Environmental Inventory and Management Strategy Focus Groups and Stakeholder Survey
Thank you for your input. Public feedback on this project is currently closed.
Thank you for your input. Public feedback on this project is currently closed.
The Environmental Inventory and Management Strategy (EIMS) project will assess the City’s natural assets and identify supportive management strategies. We need your local knowledge to fill in the blanks and help identify management priorities.
Natural assets include the ecosystems (e.g., wetlands, forests, rivers) and resources (e.g., plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that provide benefits and services to people. For example:
- healthy wetlands can filter harmful contaminants and store floodwater;
- forests and croplands produce oxygen, store carbon, clean the air, and provide wood and other products;
- water (including aquifers) supports agriculture and provides drinking water; and,
- bees and butterflies are important pollinators for many crops.
Many of the services provided by natural assets are “free”; technology, infrastructure and effort required to provide comparable services would cost significant time and money. In addition, natural assets provide valuable habitat for fish and wildlife and have important recreational, aesthetic and cultural importance for people.
The EIMS will act as a living document, that will continue to evolve while guiding future planning and management strategies. This will permit the City to refine its management approach and respond to future challenges by incorporating new information and best practices to manage natural assets over the long-term.
How can you be involved?
The EIMS will be based on meaningful engagement to ensure citizen and stakeholder concerns and priorities are fully considered. We are reaching out to stakeholders, including community groups, First Nations, neighbouring municipalities, provincial and federal agencies, and you. We need your contributions to this strategy as the City looks to update its policies for management of its valued natural assets. We will be trying a few different ways to connect with the community and stakeholder groups that respect health directives concerning COVID-19.
As a first step, please register and follow the links to share your knowledge about our natural assets. After you have provided your input, please check this website regularly for project updates and future opportunities to have your say on management of the City’s natural assets!
Progress to Date
Preliminary mapping of the City’s natural assets has already begun and this initial engagement effort is looking for additional feedback to ensure mapping is up to date and represents the City’s natural assets accurately. Field inventories beginning in April will help support this work.
1. What are the City's most valuable natural assets?
Natural assets are assets of the natural environment. These consist of biological assets (produced or wild), land and water areas with their ecosystems, subsoil assets, and air. These are parts of the natural environment that we consider important for various reasons, and which would cost money if they were lost and we needed to replace them.
Examples of natural assets include: forests, sloughs, wetlands, fish producing areas, timber producing areas, rivers, lakes, greenways, aquifers, ecosystems and features that contain and absorb flood waters, etc., root systems that prevent soil erosion and slope failures in areas at risk of erosion, areas of high biodiversity, habitat for rare or important species, tree rows reducing dust.
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2. Which of the City's natural assets are most at risk?
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3. Which of the City’s natural assets are most degraded presently?
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4. What natural assets should the City prioritize for protection?
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5. What natural assets should the City prioritize for restoration or enhancement?
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6. What natural assets in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) provide important benefits to farmers?
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7. Are there areas in the ALR where human-wildlife conflicts occur?
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8. What natural assets in the ALR should be prioritized for conservation?
Some examples include above and below ground water sources, trees to prevent dusting, features that limit flooding, plants that clean pollutants from runoff, productive soils, features that protect or promote biodiversity or important species, features that protect water from evaporation and loss in the increasingly hot and dry summers, pervious (i.e., unpaved) ground surface that reduces storm water runoff in the city.
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9. What wetlands and other natural assets should be prioritized for protection or conservation to improve flood protection and to help recharge aquifers?
Aquifers are an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials (gravel), sand, or silt). Groundwater can be extracted using a water well. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology.
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10. What natural assets may be at risk due to increased flood activity?
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11. What natural assets may be at risk due to drought?
12. Please identify important habitats or areas for species of concern you would like to note in the City of Pitt Meadows.
Species of conservation concern include fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, and/or plants.
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Please note the species being referred to. Please note that the location of critical habitat may be sensitive or confidential.
Information on critical habitats will be considered, carefully managed, and will not be published in the EIMS report.
13. Please identify if there are any important habitats or areas for species that are important to you (rareness aside) you would like to note in the City of Pitt Meadows.
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14. Please identify areas where you have witnessed human-wildlife conflicts within the City of Pitt Meadows.
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15. What natural areas in the City should be prioritized for protection from development and encroachment, or for restoration and/or enhancement?
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16. Are there any areas where goals around connectivity or re-connection should be prioritized ?
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17. Are there contaminated sites and brownfields in the City that should be prioritized for manangement?
A brownfield site is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.
(Please note that some jurisdictions are managing brownfield sites to protect unique biodiversity associated with those areas)
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18. Please identify locations where invasive species (plant or animal) should be prioritized for management.
An invasive species, also called introduced species, alien species, or exotic species, is any nonnative species that significantly changes or disrupts the ecosystems it colonizes. Such species may arrive in unknown areas through natural migrations, but they are often introduced by the activities of humans.
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