Stikine Watershed

The Stikine is located in northwestern BC. Here the high, mountain-rimmed plateau is gently drained by long, broad valleys that merge into a common current along its northern flank. Then, in its midsection, the Great River cuts a deep narrow canyon through a broad band of layered volcanic rock, the Grand Canyon of the Stikine, and then continues through the Alaska Panhandle to empty into the Pacific Ocean.

The Stikine River provides drainage for a 20,000 square mile watershed that remains in a nearly pristine state. This watershed supports a broad spectrum of wildlife with intact predator-prey relationships in a wide variety of biogeoclimatic zones, or habitats. Currently the region is undergoing a multi-stakeholder land use planning process; the Local Resources Management Plan.

BC Spaces has a long history of involvement in the Stikine region. In 1975 Ric Careless lead the campaign to protect the Stikine headwaters in Spatsizi Wilderness Park. The decades long campaign to protect all of the Stikine has been headed by the conservation group Friends of Stikine. BC Spaces staff are working closely with the Friends of Stikine to ensure that this 400 mile long river remains wild.

On October 10, 2000 the dream of a wild Stikine, remaining intact from its headwaters to the Alaskan border, was realized when government announcment that protected over 26% of the 13.5-million acre Stikine-Iskut drainage, adding an additional 1.1 million acres in parks to the 2.4 million acres already protected. The plan designates another 4.1 million acres as Special Management Zones (SMZs), with the majority of these SMZs off-limit to logging. As a result, 60% of this great watershed is under conservation management.

Remarkably, getting this conservation management over 7.6 million acres was achieved through multi-party negotiations leading to a full consensus agreement at the land use planning table. We wish to acknowledge the Tahltan First Nation, for playing a leadership role in forging this agreement.

Other Great Spaces we have worked on include The Chilcotin and The Tatshenshini.

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