been established. Over and over again, the rationales point out the small fraction of this or that ecosection each protected area represents, and how little of that ecosection has been protected on the coast. To read the rationale for creating a particular protected area, click the appropriate orange box in the map below and follow the link provided.
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In 2022, only a fraction of the land on the Discovery Islands has any protection (18 percent of Quadra Island, for example). Yet Canada is a signatory to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which calls for protection of 30 percent of the area of land and oceans of Earth by 2030. The proposal is prompted by scientific recognition that Earth is in the midst of a critical collapse in biodiversity. Thus the focus of the 30 by 30 plan would be on areas of high biodiversity. We believe the Discovery Islands, where a high percentage of the land is publicly owned, should be part of that plan.
Discovery Islands protected areas, by island:
Quadra Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
Main Lake Provincial Park: 3530 hectares
Small Inlet Marine Provincial Park: 753 hectares
Small Inlet Protected Area (previously logged): 157 hectares
Octopus Islands Marine Provincial Park: 404 hectares
Rebecca Spit Provincial Park: 22 hectares
Surge Narrows Marine Provincial Park: 47 hectares
Total area of Quadra Island: 27,248 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 4913 hectares (18 percent)
Cortes Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
Smelt Bay Provincial Park: 18 hectares
Manson's Landing Provincial Park: 753 hectares
Hathayhim Marine Provincial Park: 1039 hectares
Total area of Cortes Island: 12,743 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 1810 hectares (14.2 percent)
Sonora Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
Thurston Bay Marine Provincial Park: 320 hectares
Total area of Sonora Island: 16,525 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 320 hectares (1.9 percent)
Read Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
Read Island Provincial Park: 625 hectares
Total area of Read Island: 5,743 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 625 hectares (11.0 percent)
Maurelle Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
Surge Narrows Marine Provincial Park: 112 hectares
Total area of Maurelle Island: 5,706 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 112 hectares (2.0 percent)
West Redonda Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
Teakerne Arm Marine Provincial Park: 117 hectares
Walsh Cove Marine Provincial Park: 39 hectares
Total area of West Redonda Island: 17,430 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 156 hectares (less than 1.0 percent)
East Redonda Island
Area of protected Crown land (including freshwater lakes)
East Redonda Island Ecological Reserve: 6212 hectares
Total area of West Redonda Island: 10,032 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 6212 hectares (62 percent)
South Rendezvous Island
Area of protected Crown land
East Redonda Island Ecological Reserve: 110 hectares
Total area of South Rendezvous Island: 110 hectares
Total area of protected Crown land: 110 hectares (100 percent)
Islands in the Discovery Group that have NO protected areas on Crown land
Hardwicke Island: 7633 hectares
West Thurlow Island: 8133
East Thurlow Island: 10,638
Stuart Island: 1681 hectares
Raza Island: 1685 hectares
Penn Islands: 129 hectares
Legal Old Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) by island
Legal OGMAs are spatially designated areas, supposedly within the timber harvesting land base, that have been established to “protect” old forest for the purpose of biodiversity conservation. In many cases these legal OGMAs do not contain old forest but have been set aside as “old forest recruitment areas”. The location of such recruitment OGMAs can be changed by the ministry at the request of a logging company.
The Ministry of Forests has also created “non-legal” OGMAs which are generally created in already protected areas, like parks and ecological reserves, to minimize the impact of OGMAs on timber supply.
Only those islands where landscape level planning was conducted have OGMAs on them. Note that Quadra, Sonora, the Thurlows and Hardwicke Island have no legal or non-legal OGMAs. Where are the legal OGMAs located? See this map.
Cortes Island: 523.3 hectares
East Redonda Island: 257.1 hectares
East Thurlow Island: zero hectares
Hardwicke Island: zero hectares
Maurelle Island: 310.9 hectares
Quadra Island: zero hectares
Raza Island: 66.3 hectares
Read Island: 92.7 hectares
Sonora Island: zero hectares
West Redonda Island: 866.7 hectares
West Thurlow Island: zero hectares
Islands in the Discovery Group that have NO Crown land
Hernando Island:
Savary Island:
Marina Island:
Twin Island:
North Rendezvous:
Related information:
Perhaps the greatest impetus for change on the Discovery Islands is the biodiversity crisis
Species at risk on the Discovery Islands