What is Biodiversity? A simple definition might be

Biodiversity is the variety of living things, and the variety of ecosystems that support them.

Problem:

There are approximately 3 million species, not counting bacteria. We have only identified a small fraction of these species and have only a rudimentary understanding of the relationships within ecosystems. How do we maintain biodiversity when we know so little about it?

Partial Answer:

Obviously, to maintain biodiversity it is necessary to invest in protecting wild lands, preferably old growth as it supports the largest variety of species and ecological process and especially, protects the biodiversity that we don’t know much about. Simply put, the strategy is to protect enough land to be confident that known and unknown biodiversity will persist over time. Read more about Old Growth.

The big questions: How much land needs to be protected and where are these lands?

Let's start by looking at a geographical-political map of our study area, the Sunshine Coast Forest District (SCRD).

The SCCA gratefully recognizes the assistance of the Mountain Equipment Co-op, Patagonia Environment Fund, the Vancouver Foundation and our own special Sunshine Coast funders.