SDG 15: Life on Land

Adjacent to the Burnaby campus’ Guichon Creek is an area in the south campus forest that historically was a small wetland, which had been filled in past years. This area was identified as a potential biodiversity hotspot. Ken Ashley, Director of the BCIT Rivers Institute, had a restoration plan to build a small wetland in the area.

In September 2020, students from the School of Construction and Environments Ecological Restoration, Forest and Natural Areas Management, and Fish, Wildlife and Recreation programs worked together in collaboration with staff to build a small wetland, where one existed over 100 years ago near Guichon Creek. The team excavated and reshaped the area of the basin of the wetland, planted wetland plants, added bat and bird houses, making it closer to what the original habitat function was. The group did it all with COVID-19 safety protocols in place, sanitizing tools like shovels, wearing masks, social distancing, and so on.

“When you put a wetland in, you really get a boost of biodiversity. And from a climate point of view, they store a huge amount of carbon which is really important. They’re called the kidneys of the landscape as they help remediate environmental problems by filtering pollutants or sediment”. – Dr. Ken Ashley

The City of Burnaby has awarded BCIT the 2021 Environmental Star award for the South Wetland Restoration Project.

The students who built the wetland, and others, will be able to continue to use this area as a living lab, monitoring how it evolves, documenting changes and periodically re-evaluating the program and adaptively manage. The wetland will continue to provide ecosystem services to the surrounding area and become a point of nature for the community to enjoy, for many years to come.

BCIT faculty Jace Standish and Juila Alards-Tomalin published the results from their study to determine if vegetation is an accurate indicator for identifying wetlands in the Lower Mainland Fraser Valley (LMFV) in the journal Wetland Science & Practice.

TheLMFV is a complex and high stakes environment for wetland identification. High precipitation, subdued topography, and complex site history combine to present formidable challenges to wetland identification and management. Over the last 100+ years, the LMFV has undergone intense and rapid changes, from a natural mosaic of bogs, swamps and upland forests, to agricultural land, to increasingly urban landscapes. Since suitable lands for development are scarce, competition for remaining wetted areas is intense.

They identify wetlands using a process, based on vegetation, soils and hydrology, similar to that of the US Army Corps of Engineers. All three aspects are assessed to determine wetlands. But extensive soil drainage modifications often make use of soil information problematic, so we often need to rely on vegetation.

Read the full article starting at page 300.

BCIT offers a number of sustainability-focused, immersive experience programs. The Fish, Wildlife and Recreation (FWR) program is widely renowned locally and internationally for its “field-oriented” learning and applied research.

The FWR program is focussed on the sustainable management of fisheries, wildlife, parks and outdoor recreation. It is a unique program that provides hands on training through on-campus living labs and off-campus field trips. FWR students and academic staff have been travelling to the United States (US) for a week long field trip to Yellowstone National Park for over 20 years. Yellowstone provides an ideal immersive learning experience giving students the opportunity to observe how the US National Park Service preserves the natural and cultural resources and values of the park for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.

Prior to the February 2020 trip, students worked in small groups to research a management topic/issue in Yellowstone and presented their findings to their peers. Management issues were selected from the 2020 Yellowstone Resources and Issues Handbook – an annual compendium of information about Yellowstone National Park which includes important concepts about Yellowstone’s many resources, park history, science and research conducted in the greater Yellowstone area, and critical management issues facing Yellowstone National Park. The students were asked to compare and contrast how the National Park Service manages resources in Yellowstone, with how Canadian agencies manage similar issues in a Canadian provincial or national park.
The hands on experiences at Yellowstone built upon and reinforced the in-class learning. Highlights of the 2020 trip included:

• Natural history field session with local biologists including interpretive walks and wildlife viewing opportunities
• Park visitor use management
• Fisheries and wildlife issues and management
• Field session on “forensic tracking” in the snow and plaster casting of snow tracks

In the students own words:

“On a practical level, the speakers we met and the skills we learned were integral to the FWR program. Natural resource management extends far beyond British Columbia. Seeing firsthand how other countries manage their resources puts us at an advantage to graduates of similar programs. Everything I had hoped to learn was covered through various accomplished speakers and hands on activities. This included fish, bear, wolf, and elk management, as well as snow tracking and geology. I can’t imagine the FWR program without the Yellowstone trip, which solidifies two years of hard work with practical knowledge and the wonder of a novel landscape.” Georgia Dixon

“The park is a powerful example of the human potential to restore disrupted ecosystems to further manage healthy, self sustaining ones. Understanding management methods and guiding principles used by the National Park Service has assisted me to refine a restorative vision towards conserving British Columbia’s wild and natural areas for the benefit of future generations.” Iva Kulic

The Burnaby Campus is home to The Centre for Architectural Ecology, where vegetation-growing roofs are tested, demonstrated, taught about, and improved upon.

The Elevated Lab has served as a collaborative catalyst within and between various departments at BCIT, including Carpentry, Steel Trades and Piping Trades, as well as Forestry and Natural Areas Management, Indigenous Services, Campus head chefs, Campus Planning and Facilities, and more!

The ‘Ecologies’ section is used to advance our understanding of the capacities of extensive green roof systems with respect to community ecology (plants, soils, pollinators), while advancing the practice of regenerative design for healthy cities and ecosystems. The ‘Technologies’ section showcases a range of what is possible for extensive green roofs with limited load bearing capacity, including solar panels, a small wetland, food growing, and indigenous designs symbolizing truth and reconciliation.

Related SDGs:

The area on the east side of Guichon Creek next to the south campus forest was a gravel parking lot until recently and has undergone ecological restoration. A landscaped natural area has been designed to enhance the Guichon Creek watershed and reduce sediment run off.

The restoration began in 2019 with the addition of fill from the construction of the new Health Science Centre – reducing impacts from trucking and disposing of the fill offsite. The fill has been contoured with natural features and a variety of habitat types planted in spring 2021. This includes forested areas, wetter zones and a pollinator garden on the south side.

Once the new planting is established it will not only have restored the gravel area but will help control some of the invasive species that are currently in the forest beside the creek. An accessible gravel pedestrian path meanders through the area and was opened to the public once the vegetation was established.

Read the BCIT News Article

The Burnaby campus has a network of approximately 54 buildings located on the north end of campus. The south end of campus has a forested area with second growth trees and other vegetation characteristic of its Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone.

There are various landscaped areas throughout the Burnaby main campus, in addition to renewed efforts to plant additional trees and shrubs associated with improved ecological water drainage efforts. BCIT’s current landscaping standards focus on the implementation of best practices for sustainable maintenance, including replacing invasive species with native species when possible. Planting beds with shrubs, ground cover and vines are maintained with elements of pest control and water conservation.

Tree preservation is also an important focus of efforts, with over 1,000 inventoried trees on-site. The campus has a number of specimen trees with strong retention value. These trees were planted as part of the Institute’s past educational legacy.

In addition to the planting of pollinator-friendly vegetation to support our on-campus (see BeeCIT below), BCIT landscapers plant edible areas with crops like apples, blueberries, rhubarb, cherry tomatoes, and more. These are grown in a healthy way without herbicides or pesticides, and are available for the community to enjoy.

The Grounds and Landscaping Team at BCIT have established an honeybee and pollinator program called BeeCIT in partnership with urban beekeepers Alvéole to install and manage the hives. Their goal is to:

“Make people fall in love with bees, build ecological awareness, and in time, more sustainable cities and food systems.”

There are 5 beehives on 4 campuses housing around 70,000 bees, which travel thousands of miles across the Lower Mainland each day in search of food. Alvéole provides real-time data on what’s happening at the hives on their website and anyone can sign up for email updates to get the latest information on our bees.