Development of Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMPs) for the North and Central Coasts followed an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach that is intended to protect biodiversity and ecosystem function, while providing social and economic value. An important component of EBM in these landscapes is ensuring adequate representation of in old forests.

Services: Working with Veridian Ecological Consulting and the North and Central Coast LRMP processes, Cortex developed a methodology that used the abundance and extent of different old forest ecosystems as a primary indicator for the probability of maintaining coarse-filter biological diversity and function over space and time. Cortex developed assessment tools that combined land-use plans with projections of age-class distribution by ecosystem type to predict future deviations from the range of natural variability in ecosystem state. The models included assessments of partial harvesting methods and temporal projections of the recovery of ecosystem function.

To date, Cortex has led or contributed to three studies assessing the representation of ecosystems within management units for the North and Central Coast of British Columbia, and Vancouver Island.

Outcomes: Results of these studies were instrumental in the design of Government-to-Government scenarios ( 878 Kb) for implementation planning (2005-06) and developing Ecosystem-Based Management guidelines and objectives for strategic and operational-scale land-use planning in coastal British Columbia (2005-2009).