@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix dc: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Applied Science, Faculty of"@en, "Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Mackin, Nancy"@en ; dcterms:issued "2009-07-13T18:23:12Z"@en, "2000"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Architecture - MArch"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description """This thesis seeks to explain how site-scale design decisions can assist retention of rare plant communities concentrated in and near settled areas. To do so it focuses on a specific species and development context. Explanations are sought through examination of case studies of landuse developments in proximity to retained Garry oak plant communities located in the perimeter of Victoria, British Columbia. In the study region, exponential declines in species populations, health, and diversity of rare Garry oak ecosystems have been largely attributed to impacts from land-use developments. Over the past century, land-use developments have transformed the floral, spatial, structural and functional characteristics of the settled landscape. Isolated islands of imperiled plant associations remain on protected bioreserves: for recruitment and connectivity, these rare fauna rely on private-land greenways. Architectural teams have the potential to influence the decision-making processes that create ecologically-vital greenspace on private land, thereby enhancing survival for declining plant communities. Case-study evidence for the importance of land-use decisions on diminishing Garry oak meadow is gathered through vegetation surveys conducted on Garry oak meadow in proximity to six architectural projects on Victoria's western edge. Observed changes in growth extensions are then categorized in relation to human activities associated with built form, and correlated with principles from Landscape Ecology. An ARC of design strategies, developed in primary research by K. D. Rothley is adapted for architectural use as follows: firstly, AREA of a plant community is kept free of encroachment by the orderly frame established around vegetation; secondly, RARE SPECIES and habitat are identified with borders or signage; thirdly, CONNECTIVITY between retained landscapes is secured by siting roads and buildings to minimize ecosystem fragmentation. To effectively communicate preexisting landscape ecology principles, grouped under the ARC of strategies, illustrations and key-word phrases are developed. These principles, when integrated into architectural teams' structural knowledge, extend the architects' perceived role beyond aesthetics and economic efficiency. Enhancing habitat value through retention or restoration of rare ecosystems at the margins of suburban development, becomes an additional realm of influence for professional teams designing the spatial configurations of peri-urban landscapes."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/10661?expand=metadata"@en ; dcterms:extent "11160906 bytes"@en ; dc:format "application/pdf"@en ; skos:note "ARCHITECTURE, DEVELOPMENT AND ECOLOGY: GARRY OAK AND PERI - URBAN VICTORIA by NANCY MAC KIN B.A. (Mus.), The University of Western Ontario, 1976 B. Arch., The University of British Columbia, 1979 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ADVANCED STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURE in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES, School of Architecture We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard r THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA July 2000 © Nancy Mackin, 2000 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of AKCtWTf/m^ The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada D a t e AUfrNfrl ^ 9/y*> DE-6 (2/88) 11 Supervisor: Dr. Sherry McKay ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to explain how site-scale design decisions can assist retention of rare plant communities concentrated in and near settled areas. To do so it focuses on a specific species and development context. Explanations are sought through examination of case studies of land-use developments in proximity to retained Garry oak plant communities located in the perimeter of Victoria, British Columbia. In the study region, exponential declines in species populations, health, and diversity of rare Garry oak ecosystems have been largely attributed to impacts from land-use developments. Over the past century, land-use developments have transformed the floral, spatial, structural and functional characteristics of the settled landscape. Isolated islands of imperiled plant associations remain on protected bioreserves: for recruitment and connectivity, these rare fauna rely on private-land greenways. Architectural teams have the potential to influence the decision-making processes that create ecologically-vital greenspace on private land, thereby enhancing survival for declining plant communities. Case-study evidence for the importance of land-use decisions on diminishing Garry oak meadow is gathered through vegetation surveys conducted on Garry oak meadow in proximity to six architectural projects on Victoria's western edge. Observed changes in growth extensions are then categorized in relation to human activities associated with built form, and correlated with principles from Landscape Ecology. An ARC of design strategies, developed in primary research by K. D. Rothley is adapted for architectural use as follows: firstly, AREA of a plant community is kept free of encroachment by the orderly frame established around vegetation; secondly, RARE SPECIES and habitat are identified with borders or signage; thirdly, CONNECTIVITY between retained landscapes is secured by siting roads and buildings to minimize ecosystem fragmentation. To effectively communicate preexisting landscape ecology principles, grouped under the ARC of strategies, illustrations and key-word phrases are developed. These principles, when integrated into architectural teams' structural knowledge, extend the architects' perceived role beyond aesthetics and economic efficiency. Enhancing habitat value through retention or restoration of rare ecosystems at the margins of suburban development, becomes an additional realm of influence for professional teams designing the spatial configurations of peri-urban landscapes. T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S iii Abstract ii List of Tables vi List of Figures vii Acknowledgments ixi CHAPTER 1 THE PROBLEM 1 1.0 Introduction: Integrating Peri-Urban Biodiversity with Design Decisions 1 1.1 Biodiversity and Peri-Urban Plant Associations 10 1.2 The Problem: Diminishing Garry Oak Meadows 12 1.3 How Did We Get to This Problematic Situation? Landscape Transformations and Peri-Urban Development Patterns in Victoria 14 CHAPTER 2 A RANGE OF SOLUTIONS 44 2.0 Evaluating Existing Methods for Conserving Per-Urban Ecosystems 44 2.1 Closing the Schism Between Disciplines 55 2.2 Bioregional Diversity and Site-Scale Solutions 58 2.3 Garry Oak Meadows and the Orderly Frame: Native and Exotic Plant Uses 70 CHAPTER 3 CASE-STUDY RESEARCH STRATEGIES 70 3.0 Introduction 67 3.1 Case-Study Research Methodology 68 CHAPTER 4 CASE STUDY EMPIRICAL RESEARCH 70 4.0 Introduction: Purpose and Location of the Empirical Research 70 4.00 Maps, surveys, plans, graphs and charts: data sets provided for each site grouping 72 4.01 Six case-study sites 73 4.1 Col wood: Juan De Fuca Recreation Centre 75 4.10 Bioreserve Description 75 4.11 Land-Use Developments and Associated Activities Adjacent to and Within Bioreserve 81 iv 4.12 Effects of Proximity of Land Uses, Land-Use Activities, and Management on Tree Growth 81 4.13 Known or Likely Reasons for Changes in Growth at Juan De Fuca, Col wood 85 4.2 Two Langford Sites: Millwoods and Crystalview Estates Single Family Housing Developments 88 4.20 Bioreserve Descriptions 88 4.21 Land-Use Developments Adjacent to and Within Oak Stands 89 4.22 Effects And Proximity of Land Use Activities And Management on Tree Growth 89 4.23 Known or Likely Reasons For Changes in Growth... 95 4.3 View Royal Projects: Three Multi-Family Projects Adjacent to a Regional Park 98 4.30 Bioreserve Descriptions 98 4.31 Land-Use Developments and Associated Activities Adj acent to and Within Reserved Area 100 4.32 Effects of Proximity of Land-Use Activities and Management on Tree Growth 105 4.33 Known or Likely Reasons for Changes in Growth at the Three Multi-Family Sites in View Royal 110 4.4 Case Study Results, Land-Use Development Phases, and the ARC of Ecological Qualities 112 CHAPTER 5 ECOLOGICAL STRATEGIES AND THE ARC OF QUALITIES: AREA, RARE-SPECIES REPRESENTATION, AND CONNECTIVITY 119 5.0 Derivation of the ARC System of Classifying Ecological Qualities Which Help to Maximize the Area of Bioreserve... 119 5.1 Design Principles to Maximize the Area of Bioreserves 121 5.2 Design Principles to Support Retention of Rare Species in and Around Development Sites 136 5.3 Design Principles Which Maximize Connectivity 141 5.4 Hydrology, Microclimate, Soil Chemistry, and Other Less Visible Site Conditions 146 5.5 Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Ecological Principles: Evidence From Case Studies and the Literature Review 148 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS 151 6.0 Timing of Applications of Ecological Principles 151 6.1 The ARC of Principles Extends the Function of Bioreserves Beyond Arks . 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY 155 Appendix I Research sources on the ecotone between human settlement and natural ecosystems 165 Appendix II Research sources explaining ecosystem- specific complexities... 170 Appendix III Research sources on the \"Ideology of Wilderness\" or the \"Pristine Myth\" 174 Appendix IV Additional research sources on cultural acceptance for native plant ecosystems 176 Appendix V 1991 Plant surveys of Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre by Joel Ussery for BCCDC 178 Appendix VI Wildflower pamphlet- Wildflowers in Mill Hill 181 Appendix VII Draft City of Victoria Tree Protection Bylaw 184 vi LIST O F T A B L E S Table 1 Percentages of sampled oak trees located within different distance 82 classes from construction- related disturbances at Juan de Fuca Recreation Library. Table 2 Percentage of sampled oak trees located within different distance 90 class from construction- related disturbance at Millwoods. Table 3 Percentages of sampled oak trees located within different distance classes from construction- related disturbance at Crystalview Estates. 91 Table 4 Trees sampled on View Royal Lots, grouped by species. 105 Table 5 Visual estimation to construction- related disturbance at View Royal. 106 L I S T O F F I G U R E S vii Figure 1 Victoria and Esquimalt cl858, showing layout of farms around the 20 Hudson's Bay Company fort (Reksten 1986,23). Figure 2 1870's photograph of a residential neighbourhood, looking northeast 21 from Christ Church Cathedral (Humphreys 1999, 46). Figure 3 Plan and Real Estate advertisement for Uplands Subdivision designed 26 in 1908 by the Olmsted Brothers (Forward 1972, 12). Figure 4 Meadlands Estate, Victoria proposed subdivision, model suburb, 27 Thomas A. Mawson and sons. Famed Architects, 1912 (City of Vancouver archives photo). Figure 5 Sections through Seafront of Meadlands. Double road for steep 28 gardens. Figure 6 Types of subdivisions in Victoria laid out between the late nineteenth 33 century and 1962 (McCann 1999, 134). Figure 7 Proposed \"Victoria West 1990\", a futuristic perspective included in 34 the Overall Plan for the City of Victoria 1965 (Segger and Franklin 1996,123) Figure 8 Uplands Park on land purchased by the municipality of Victoria in 38 1946 (Forward 1972,24). Figure 9 Land-use categories in Victoria and Esquimalt Districts, 1991 45 (Schaefer 1995, 308). Figure 10 \"Garry oak meadow on Island Preserved\" (Vancouver Sun 6 Feb. 47 1999, B l andB2). Figure 11 \"Six municipalities take part in opinion poll\" (CRD Parks Newsletter, 48 1999). Figure 12 Biodiversity begins in your backyard: drawings by Brioni Penn (Hebda 62 and Aitkins 1994, 72). Figure 13 \"Take a deep breath of the scent of Lilies\" (Western Living 1999,90). 63 Figure 14 Location of selected sites within Western Communities. 74 Figure 15 Sketch of Juan de Fuca Site. 78 Vlll Figure 16 Aerial Photograph of Juan de Fuca Site. 79 Figure 17 Aerial photograph of Juan de Fuca Site. 80 Figure 18 Current growth (post-construction growth expressed as a percent of 83 pre-construction growth) in relation to distance from development-related disturbance at Juan de Fuca library. Figure 19 Photograph of Juan de Fuca Library, showing orderly frame (buffer) 83 between structure and bioreserve. Figure 20 Construction activity remains outside the orderly frame at Juan de 84 Fuca. Figure 21 The outer buffer, or orderly frame. 84 Figure 22 Diagram of two-ring buffer. 85 Figure 23 Allium acuminatum. 86 Figure 24 Photograph of construction edge at Mill Hill Park. There are no 90 buffers in evidence. Figure 25 Aerial photograph of Crystalview and Millwoods. 92 Figure 26 Photograph of construction edge at Millwoods, showing sudden 93 topographic and soils changes. Figure 27 Current growth in relation to distance from development-related 94 disturbance at Millwoods. Figure 28 Photograph of construction blasting at Millwoods. 94 Figure 29 Current growth in relation to distance from development- related 95 disturbance at Crystalview Estates. Figure 30 Aerial photograph, and key, of View Royal lots. 101 I X Figure 31 Aerial photograph of View Royal lots. 102 Figure 32 Current growth in relation to distance from construction- related 107-8 disturbance for each species at View Royal lots. Figure 33 Canopy condition related to distance from disturbance at View Royal. 109 Figure 34 Large bioreserve area reduces extinctions. 121 Figure 35 A large, single patch generally offers a more diverse mix of edge and 122 interior species. Figure 36 Contrast between peri-urban edge and woodland edge effects. 124 Figure 37 Correlation between bird diversity and urban landscape. 125 Figure 38 Buffer width increases proportionally with density of adjacent land- 126 uses. Figure 39 Threats to Garry oak ecosystems: exotic invasives and urban 127 encroachment. Figure 40 Structural complexity of edge. 128 Figure 41 Concave boundaries enhance plant colonization. 129 Figure 42 Buffer zone between human uses and bioreserve. 130 Figure 43 Buffer zones on a hillside above human uses. 131 Figure 44 Efficient planning of human uses leaves space for buffer zones. 132 Figure 45 Remnant open space in a project with long driveways is smaller than 133 open space within a project with short driveways. X Figure 46 Narrow greenspaces leave little room for buffers to disturbance or 134 encroachment. Figure 47 Aerial photograph of oak meadow at Fort Rodd hill. 135 Figure 48 Rare or extirpated species in British Columbian oak meadows. 137 Figure 49 Conserve both the understory and the tree. 139 Figure 50 Maintain buffer zones to be free of invasive species. 140 Figure 51 Green/Blue Spaces Strategy. 141 Figure 52 Sea-to-Sea Greenbelt proposal. 142 Figure 53 Roadways as barriers to species movement. 142 Figure 54 Linear and stepping-stone connectivity. 143 Figure 55 Trenchless technology reduces habitat fragmentation and rare species 144 losses. Figure 56 Trenchless technology affords a vertical buffer between human uses 145 and protected biota. Figure 57 Site-coverage and density of land-uses affect resistance to species 145 movement. Figure 58 Soils required for native plant reconstruction are shallower than 146 conventional landscape soils. Figure 59 Buffers maintain sunlight access for native plant communities. 146 Figure 60 Buffers protect water table and drainage patterns of bioreserves. 147 Figure 61 An \"orderly frame\" buffer for a Garry oak meadow. 150 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi This document would not have been possible without the interest and involvement of my advisor, Dr. Sherry McKay. I would like to thank both Dr. McKay and Professor Christopher MacDonald for their guidance and comments. Landscape ecologist Dr. Susan Glenn, forester Don Botrell, and landscape architect Bev Windjack have contributed their expertise. Ecologist Marilyn Fuchs has had valuable input into field measurement and graphs. Marta Donovan, Jan Kirkby & staff at British Columbia Conservation Data Centre donated four hours of valuable research time. Thanks go to Bernard Chung, for his technical assistance and support, and to my husband and son for their insights. Interviews generously granted by biologists Joel Ussery and Tracy Fleming of Capital Regional District Parks, have assisted the author in case-study evaluations and their ecological context. Responses to the author's pilot project presented in August, 1999 to the Ecological Society of America have been influential to the methodology and structuring of this research. CHAPTER 1: SPATIAL CONFLICTS: RARE PLANT COMMUNITIES AND LAND-USE DEVELOPMENTS 1.0 Introduction: Integrating biodiversity with Design Decisions Progressive aerial photographs of expanding cities show areas of natural vegetation diminishing decade by decade as settlement advances. Along the edges of settlement, at the margins of suburban development, rare native plant associations1 are in jeopardy of disappearing as habitats are cut through and built upon (Schaefer 1991, Schmid 1996). Native species conserved areas— parkland and covenants—are also threatened not by bulldozer but by their proximity to settlement. It is a matter of urgency that patterns of land-use development change, if we are to contribute to the global struggle to stabilize or improve biodiversity. An important part in sustaining biodiversity is to ensure the survival of native biota that characterize regional landscapes. Architectural teams' decisions, along with those of private landowners, community members, municipal planners, and higher levels of government, affect those landscape patterns. \"Architecture, Development and Ecology\" explores a range of possible decisions that affect regional and global biodiversity. It then focuses on the importance of decisions made by architectural teams. Firstly, this research is intended to communicate the exponential ecological losses that will continue unless land-use strategies are revised. The intention is not to return to some idealized ecological equilibrium, but rather to recognize that within changing ecosystem dynamics it is vital to reverse recent precipitous declines in biodiversity. Secondly, a design approach that integrates ecological principles with land-use development decisions is proposed. 1 A plant association is defined by B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks (BCCDC e-mail document received 19 August 1999) as a unit of vegetation with relatively uniform species composition and physical structure. Plant associations are definable natural entities. A stand of vegetation may progress from one association to another in a process called succession. In some literature, plant association is replaced with plant community. 2 This approach would enable architectural teams, working within a mosaic of built form and open spaces, to maintain the ecological integrity inherent in the mosaic.2 Underlying the proposed design system are a set of principles developed from the science of landscape ecology.3 Decades of published landscape ecology research prove that specific land-use strategies are effective at protecting biodiversity over a variety of scales and landscape types. From site-scales to regional mosaics, from remote areas to intensively-occupied urban environments, landscape ecologists have conducted empirical research to verify that decisions about spatial patterns strongly influence ecological function (Spirn 1981, Forman and Godron 1995, Dramstad et al 1996, Sauer 1998). Key to architects' realm of influence is the observation that settled areas are as much a part of a landscape mosaic as spaces far from human habitation. The placement and design of built form components—buildings, roads, and gardens—affect movement and changes of plants, animals, microclimates, water and materials (Burgess and Sharpe 1981, Forman and Godron 1986, Dramstad et al 1996). Since decisions about those structural elements and site scale land-uses are often made with the input of architects and their consultants, the landscape ecological approach makes connections between architectural decisions and ecological functions. A mosaic is the structural pattern of the landscape, composed of patches, corridor and matrix (Dramstad et al 1996). The structural pattern can be visualized as the pattern seen from an airplane or in an aerial photograph. The spatial pattern strongly controls ecological functions: movements and changes of biota, water, materials and microclimates. Changes in spatial pattern occur as a result of ecological functioning, or a land-use decision such as the insertion of roads or buildings. 3 Landscape ecology has evolved since about 1950 as a science which uses aerial photographs and other means to study and predict interactions between the environment and biological species, generally at a scale of landscapes (a landscape is a mosaic, usually kilometers wide, over which ecosystems functions and land-uses occur—Dramstad et al 1996). Landscape ecology combines knowledge from biogeography, climatology, natural history, and soil science. 3 The design approach of \"Architecture, Development and Ecology\" also recognizes a second essential link between the land-use professions and landscape ecology. Both sets of disciplines acknowledge that human culture is a vital component of any functioning design solution. Just as architecture integrates peoples' cultural and spatial needs with a given piece of land, landscape ecology principles rely upon a meshing of cultural processes—aesthetics, social patterns, economics—with spatially-determined ecological processes—species interactions, soil/food webs, flows of water and materials. Further, both disciplines anticipate and influence change. In this research, as in recent works by landscape architects and ecologists,4 a symbiosis between principles from landscape ecology and the work of land-use professionals is foreseen. On the other hand, ecologically-inspired designs are imbued with long-term cultural acceptance with the aid of designers' aesthetic skills and influence. The design professions, including architects and landscape architects, have accepted roles as forbearers of aesthetic innovation (although the same professions have knowledge and education that extends well beyond aesthetics). On the other hand, by pairing this aesthetic leadership with principles from landscape ecology, land-use professionals are uniquely positioned to participate in protecting the biodiversity of landscapes. Biodiversity protection is, in fact, the underlying goal for the argument that architectural culture can nurture ecological health through an integration of landscape ecology principles with human spatial needs. The significance of biodiversity protection, as evidenced by research in the Natural and Applied Sciences (including Conservation Biology, Resource Management, Biogeography and Landscape Ecology), has two main strands. The first strand of significance 4 See Spirn 1981, Nassauer 1995, Sauer 1998. Architects do not seem to be included in existing works of applied landscape ecology. The author contends that architects need to know when to incorporate the knowledge of ecologically-trained landscape professionals in the site planning process and in detailed design. 4 recognizes that ecological, genetic, and species diversity5 enhance human civilization (Primack 1995, Mugnozza 1996, Schmid 1996). Complex forms of life evolving under varied ecological conditions supply resources for economic growth, artistic inspiration, medicine and nutrition, and recreational opportunities: a richly varied natural environment satisfies many economic, aesthetic, intellectual and social needs. The second strand of biodiversity's significance is its intrinsic value related to unique ecological roles served by component species (Primack 1995). The ecological complexity found in the natural environment is vital to biosphere health and ecosystem stability (Shaefer 1991, Primack 1995, Mugnozza 1996, Schmid 1996). At times through history, however, the unmitigated exploitation of natural ecosystems, combined with the hegemony of picturesque landscape aesthetics,6 has led to the deterioration and loss of 3 Biological diversity (biodiversity) occurs at three levels. Species biodiversity includes the range of species found within a region. Species-rich areas are those with a high level of species biodiversity. Genetic diversity refers to genetic variation within a species, and is a factor in the ability of a species to adapt to environmental change. Ecological diversity (also known as community or ecosystem diversity) describes the amount of variation in habitat types, and the potential for interaction between species of each habitat (Primack 1995, di Castri and Younes 1996). A decline in ecosystem diversity can precipitate plummeting declines in the other two biodiversity levels. 6 Picturesque tastes evolved in eighteenth century Britain in poetry, painting, aesthetic theory, and landscape. Christopher Hussey's The Picturesque (1927) notes that during the eighteenth century a stylistic change \"occurred at the point where an art shifted its appeal from reason to the imagination\" (Hussey 1927: 18). The romanticized approach was seen to \"enable the imagination to form the habit of feeling through the eyes\" (ibid). The predominantly visual aesthetic began in painting, then was transposed to the landscape itself. The picturesque landscape became an effective means of asserting the landowners' excellent taste, while obscuring acts of land appropriation—enclosures, emparkments and colonization—all of which created private estates while leaving former occupants of the land destitute. Picturesque landscapes embody a transformation to a visually-dominated aesthetic (landscapes are made to look like a \"picture\"). The key elements in the landscape aesthetic are the breaking down of a landscape into background, strongly-lit middle distance, and foreground framed by clumps of trees; a manmade lake in the middle distance (to reflect light); serpentine forms (in paths, lake or created hillsides); clumps of trees to create diagonal vistas through expanses of turf. The entire assemblage is intended to look timeless. Many of these elements were popularized by Capability Brown (1716-83), who in the 1740's found \"a popular formula (for English landscapes) which he 5 biological communities. Biodiversity losses have occurred at unprecedented rates during the past century as processes of landscape commodification and aestheticization are permitted to dominate (di Castri and Younes 1996, Hironaka 1996). The domination of economically-justified human activities to the point where life forms are eradicated evidences an ideology that natural systems have value only insofar as they can be exploited for economic gain. This ideology is unsupportable given the myriad of economic functions served by the very biodiversity that suffers under the uncontested hegemony of economic processes. Allied with economic gain is the aestheticization of landscapes for the purposes of increasing property values and demonstrating the landowners' taste and social position. Landscapes reconfigured to look like a picture have also historically been used to disguise transformation resulting from land appropriation, while evoking an appearance of naturalness to obscure the hand of the designer. Techniques of aestheticization have not been restricted to pastoral or garden settings: \"wilderness\" parks have also historically been carved from land appropriated from former occupants.7 repeated, without alteration, during the next thirty years for an audience of contented landowners\" (Watkin 1982, 67). The picturesque continues to be popular into the twenty-first century, as a culturally-entrenched aesthetic which evokes the elitist of historic British gentry, while simultaneously encoding the ample rural lands of colonial North America (Duncan and Duncan 1997). 7 The concepts of the picturesque (pastoral) landscape and wilderness can be contrasted in the landscape architectural work of Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons. The Olmsteds designed both picturesque suburbs (such as Uplands in Victoria and Riverside in Chicago) and \"natural\" or \"wilderness\" parks (including Yosemite National Park and the reconstructed Fens of Boston). The picturesque suburbs' curvilinear streets and painterly vistas \"helped to destroy lingering American fears of the wilderness [...]. The picturesque site was chosen, the savage woods extolled\" (Tunnard 1953, 81). Similarly, Olmsted's \"wilderness\" parks were designed and constructed, but the designer carefully hid their artifice behind an appearance of nature-made or natural scenery. Alison Spirn (1996) concludes that this obscuring of artifice robs the constructed \"wilderness\" or \"natural\" areas of their functionality. The erasure of design effort also rubbed out evidence that Olmsted's natural parks were designed to purify water, enhance processes of succession, accommodate movement of people, and permit multiple viewers to be 6 While eighteenth century concepts of wilderness were expressed in sublime landscapes \"where one had more chance than elsewhere to glimpse the face of God [...] God was on the mountaintop, in the chasm, in the waterfall, in the thundercloud, in the rainbow, in the sunset\" (Cronon 1996, 73), by the mid-nineteenth century, wilderness came to be seen as commodifiable tourist destinations. Wilderness parks, designed by landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted, symbolized the frontier and an escape from industrial society. Like the enclosures of eighteenth and nineteenth century England, however, much North American \"wilderness\" was actually made empty by the systematic removal of prior inhabitants. The First People who had once called the wilderness home were moved to reservations, so that tourists could appreciate untamed, uninhabited lands. There is a direct correlation between wilderness and the picturesque: both transformed landscapes to a fixed aesthetic image; both obscured the transformations and any acts of appropriation involved in the transformation. Meanwhile, during the aestheticization of landscapes, many original and planned functions— including ecological functions enabling survival of diverse biota—were also obscured. Designing picturesque landscapes to look like an English watercolour painting, or designing parkland to look like a wilderness, have both been techniques which consciously deceive the viewer into thinking the aesthetically-reconfigured image is \"natural\" or \"timeless\". Recognizing the social and functional impacts of picturesque and wilderness inventions, \"Architecture, Development and Ecology\" offers an alternative approach for teams concerned hidden from one another. Because these functions were deliberately hidden behind an appearance of \"naturalness\", even Olmsted was unable to convince parks managers to maintain his designs so they could function as planned. After Olmsted's death, Spirn notes that final traces of functionality were mainly lost, and the parkland came to be appreciated purely for aesthetics. 7 with the configuration of landscapes. The approach recognizes that land-use professionals' work can influence more processes than those of aestheticization and commodification. Teams may look beyond the paired dominance of the sense of vision and economic growth, seeking instead those solutions that also serve diverse ecological and human functions (Palasmaa 2000). Further, design teams may enable the longevity of those functions (including biodiversity protection and enhancement) by revealing, rather than obscuring, the intent of their landscape designs. Of particular interest to design teams, and therefore to this research, are peri-urban environments: settled areas at the expanding edges of cities. Within these complex habitats, a particular tension between ecological function and built form can be found. Yards, gardens, parks, road edges, and recreation spaces form a significant portion of the peri-urban landscape mosaic. This network of green spaces supports many diverse species of flora and fauna (Spirn 1981, Shaefer 1991, Schmid 1996). Significantly, peri-urban open spaces are often ecologically connected to sparsely-inhabited areas beyond the urban fringe: the peri-urban mosaic therefore bridges between picturesque garden landscapes and \"wilderness.\" To the detriment of ecological functions, however, are inherent problems of peri-urban space, such as the prevalence of the automobile and the hegemony of landscape conventions. These problematic factors have led to biodiversity barriers. For example, a disproportionate quantity of blacktop or lawn characterizes peri-urban mosaics. Neither material has habitat value, and both may act as barriers to ecosystem processes (Spirn 1981). By contrast, one can envision that the spatial and material qualities of the mosaic are selected to enhance biodiversity. In turn, peri-urban biodiversity has cultural benefits that directly influence peoples' daily lives. By the very nature 8 of their accessibility, peri-urban biodiversity enhancements are readily implemented, monitored and incorporated into educational and community processes. Since architects are deeply concerned with human culture, and have both historic and current involvement in the design of suburban spaces and edge cities,8 peri-urban biodiversity has particular relevance to \"Architecture, Development, and Ecology.\" To bring a research focus and a geographic immediacy to biodiversity at the city's edge, Garry oak ecosystems— distinctive and habitats found here in British Columbia—are examined. This climax ecosystem, which has the highest plant species diversity of any terrestrial ecosystem in B.C., supports an array of life forms, many of which have disappeared from the region within our lifetimes. Since Garry oak meadow habitats are rapidly disappearing as a result of land-use developments, an overview of land ownership patterns sets the context for how the formerly abundant, 10,000 year old oak meadow ecosystem has so recently become critically imperiled. Land-use patterns are interwoven with cultural attitudes towards the landscape which are unveiled through the brief history of Garry oak meadows found in Chapter one. After examining the landscape patterns and attitudes that led the oak ecosystems from abundance to rarity, a range of remedies is explored in Chapter two. Here, interdisciplinary strategies to ameliorate losses of rare peri-urban ecosystems are discussed. Within these strategies, the role of conservation-based site-scale decisions is postulated. However, the application of site-scale ecological theories are found to be inhibited by a common fracturing of 8 \"Edge city\", a term coined by Joel Garreau (1991) is a spread-out collection of single family detached dwellings surrounded with grass \"that has made America the best-housed civilization the world has ever known\" (Garreau 1991, 4). The political and economic processes of edge cities are discussed in Jonas 1999. 9 research-based and practical knowledges. Closing the schism between disciplines enables essential linkages between the practice of land-use development and ecosystem theory. When research and applications meet in the work of architects, site-scale ecosystems can be designed to enhance regional biodiversity. For example, rare species found on a site that connects to a bioreserve may extend the conservation potential of protected species associations on the bioreserve. As practical support for achieving the goal of biodiversity enhancement, Chapter two closes with a proposal for culturally-acceptable vegetation uses within Garry oak meadow site series.9 The landscape proposal is distilled from Landscape Ecology recommendations, biodiversity requirements and historic transformations of the indigenous landscape. Solutions are presented which involve the conservation or reclamation of essential habitat, while acknowledging the cultural factors that make habitats appealing—and therefore sustainable. Chapters three and four form the empirical research sections of this thesis. In-depth examinations of the actual effects of design decisions on Garry oak meadow ecosystems add immediacy and urgency to the argument for new design criteria and solutions. The case-study sites in these chapters are evaluated against a trio of well-established ecological principles, reorganized by the author as an ARC for measuring ecosystem health. Chapter five expands the ARC—Area, Rare species Representation, and Connectivity—into a series of principles proven by landscape ecologists to be ecologically effective across scales and ecosystem types. The 9 A site series is a piece of ground with the potential to grow a particular type of vegetation (BCCDC 1999). On a given site series, succession is the process of change in the arrangement of plant associations; however it has been noted by scientists that succession is not a straight-line process. The stages of succession vary in rate, may be regressive, and are often interrupted by disturbance - extinction-causing events (Collins and Glenn 1997). 10 principles are illustrated and paired with keyword phrases. This format is intended to assist legibility of the ecological ideas, thereby facilitating their use by design professionals. In this way the research also strives to give architects, landscape architects, and planners the arsenal needed to convince project initiators and users of the importance of ensuring that ecosystem function is integrated with land-use decision-making processes. The conclusions in Chapter six summarize architectural applications for Landscape Ecology, a science that both explains and helps predict the consequences of each design decision on the functioning of ecosystems around us. Following some practical suggestions for integrating ecological principles with each land-use development phase, this chapter presents the peri-urban landscape as an ecological system which is a vital component of global biodiversity. The changes occurring within peri-urban ecosystems can lead to greater ecosystem health if those influencing the change integrate both scientific knowledge and cultural awareness into their decision-making processes. Awareness of the ecological functions of the ecotone between built space and native ecosystems is the first step in seeing ourselves as an integral part of the solutions for greater ecological health. 1.1 Biodiversity and Peri-Urban Plant Associations Biodiversity worldwide is decreasing exponentially (Schaefer 1995, Schmid 1996). The number and variety of living species ecosystems is plummeting, largely in response to rapid changes in land-use and regional development due to a globalized market economy (di Castri and Younes 1996, Kempton and Boster 1996). The implications of biodiversity losses extend beyond the environmental dimension. Since cultural identities, economic diversification, and social adaptation to change are all affected by the interactions among the ecological systems that 11 characterize biodiversity, significant losses in variability among living organisms impact many facets of human development. The ramifications of current patterns of development activity on worldwide biodiversity are great. It is estimated that without human intervention, species would become naturally extinct at a rate of less than one per year; with current land-use practices, species are vanishing worldwide at between four thousand and twenty-seven thousand per year (Kempton and Boster 1996). To reverse these rates of decline, the priorities and practices of development need to be analyzed according to their impacts on biodiversity, and then adapted with scientific input and the on-going monitoring of results (Ussery 1993, Schmid 1996). Within this worldwide problem of biodiversity losses, there is growing interest in protecting the integrity of ecosystems near settled areas. Peri-urban biodiversity—diversity of ecological systems surrounding urban areas—is an imperative component of the larger struggle to reduce biodiversity losses. Diverse plant associations near cities have been shown to contribute to a healthy biosphere (Schmid 1996, Sauer 1998, BCCDC paper 1999), have educational value (di Castri and Younes 1996, Turner 2000), and enhance aesthetic and cultural qualities of settlements. Yet as current forms of land-use development expand beyond the urban periphery, plant associations which rely on characteristic environmental features near cities are becoming rare as the landscape is fragmented. Habitat fragmentation severely impacts both abundance and diversity within those species communities, such as Garry oak meadows, which have their greatest concentrations in and near settled areas (Schmid 1996, Sauer 1998, Roemer 1999). Such landscapes at the margins of 12 urban development (peri-urban areas) at times provide a haven for native floral species which are endemic—that is, found nowhere else but in a given area (Schmid 1996, Sauer 1998). Since British Columbian Garry oak communities are endemic to south Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, both areas favoured by land-use development, landscape fragmentation reduces the only habitat available to these rare plant communities. In these mild lowland areas, warmed by ocean currents and sheltered from the rains that characterize nearby coastlines, human and oak communities vie for space. As with California's now-endangered oaks, British Columbia's oaks are losing the struggle between land for oak meadow and land for roads, structures or non-native landscapes (Pavlik et al 1992, Nosal 1999). 1.2 The Problem: Diminishing Garry Oak Meadows To study the problems of diminishing peri-urban ecosystems, this research focuses on a critically imperiled plant association found only on southeast Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Within this ecosystem, rarity is exemplified: nearly twenty percent of the rare plants in British Columbia are found in the Garry oak meadow (Ceska 1986, Hebda 1993). Diminishing habitat area is also exhibited: it is estimated that between one and five percent of oak meadows found provincially at the beginning of this century still exist today (Hebda 1993, Fleming 1999). Garry oak meadows are a climax vegetation type—that is, the meadows are the oldest vegetation association within the gradual (or sudden, disturbance-related) change from one vegetation association to another on a given site series. Climax vegetation types, such as oak meadows, have the highest species diversity and greatest stability (resistance to disturbance or extinction-causing events) of any plant association. The vegetation of the meadows is rich in complexity and diversity: but this diversity is rapidly diminishing. Over one hundred rare plants are found in 13 this province's oak meadows—more than twenty percent of the rare plants in British Columbia (Ceska 1986, Hebda 1993, Douglas and Straley 1998). Not just colorful flora such as Macoun's meadowform, Hooker's wild onion, and prairie violet, are becoming rare. Many birds, insects, mammals, reptiles and amphibians which depend upon Garry oak meadow for habitat are extirpated, or nearing extinction or extirpation.10 Birds, which were abundant within our lifetimes, that are now extirpated include the western meadowlark, homed lark, Lewis' woodpecker, and vesper sparrow (Erickson 1996, Turner 2000). The Island Marble Butterfly is no longer found, and other butterflies and native bees are seldom seen (Chatwin 1993, Erickson 1999). The alligator lizard, like the once-abundant bulbs and wild strawberries of their sunny meadow habitat, are now scarce. Even where Garry oak meadow habitat has not been removed for land-use development or non-native garden, aggressive non-native invaders such as Scotch broom, orchard grass and starlings have become dominant, thereby reducing the diversity of species. While change is a characteristic of ecosystems, the dramatic rates of change over the last century have reduced a ten thousand-year-old climax ecosystem to a tiny fraction of its former range. To clarify the processes of accelerated change which have decimated the colorful and diverse Garry oak ecosystem, the next section overlays a history of land-use tenure and development patterns of southeast Vancouver Island with facts of the known history of oak vegetation complexes. Importantly, correlation's between vegetation and land ownership patterns may suggest directions for changes to land-use patterns which will enable oak ecosystem declines to be reversed. 1 0 Extirpation occurs when indigenous species, subspecies or varieties are no longer known to exist in the wild within the area of study (in the case of this research, within British Columbia), but exist elsewhere. Extinction indicates species no longer existing (worldwide). 14 1.3 How Did We Get To This Problematic Situation? Landscape Transformations and Peri-Urban Development Patterns in Victoria The past one-and-one-half centuries have entailed changes to land-use and tenure patterns that transformed British Columbia's oak meadows from pre-colonial abundance to current rarity. Across North America, similar attitudes towards the indigenous landscape mosaic influenced nineteenth and twentieth century forms of land-use development. Key ideologies which transformed North American landscapes—the myth of wilderness (Cronon 1996, Sluyter 1999), the rationalization of land-use through commodification (McNeely 1996), and the isolation of biota from its ecological context (Leo Marx 1991, Cronon 1991), can be identified by a brief reconstruction of the history of Garry oak meadows. These three culturally-entrenched ideologies of landscape are shown in this Garry oak history, as elsewhere, to influence the transformation of landscapes (MacCleery 1994, Cronon 1996, Schama 1995, Sluyter 1999); as a corollary, new understandings of landscape can emerge from a disavowal of these paradigms. Captain George Vancouver, writing of southeast Vancouver Island oak meadows in 1792, enthused that \"the landscape is almost as beautiful as the most elegantly furnished pleasure grounds\". 1 1 With an eye for claiming \"whatsoever thing they could find [...] in token of Christian possession\"12 including botanical specimens, Vancouver's surgeon- botanist Archibald Menzies collected meadow plants to send back to England. Categorized according to the Linnean system, the plants collected by Menzies were shown isolated from their ecological and cultural setting. 1 1 Captain George Vancouver 1792, quoted in Vancouver Sun (6 Feb., 1999), Bl . 1 2 Martin Frobisher, \"First Voyage, 1576\", quoted in Mary Alice Downie, And Some Brought Flowers (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), xi. 15 In the words of the eighteenth century explorers, and writers of the subsequent two centuries, Menzies and other European botanists \"discovered\" British Columbia's plants. Indigenous North American biota was not credited with an existence until imbued with meaning by categorization within the Western Scientific system (Marx 1991).13 Captain Vancouver went on to map Vancouver Island's coastal meadows. The sunny, \"curious and beautiful\"14 landscapes afforded relief from the \"impenetrable stretches of pinery\"15 found elsewhere on the British Columbian coast. The island meadows were colonized half a century later by representatives of the Hudsons Bay Company. The Company's chief factor, James Douglas, admired the oak parklands surrounding his selected HBC fort site on James Bay: The place itself appears a perfect Eden in the midst of the dreary wilderness of the North West Coast... one might be pardoned for supposing it had dropped from the clouds. (Douglas 1942, quoted in Segger and Franklin 1996:135) Dropped from the clouds it had not: at that time, the site had a very real function as the locale of a long-established Coast Salish Village. In a brief skirmish, the HBC fired a nine-pound cannon at the Salish chiefs lodge, then dismantled the remains of the village and shipped the structural components of the residences to the less-protected western side of the harbour. The act of occupying space by first rendering it empty or uninhabited, and then incorporating it into a market economy (Marx 1991) is evident in this act of appropriation by the British trade \" For example, parks naturalists /botanical writers C. P. Lyons and Bill Merilees write about pioneer botanists as being lured by \"undiscovered flora\"; William Anderson is said to have made \"The first known collection\" of Northwest American plants; Lewis and Clark are credited with the \"as discovery of 100 species of \"new\" plants. See Trees, Shrubs and Flowers to Know in British Columbian and Washington (Vancouver: Lone Pine Publishing, 1995), 32. 1 4 Paul Kane 1859, Wanderings of an Artist, quoted inDownie 1980, S.V. Camass. 1 5 Archibald Menzies 1792, quoted in CP., Lyons and Bill Merilees 1995, 32. 16 organization. By transforming the site from fully-occupied to uninhabited wilderness, the colonizers precipitated the widely-held cultural invention that the North American landscape, like Eden, was unoccupied until \"discovered\" in its pristine original state by Europeans. Seventy years later, a third cultural invention—the viewing of landscapes as a commodity for consumption—is evident in an advertisement for lots in the newly-subdivided Hudson's Bay Company farm of Uplands: Four hundred and sixty five acres of natural park land. Laid out as a residential district by Mr. John C. Olmstead [sic], prominent landscape architect of Brookline, Mass [...] Excellent investment because values will advance rapidly (Victoria Daily Colonist 2 May 1912, quoted from Foreward 1973:13). These three accounts—by a mapmaker and explorer at the inception of the colonial project, by a future governor of an emerging colony, and by landowners seeking to subdivide and repopulate the land claimed in the name of Western civilization—signify the advance of ideologies of wilderness, ecologically-isolated biota and land commodification. The three accounts also parallel transformations to the southeast Victoria landscape which, by 2000, have nearly eradicated the vegetation complexes which characterized the \"pleasure grounds\" and \"perfect Eden\" of early colonizers. Deeper understandings of the landscape transformations which emerged alongside southeast Vancouver Island's changing cultural and ecological processes are gradually emerging through multi-disciplinary investigations. While there is still much scholarly controversy about impacts of precolonial and colonial processes of change—particularly impacts of First People's burning regimes on forests, colonial agricultural and horticultural systems, and other disturbances to the \"natural\" processes of succession—all signal ongoing, reconfiguration of Garry oak meadows 17 throughout pre-colonial times. Influential British Columbian scientists involved in reconstructing a history of Garry oak meadows, including Hans Roemer and Richard Hebda, recognize that further research is still needed to clarify vegetation and land-use pattern evolution (see Appendix II). While on-going research is vital to the consideration of potential land-use models which differ from those which presently dominate, the same scientists wam that the crisis of plummeting biodiversity demands immediate action. Adaptive management strategies are recommended as a basis for immediate implementation of ecosystem management (Ussery 1993, Dramstad et al 1996, Erickson 1996, Szaro et al 1996). History provides an instructive background to adaptive management strategies. The necessary understanding of causal relationships among historic land-use practices, changing attitudes towards the landscape, and transformations in vegetation structure is informed by historical analysis. In order to focus on the understanding of ecological consequences of current land-use practices on Garry oak meadows, the following account overlays the relationship between past cultural responses to the Vancouver Island landscape with the resulting changes in meadow structure, function and abundance. The history of pre-colonial Garry oak meadow can be reconstructed from pollen records, from oral histories of First Peoples, and from journals kept by early colonizing Europeans.16 Traceable histories of British Columbia's Garry oak meadow began 13,000 years ago, as the receding glaciers left open patches across much of south Vancouver Island. Meadow plants were established over the subsequent 5000 years, and colonizing oaks arrived in these patches 1 6 Richard Hebda and Gregory B. A. Allen, \"Origin and Meadow of the Garry Oak-Meadow System\", Garry Oak Meadow Colloquium 1993: Proceedings (Victoria: Royal B. C. Museum, 1993), 8 -13. 18 about 7,500 years ago. Meadow species assembled in the region at different times and presumably from different sources; this is one of the explanations for the uniqueness of British Columbia's Garry oak meadow, compared with related oak meadows further south (Hebda 1993, Erickson 1996, Roemer 1999). Pollen records are supplemented by comments from early European visitors to the Victoria area, who described much of the region as open oak grasslands with spectacular displays of wildflowers (Douglas 1842). According to early nineteenth century colonizers, the structure and composition of the oak landscape was at least partially maintained by deliberately-set fires, which removed competing Douglas firs and dense shrubbery (Douglas 1823-7, Grant 1857). First Peoples oral histories, and early colonizers' records, indicate that the bulbs and leaves of Garry oak meadows flora were a significant food source for both indigenous people and colonizers. Since wild onion (allium spp.) and camas (Camassia spp.) warded off hunger in times of food shortage, there was incentive for First Peoples to keep the evergreen forest from encroaching upon open meadows (Anderson 1990, Botkin 1990, Ussery 1993, Pyne 1997, Turner 2000). European settlers, however, had other ideas for both land utilization and native plant uses. In 1823, a young botanist named David Douglas was sent to Western North America by the London Horticultural Society, on a mission to collect and preserve botanical subjects and seeds for the purpose of \"disseminating among the gardens of Britain the vegetable treasures of those widely extended and highly diversified countries [of the British Empire].\"17 Douglas spent several years in the area, packing and labeling both plants and seeds for shipping back to London. Douglas David Douglas, quoted in Kruckeberg 1982,6. 19 also included a box of birds and quadrupeds, and First Peoples' handiwork—presumably to also render those specimens a \"meaningful existence\" through European recognition. As vegetable, and other, treasures were being shipped overseas to Britain, some British visitors traveled back to the Pacific Northwest to enjoy the riches offered: gold, land and trans-Atlantic trade. However, British colonizers were not of sufficient numbers to counterbalance waves of American settlers pouring into the area in the 1840's. Both Britain and the Hudson's Bay Company stood to lose Vancouver Island to the burgeoning southern neighbour. Border worries compelled the HBC to hire James Douglas. With his fellow Britons, Douglas constructed a Hudson's Bay Company trade centre and fort adjacent to James Bay Harbour. Self-sufficiency for the new fort necessitated food production. This was enabled by the establishment of two HBC farms, Beckley Farm near James Bay and Uplands Farm in North Oak Bay. More farms were established as potentially profitable enterprises to encourage British immigration and replicate British estate-farm economies (Reksten 1986) (Figure 1). The farms, of between four hundred and one thousand acres in size, were cleared using deliberately-set fires which were of far greater extent than the controlled fires of precolonial peoples (Ussery 1993, Erickson 1993, Dunn 1998). Pastures were created, and sheep and cows introduced. Meanwhile, the human population of southeast Vancouver Island had changed. First Peoples' numbers had been decimated by the colonial wars (Anderson 1990, Slyuter 1999, Arnett 1999).18 The now nearly 1 8 \"Wars of extermination\" (Harris 1997) were part of the cordilleran (North Coast) fur trade, carried out through the first half of the nineteenth century. European assumptions about justice and fair play did not apply to First Peoples (Harris 1997, Arnett 1999). With the establishment of Colonial governments in the mid nineteenth-century, responsibilities for supreme British control passed from the fur traders to the Crown. \"The assumptions and tactics of the [Crown Forces] were (like those) of the fur trade\" (Harris 1997:66). Military troops, including warships, arrived in Esquimalt in 1858, having been ordered by James Douglas. Arnett, in Terror of the Coast, relates the history of wars against British Columbia's First Peoples which continued in the ensuing three decades. Figure 1. Victoria and Esquimalt cl858, showing layout of farms around the Hudson's Bay Company fort (Reksten 1986,23). 2; Pembenon's 1852 town plan formed the basis for residential neighbourhoods like this one. Richard Maynard, one of Victoria's early professional photographers, took this view northeast from Christ Church Cathedral in the early 1870s. The Quadra Street Burying Ground is at right centre. Figure 2. 1870's photograph of a residential neighbourhood in Victoria, looking northeast from Christ Church Cathedra!. The neighbourhood, photographed by Richard Maynard, is based on Pemberton's 1852 town plan. Progressively larger lots can be seen into the distance, reflecting the homeowners' progressively higher class distinction. 22 vacant land gave colonists powerful feedback that their myth of Victoria as pristine, uninhabited Eden had credence. To fill the land, it became important to attract a British population sizeable enough to resist both American and Russian threats to colonial rule. A plan for colonization that reproduced the class divisions of England was desired by the HBC, who in 1851 commissioned Irish-born civil engineer Joseph Pemberton for the task. Pemberton's three-tiered plan for development—town lots, suburban lots and twenty-acre country lots (Figure 2)—echoed class stratification: larger lots meant higher classes. All lot types retained stands of trees, which Pemberton insisted were necessary for both windbreaks and beauty. Beyond the country lots were large farms, designed as an attraction to settlement for the upper classes and their staff, as well as for food production. However, summer droughts and uncomfortable living conditions surprised the British gentlemen farmers, and many farms failed to be profitable (Usseryl993, Humphreys 1999). Prior to cultivation, the settled land contained a combination of deep soil oak meadows (with the largest trees) and shallow soil oak meadows on bedrock. The shallow soil meadows were mostly left intact in these early developments, being less amenable to farming, gardening and construction practices. Deep soils with enhanced fertility due to centuries of ash from fires (Roemer 1993, Erickson 1996) were the first to be ploughed under. Along with town and farm development, other activities undertaken on these \"pleasure grounds\" by British colonizers were to have enormous impact on native biota. Elk were hunted to extinction (Douglas 1823, Ussery 1993); enormous fires continued to create idealized \"empty space\"; sawmills constructed at Millstream (adjacent to Mill Hill Park) clear-cut entire areas of oak, fir and cedar. Having claimed the pleasure ground, the colonizers now converted it to a commodity for economic gain. 23 After the completion of the transnational Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, Victoria attracted newcomers from Britain, Eastern Canada, and the British Colonies of India and Hong Kong, along with continuing migrations from south of the Canadian border. At first, settlement was concentrated near James Bay, where communications and supplies were most available. Beckley farm, adjacent to the townsite, was divided into properties of between two and twenty acres, while small townsite lots proliferated near the HBC fort. By 1888, after streetcars, mail delivery, septic sewers and telephones had been installed across south Vancouver Island from James Bay to Oak Bay, more distant landowners then found themselves able to increase the value of their holdings by subdivision. Estate farms were subdivided into residential lots as waves of immigration continued through to 1914. From 1900 to 1914, the city experienced years of unprecedented residential expansion—the last years of significant growth in Victoria until the mid-1950's (Segger and Franklin 1996). Assisting in this were the professions of architecture and landscape architecture. Among the more permanent newcomers were wealthy British remittance men and their families, who demanded fashionable residences and large gardens. In the nineteenth century, most of Victoria's gardens largely followed the picturesque formula (see footnote 5): the developing city derives its epithet \"more English than the English\" largely from landscape aesthetics19 (Jackson 1991). The picturesque formula can be found in the 1880's Rockland Estate subdivision, and in the High Victorian Beacon Hill Park (Segger and Franklin 1996). Within picturesque landscapes, some pockets of oak meadow remaining on the rock bluffs that crossed the former 1 9 The principles of the English picturesque, including the underlying idea that the owners' eye for beauty proved them to be worthy citizens, influenced North American suburbs through the works of Olmsted and his followers, as well as through the designs of British-trained consultants such as Thomas Mawson and Samual McClure. 24 farmland were retained, largely because the bedrock substrate of remnant oak patches was arduous to remove and unsuitable to fashionable plantings of the era. The surrounding landforms were reshaped, cleared of vegetation, and planted with introduced vegetation designed to enhance the pictorial qualities of the landscape to match nineteenth century British paintings. Later garden subdivisions, influenced by the Arts and Crafts and Garden City movements,20 were designed by internationally recognized landscape architects. Thomas Mawson and Sons (from England) and the Olmsted Brothers (from the United States) were among those who designed new subdivisions for the incoming elite. During the process of subdivision, estates of fertile farmland with rocky outcrops of oak meadow were divided into parcels of valuable residential properties. The shallow soil oak meadows that had remained between swaths of farmland were fragmented by roads and services, and large stretches were removed where the pre-determined subdivision layout conflicted with a natural meadow. Individual large trees were retained, however, as real estate assets. For example, an advertisements of 1912 boasted the new Uplands Subdivision as \"Well treed with maple and oaks\" (Figure 3). Judiciously incorporating selected existing large trees which fit into the preconfigured plan layouts, the subdivision landscape was transformed into formalized gardens, an ultimately American landscape based on English antecedents. Under the design hand of popular architect Samual McLure, whose major landscape influences stemmed from English garden writer Gertrude Jekyll (Segger and Franklin 1996), the Victoria 9ft \"The Garden City movement was closely linked to the Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century\", notes Janna Tyler (1995). Economic, social and moral enhancement of workers' lives was seen to be linked with a physical model of a community of family houses, each in a private garden. Garden suburbs were smaller-scale developments of residential uses; commercial and industrial uses remained in urban areas beyond the suburb. 25 garden was formalized. In ideal upper-class subdivisions, park-like front lawns led to rear yards of fruit orchard, cutting garden, terrace, and tennis court or croquet lawn. One side of the McLure-inspired Victoria garden featured evidence of the owners' international botanical interest: a pocket of oriental, alpine or native plant garden was fashionable. It was within these pockets of native plant garden that remnants of Garry oak meadow found refuge within the suburban matrix. However, the perforation of the meadow landscape by irrigated turf, herbaceous borders, and fruit orchards meant that new oak meadow plants had little chance or space for recruitment of new plants. Further, mature oaks reserved as street trees also had no opportunity for propagation and renewal, making Victoria's streets future ecological graveyards for Garry oak. In 1912, renowned British architectural firm Thomas Mawson and sons was commissioned to design a model suburb for a Garry oak meadow fronting Haro Strait (Figure 4). The new suburb, called Meadlands Estate (unbuilt), possessed gently-curving streets and English country style houses which recalled the spatial aesthetics explored in earlier English suburbs. In his model suburb design, Mawson transferred images of the English countryside onto the expanding perimeter of the young Canadian city. As in his earlier designs for working class villages in England, Meadland's proposed steeply-pitched roofs and prominent chimneys symbolized British estate housing. In selecting these architectural features, Mawson was likely influenced by London's 1875 Garden Suburb at Bedford Park. The curvilinear street patterns of Meadlands were designed in deliberate contrast 2 1 Thomas A. Mawson and sons, \"Meadlands Estate Victoria. Proposed subdivision and model suburb, 1912 (Unpublished photograph, City of Vancouver archives). 26 Selling Began Yesterday-Early Selections Advised \"UPLANDS\" IS NOW OPEN TO PURCHASE Four hundred and sixty five acres of natural park land. Laid out as a residen-tial district by Mr. John C. Olrnstead. prominent landscape architect, of Brookline, Mass. Commanding remark-able views- of sea and mountains., Well treed With maples and oaks. Arranged with an eye to protecting the view from each lot. Governed by reason-able restrictions guaran-teeing high character for all time. Purely residential. No apartments, hotels or commercial buildings of any kind. Excellent investment because values will ad-vance rapidly. Twenty-five minutes from heart of Victoria by street car. Avenues and drives extra wide. All thorough-fares asphalt paved, park-ed spaces at main inter-sections. Boulevard, cement side-walks!, underground wires, ornamental street lights, water, sewerage, public parks and bathing beaches for residents. Practically every lot commands a view of the the sea. SUMIVMMI plan adda lo natural charm. Ataurad datrvaranca from duxt. din and \"drive\" o( commarca. A hotna dntrict In lha hljheit unta of tha tarm. PRICES: $3,000 TO 986,000 PER LOT =TERMS= One-Fifth Cosh, Balance in One, Two, Three and Four Years At 7 Per Cent r U U . INPOUtATTON. M A N AND PMC* L I S T O M APPLICATION ItOTO* ANB SUIDC IUVICB DAILY TSUPMOMI l ( a ROGERS & Co., Ltd. Times Building- -Victoria, B.C. A full -page advertisement that appeared in the Victoria Daily Colonist on May 2, 1912. Figure 3. Plan and Real Estate advertisement for Uplands Subdivision designed in 1908 by the Olmsted Brothers (Forward 1972,12). 27 Figure 4. \"Meadlands Estate, Victoria proposed subdivison, model suburb, Thomas A. Mawson and sons. Famed Architects, 1912\" (City of Vancouver archives photo). 29 with the networks for straight streets found in workers' housing. Meadland's lavishly-planted, winding streets, like those of the Olmsted Brothers' 1908 design for Victoria's Uplands,22 distinguished the suburb from workers' housing, reflected \"principles of adornment and rusticity\",2:> deliberately contrasted with surrounding landscapes, and suited the generous lot sizes which satisfied the subdividing landowner's business prospects. The plan of Meadlands displays a fully reconstructed landscape that recreated nature as a visual complement to Mawson's picturesque housing and roadway layouts.24 Roads of varying widths and configurations were designed to be lined with non-native trees and ornamental shrubbery. Lavish plantings enhancing Mawson's stately home designs replaced many native oaks, and extensive turfgrass, \"one of the greatest charms of an English garden\",25 superceded meadows of wild flowers. As shown in Mawson's sections, trees became aesthetic and functional elements of composition. Trees and shrubbery formed patterns in the turfgrass landscape: no land was left undesigned. The ecological role of trees as keystone species in a meadow was not Mawson's concern. For examples of Olmsted's suburbs see \"The Anglo-American suburb\" 24 and 33. Olmsted's suburbs contain housing forms which are strongly reminiscent of Tudor or Gothic England. For details on Uplands, see C.N. Forward, \"The Immortality of a Fashionable Residential District: the Uplands\" in Residential and Neighbourhood Studies in Victoria (University of Victoria, 1973): 1 -37. Quote from Frederick Law Olmsted, describing his design for Chicago suburb \"Riverside\" constructed in 1869. See \"The Anglo-American suburb\" ed. Robert Stern, Architectural Design 51 (Oct/Nov. 1981): 24. 2 4 Picturesque is defined by Mawson (1901) as the freer, less formal way of grouping housing elements, and the asymmetrical and subtly-grouped landscape elements which complement the \"bold and novel\" (Mawson 1901: viii) housing designs. Picturesque design originated in mid-eighteenth century England, and by the nineteenth century was popular in France, Germany, and America. See Jackson 1991:130-4. 2 5 Thomas Mawson, The Art and Craft of Garden Making (London: Batsford, 1901): 59. 30 Similarly, the half-timbered, steep roofed housing, placed midway between the roadway and the rear of the garden, was composed to reflect a sense of tradition and a connection to Tudor England (Tyner 1997). During the early years of the twentieth century, both the forms of peri-urban settlement and the classic Victoria garden evolved. \"This [1900 to 1914] was a watershed period for Victoria in landscape design\" (Segger and Franklin 1996:135), and the vegetation assemblages which were planted around suburban Victoria residences set a standard for vegetation preferences which are still evident today. A palette of non-native plants materially transformed the former Garry oak meadows into a painterly scene reminiscent of European gardens. Heavily-replanted oak meadow site series within Victoria no longer had sufficient space for survival of diverse indigenous flora and fauna. \"The City of Gardens\"26 erased its perfect Eden in search of vegetation that promised landowners the elite position and aristocratic taste perceived as inherent in picturesque landscapes. Aesthetic preoccupations propagated as part of the services tendered by architects and landscape architects fragmented the Victoria landscape to the point that oak meadows are now imperiled as functional entities. Meanwhile, populations of some meadow species declined; Lobb's buttercup and the golden Indian paintbrush declined rapidly sometime after 1920 (Ceska 1993). Near the same time, populations of species commonly found on the British Isles multiplied in the Victoria area. Particularly populous were importations of Scotch Broom, Gorse and orchard grass. Starlings The \"City of Gardens\" epithet was earned as a result of deliberate efforts of Victoria's city fathers and community groups to beautify the city. In the 1920's the epithet was published in tourist guides to enhance the burgeoning industry. See Segger and Franklin 1996, 134-9. 31 and English sparrows were brought to Victoria on CPR Steamers (Reckston 1986). Incoming bird populations exceeded those of people in an ironic reversal of the 1920's immigration slogan \"Follow the birds to Victoria\", which had been coined as a lure to fill Victoria's extensive post-war residential vacancies. The introduction of 'suitable' (British) fauna was perceived as indispensable to the creation of a picturesque landscape: \"a variety of colour in the fowl is desirable [...] to supply a means of appropriate decoration and pictorial interest\" (FX. Olmsted 1892, quoted in Rybczynski 1999, 398). The importation of non-indigenous fauna further evoked the aesthetic of the English countryside. While good taste and aristocratic ancestry were implied by the presence of British flora and fauna, the imported species wrought extensive ecological damage as they spread uncontrolled across southern Vancouver Island landscapes. By the 1930's the Hudson's Bay Company began to consider new designs to make their land profitable. The HBC hired engineer William Hobbs to lay out suburban housing forms. Like Pemberton thirty years earlier, Hobbs used a gridded street pattern for neighbourhoods in low-income areas. For more luxurious neighbourhoods in proximity to Uplands, Hobb's plan echoed the Olmsteds' curving, picturesque streetscapes (Figure 6). Hobbs selected the form of suburban streets according to class: efficient and orderly grids were applied to less expensive, small-lot subdivisions, while curvilinear streets improved both the aesthetics and the traffic safety (McCann 1999) of costlier large-lot neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood accommodated residents of a relatively homogenous and recognized social standing, but the assemblage of detached-home neighbourhoods provided housing for a wide range of incomes and family status (McCann 1999). 32 Despite design efforts by the HBC, Victoria experienced very little residential expansion from the outbreak of World War I until the mid 1950's. In the 1950's, a revived economy inspired renewed growth. As land-use development resumed and surpassed its pre-1910 pace, a new aesthetic tension awakened in Victoria's built form: historic garden suburbs became neighbors with international style shopping centres, high-rises and freeways (Segger and Franklin 1996). The proposed \"Victoria West, 1990\" from the Overall Plan for the City of Victoria 196527 (not executed) envisions the Western communities converted from then-predominantly oak meadow and single family subdivisions to an urban form inspired by economic revitalization and high speed traffic (Figure 7). The Urban renewal program advocated in this 1965 dream of the future included high-rises, extensive freeways, and little parkland save for a few greenways adjacent to industrial precincts or freeways. In the perspective sketch, sizeable meadow landscapes are nowhere in evidence. The urban renewal scheme for Victoria West was not executed, unlike renewal schemes for neighbourhoods closer to Victoria's central core. For logistical, political and economic reasons, the replacement of \"aesthetically-undesirable\" neighbourhoods near the inner city were the first executed urban renewal experiments. Many executed renewal projects, such as the Rose-Blanchard housing scheme in central Victoria, also proceeded because major roads or highways 1964 amendments to the National Housing Act provided subsidies and loans for provinces or municipalities to acquire and maintain existing housing, and to construct new housing. To obtain Federal aid for the clearance and reconstruction of \"substandard\" neighbourhoods, a renewal scheme had to include \"a plan designating the buildings and works that [were] to be acquired and cleared by the municipality in connection with the scheme\" (Government of Canada, consolidation to 1968). The 1965 perspective of Victoria West is typical of visionary drawings included with the funding applications, showing the \"improved\" accommodation which was to replace \"dilapitated\" neighborhoods. 33 I A Grid, pre-1914 B \"The Uplands\", a residential park by, J.C. Olmsted, 1908 I C Modified grid subdivision, c. 1949 D Modified grid subdivision, c. 1945-51 E Modified neighbourhood unit, c. 1952-62 Figure 6. Types of subdivisions in Victoria laid out between the late nineteenth century and 1962 (McCann 1999, 134). 34 F igure 7. Proposed \"Victoria West 1990\", a futuristic perspective included in the Overall Plan for the City of Victoria 1965 (Segger and Franklin 1996, 123). through the area were deemed both essential and in conflict with existing forms of housing. The renewal schemes failed on a number of levels: for example, \"twenty-five percent of relocated families experienced a decrease in housing quality, and fifteen percent remained in poor quality housing\" (Robertson, 1973, 90). Displaced families were often rehoused far from home, being unable to afford rents or taxes in their gentrified former neighbourhoods. Much higher density accommodation was often the only \"affordable\" solution for marginal-income families. A 1969 35 Federal task force recognized many of these problems, and financial support for further renewal schemes was withdrawn. The last third of the twentieth century saw waves of mainly suburban style development that radiated outward from the urban core near James Bay. The new \"neighbourhood units\"29 evolved within a widely-shared culture which combined consumer capitalism with the expanding influence of \"a new class of brokers (comprising, for example, land-surveyors, engineers, landscape architects, planners, contractors, lawyers, and real estate agents) who specialized in different phases of suburban development\" (McCann 1999, 113). While earlier suburbs had accommodated a range of incomes and social strata, by the latter decades of the century Victoria's newer suburbs (and those of other Canadian cities) benefited mainly the middle and upper income brackets (McCann 1999). The older suburbs farther from the core, such as those in Victoria West, were among the slowest to be redeveloped (Fleming, 1999: see also section 4.0 of this research). Although aerial photographs of Victoria's historic and most recent subdivisions evidence ample open space relative to built form, the open space contains few extensive or connected oak meadows. Remnant meadows in large gardens, such as those at Government House, rapidly became degraded by invasive species from adjacent ornamental gardens. Broom, gorse and turfgrasses often displaced the native understory. Extirpation of insectivorous native fauna also 2 8 Subsequent research, including the 1973 \"Anatomy of a Renewal Scheme\" (Robertson), revealed additional social, cultural and economic flaws in 1960's plans for slum clearance and urban renewal. 2 9 A neighbourhood unit is a term developed by 1920's and 1930's New York planner Clarence Perry, whose arguments against gridiron planning and community cohesiveness were 36 occurred, as habitat size became inhospitable to the animals' spatial needs; the inability of small oak patches to withstand insect infestation has been linked to faunal extirpations (Erickson 1995). Decimation of native insectivorous bird populations which nest in the cavities of the declining numbers of old oaks may also be a factor in the insect infestations which are currently troubling remnant oak meadows. Since the Garry oak is a keystone species (a species which determines the ability of a variety of other species to exist in a community), the diminishing health and numbers of oaks can lead to an extinction cascade (a series of linked extinctions which results in a much-lowered genetic, species and ecological biodiversity- Primack 1995). Although the growing communities of suburban Victoria sometimes included pockets of indigenous plant associations such as the Garry oak meadow, it is notable that twentieth century land-use development processes rarely included deliberate planting of Garry oak plant associations (Kruckeberg 1982). Difficulty of propagating new Garry oaks, combined with aesthetic preference for plantings which complemented historically-derived housing styles, contributed to the dearth of newly planted Garry oaks. Throughout the last century, construction and land-use development have cut down oaks and bulldozed meadows to build new settlements in the prime real-estate areas also favoured by Garry oak plant communities. In these settlements, turfgrass and ornamental plantings based on English garden antecedents continue to be the dominant responses to the landscape. Expansive lawns symbolize both the luxury of the non-productive landscape (Jackson 1991), the neatness indicative of a caring owner (Nassauer 1995, 1998), and the successful marketing strategies of lawnmower companies and garden shops (Jensen 1991). Lawn installation is also inexpensive and rapidly completed; lawn maintenance, resolved in definable residential districts which had clear boundaries, a recognizable centre, and open spaces. Perry's ideas influenced 1950's and 1960's Canadian suburbs. See McCann 1999. 37 by contrast, tends to involve non-sustainable use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pollution-causing mowers, and on-going irrigation. Developers appreciate lawns for their low initial cost, but property owners often find the maintenance chores more costly than indigenous ground covers. Nonetheless the aesthetic preference for mown lawns continues and developers have little economic incentive to provide alternative landscape solutions. On southeast Vancouver Island, broad green (irrigated and fertilized) lawns and imported plantings have had ecological impacts: indigenous meadow plants were displaced from the limited site series to which they are suited, while the hydrological and chemical landscape qualities ceased to be amenable to meadow plants. More than suburban landscapes were influenced by formal or picturesque principles of Romantic garden design. Public parks were also created as landscapes which were sources of health and pleasure, works of art, and enhancers of nearby real-estate values (Jackson 1991, Segger and Franklin 1996). In Victoria, the parks near exclusive residential neighbourhoods were mostly planted with lawn and ornamental plantings, designed to complement nearby private gardens and attract new buyers. Popular throughout the twentieth century, this design strategy was exemplified in Uplands Park (a park added in 1946 to Olmsted's plan as a real estate ploy to assist sales when a deflated economy left the subdivision mostly unsold: Figure 8) and later for both the Parliament Buildings grounds and Confederation Square of 1968. Ironically, pocket parks in gridded working-class neighbourhoods (such as Summit Park) were left as oak meadow (Ussery 1999, author's pers. com.). By contrast, many of Victoria's parks in the more picturesque upper-class neighbourhoods were landscaped according to \"the standards of correctness and good taste\" (Jackson 1991:130), with small pockets of native oak in a sea of Accre t ion of houses by five-year intervals, 1935 to 1945. Figure 8. Uplands Park on land purchased by the municipality of Victoria in 1946 (Forward 1972, 24). 39 mostly exotic ornamental plantings. Because only small patches of oak were retained on public parkland, larger patches of oak associations became increasingly scarce. By 1993, ecological surveys confirmed that the vast majority of Garry oak meadows were and remain on private land (B.C. Round Table 1993). Beginning in 1992 Sensitive Ecosystems Inventories were conducted, proving that natural Vancouver Island oak meadow habitats were rapidly disappearing as a direct result of fragmentation by land-use development and degradation by invasive introduced species. The Saanich peninsula and the municipality of Victoria attracted the most development, and the greatest loss of meadows. The more rugged, less populous Western Communities retained more Garry oak meadow than the more populous southern and eastern areas of the Island.30 However, development pressures on the Western Communities are increasing, and reductions to remnant Garry oak communities are mitigated only by the presence of several protected park areas which were not converted to Romantic-style parkland. (As explained in Section 4.0, the expense of building upon or cultivating the rocky terrain of the Western Communities slowed the conversion of these areas to housing or agriculture). Clearly, new responses to development are needed to avoid degradation and removal of these remaining meadows. Some of these responses are found within municipal governments. The Western Community municipal administrations, while anxious for land-use development revenue (development cost charges) to fund needed road and sewer infrastructures, have recently Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory correlated by Tracy Fleming of CRD Parks, unpublished document dated November 01,1999. 40 become concerned about depletion of oak meadows on private land.31 In the mid 1990's some Western Communities tried to reverse the declines in Garry oak populations by requiring the replacement of Garry oak lost to construction and land-use development.32 To inform the effort, ecologists and native-garden experts were appointed to advisory committees to advise municipal councils concerned with depletion of rare ecological systems. However, while municipalities, ecologists, and native-garden experts were beginning to extol the virtues of the oak meadow, the author's own experience in the Western Community meadows indicates that the aesthetic qualities of the late-summer meadow are not readily-appreciated by project owners and users. Commenting on insect-ridden, scrubby oak and amber-brown grasses of a remnant rocky meadow, one land developer scoffed \"But there's nothing here to save!\" The developer, like many gardeners of the region, found the mostly amber summer meadows uninteresting. For the developer, the effort to conserve the meadow fragment and the lost revenue potential of an area which was neither structure nor garden, made the conservation covenant unappealing. In the mind of the developer, turf and planting would have satisfied his economic (resale) needs better than the strip of oak meadow. Finally, the colourful meadow wildflowers and the new green grasses are only ephemerally apparent, whereas the dominant cultural perceptions of landscape as an ornamental adjunct to architecture necessitated gardens with year-round colour and interest. 3 1 For example, the Town of View Royal, incorporated in 1990, required a new sewer system in 1993-5, and placed a moratorium on development as a way to pressure the Provincial Government to contribute to the infrastructure expense. An agreement was made, but the young town was left needing large sums of money to complete its share of the sewers. For example the 1996 bank development on Admiral's Road and Aldersmith Place was required to plant new Garry oak to replace those lost to development. The meadow understory, however, was not replaced. 41 Rather than incorporating this functional requirement in an ecologically-healthful way (Nassauer 1995, 1999) gardeners, developers and road-building teams continue to introduce non-native invasive species, notably Scotch broom and gorse. Both species quickly displace the native understory, and have been listed along with land-use development itself as major factors in extirpations and extinctions of rare plants (Ussery 1993, Hebda 1999, Roemer 1999).33 Drought-tolerance, longevity, rapid spread along roads and other human-created edges, and the absence of natural controls for broom and gorse have enabled these invaders to replace much native vegetation with thickets which are impenetrable to native animals and unattractive to native and migrating birds (Erickson 1996, Roemer 1999). Removal of broom and gorse, while essential if oak meadows are to resist further degradation, is costly and difficult (Ussery 1993, Dunn 1999).34 In the 1990's, conservation of the oak meadow was brought to public awareness. The Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society, founded in 1992, co-sponsored the 1993 Garry Oak Meadow Colloquium. Newspapers recorded the struggle and eventual triumph to save the meadows on the Elkington Lands from land-use development. In 1999, the First International Garry Oak Symposium included a day of Community Involvement workshops and family events. At these educational events, tours were conducted emphasizing the uniqueness of diverse meadow habitats, the destruction of which have contributed to the recent extirpation of the western bluebird, Lewis' woodpecker and the western meadowlark.35 Symposium attendees of all ages 3 j See also the pamphlet \"Gorse, the spiny competitor\", CRD Newsletter 1999. 3 4 Dunn 1999, 6-9. 3 5 \"Six Municipalities take Part in Opinion Poll\", CRD Newsletter (Nov. 1999): 11. 42 learned about rare and vulnerable (blue-listed) animals found in oak meadows, including the western grey squirrel and numerous prairie-dependent butterflies.35 Educational events, and other community efforts such as the Sea to Sea Greenway project,37 have an important effect on broadening the community-wide understanding of Garry oak meadows. Cultural attitudes towards Garry oak meadow can be seen to change within the group of attendees, as education reinforces new paradigms for landscape appearance. As Joan Nassauer urges: To be successful these new (ecological-protection) strategies should use the persuasive power of public education. The way people think their neighbours think the landscape should look is as important as their individual, more idiosyncratic tastes or knowledge. (Nassauer 1997:72) Historic land use planning and subdivision design have not considered ecological objectives: land has been represented as a means to increase property values by subdivision, rather than as a linked mosaic of ecologically-vital habitats. The patterns of land-use and tenure, which evolved over the past one-and-one-half centuries, have devastated indigenous plant communities which are endemic to the subdivided areas. Subdivision, the land-use development term for the parceling of land into smaller lots, is ecologically translated into fragmentation of rare ecosystems. i b Dunn, 3. Blue-listed species include rare vulnerable taxa in B. C. that \"could become candidates for the red-list in the foreseeable future. \"Red-listed species are candidates for legal designation as endangered and usually occur in endangered or threatened habitats. Definitions from Douglas, Straley and Meidinger 9. 3 7 The sea to sea greenway project envisions linking the Sooke Basin to Saanich Inlet by a series of Green (natural) and blue (semi-natural) spaces. See Figure 52. 43 Land-use development strategies continue to eliminate areas of remaining meadows, according to both ongoing Sensitive Ecosystem Inventories, and ecologists working with Garry oak meadow conservation. New land-use strategies, and new paradigms of landscape to displace myths of wilderness, isolated biota, and land as merely commodity, are needed to reverse the progressive losses of these rare indigenous ecosystems. Since landscape aesthetics both influence the appearance of architecture (Jackson 1991:131) and are partially in response to the form of architectural structures (Mawson 1901 :viii) the architect's aesthetic interests become intertwined with landscape ecological possibilities. Landscapes in peri-urban Victoria have evolved within a consistent cultural perspective which honours the desire for a single family dwelling, the urban edge as a source for land to be bought and sold at a profit, and the role of local government in implementing cultural ideals or preserving long-held values (McCann 1999). Engineers, land-surveyors, planners, landscape architect, architects, and realtors, aided by governments, private organizations, and scientists, have begun efforts to reverse fragmentation and ecosystem losses. The next chapter first looks at some of the solutions that have been proposed worldwide to protect peri-urban biodiversity, then addresses knowledge schisms that impede solution implementation, and finally isolates some site-scale design strategies that influence biodiversity protection. 44 CHAPTER 2: A RANGE OF SOLUTIONS 2.0 Evaluating Existing Methods for Conserving Peri-Urban Ecosystems While efforts are now being made to reverse destruction of rare plant associations by protective legislation, zoning, covenants or bioreserve allocations, efforts to date have not succeeded in the goal of biodiversity protection. Since the rate of decline of rare peri-urban ecosystems has accelerated, not declined over the past decade (Fleming 1999) it is clear that present efforts must be evaluated and expanded upon. One strategy that has received considerable support is the acquisition of remaining ecosystem patches, to be conserved and maintained as bioreserves. This method has some economic advantages: since no amount of money can restore extinct species, and ecosystem conservation is far less costly than restoration (Fleming 1999), purchasing private land for bioreserve seems viable. The reality of bioreserves, however, is that reserved areas within those ecosystems which are endemic to settled areas are rarely adequate to protect rare species. Because land values are high near cities or in fertile valleys, extensive funds would be needed to purchase ecosystem reserves from private owners of peri-urban land. In British Columbia, bioreserves are located predominantly in mountainous or remote regions which presently have limited use for residential subdivision or other land-use development (Parks Canada 1994, Harding and McCallum 1995). Since British Columbia's oak ecosystems are intensely habitable, these rain-shadowed coastal lowlands currently have high property values and very few bioreserves (Figure 9). Further, voluntary retention of ecological systems on private land slated for development is often perceived as reducing the full development potential of those properties (Craighead 1993). As a result, the creation of bioreserves within areas so well suited to many forms of human settlement (cities, agriculture, intensive recreation) requires public or private landowners to either 'sponsor' 45 Figure 9. Land-use categories in Victoria and Esquimalt Districts, 1991 (Schaefer 1995, 308). 46 a bioreserve (often with the assistance of Nature Conservancy Trusts) or forfeit potential real-estate profit (Craighead 1993). Recent bioreserve purchases in the Victoria area confirm that community-based lobbying and support for this type of sponsorship often accompanies a successful agreement between landowner and conservation agency.38 An example of bioreserve sponsorship in British Columbia's oak meadows occurred when B.C. Land Conservancy purchased the Elkington Lands, an oak meadow estate near the northern extreme of the ecosystem range and relatively far from Victoria's urban core (Figure 10, \"Garry oak meadow on Island preserved\" Vancouver Sun 1999). As noted in the 1999 Vancouver Sun article, a community-based effort spurred the acquisition. Closer to Victoria, where land values are higher, there have also been efforts to raise tax dollars for parkland acquisitions (\"Six Municipalities take part in opinion poll\", Figure 11). These are important efforts, but raising adequate funds to purchase pieces of oak meadow is proving difficult. At the present time, the bioreserve spaces which have been conserved within B.C.'s oak meadows comprise only 0.5 percent of the rare meadows which exist. Land-use development conventions and expectations contribute to the difficulty of conserving areas of Garry oak ecosystem, which are within the most developable lands in British Columbia. Sensitive Ecosystem Inventories (SEI)39 undertaken in the 1990's indicated that the greatest percentages of conserved oak ecosystem on Vancouver Island are both farthest from urban 3 8 Two land transactions—the Elkington Lands (purchased in 1999 for 800,000 by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and three community associations) and the Abkhazi Gardens (purchased in 2000 for 1.35 million by The Land Conservancy)—were the culmination of community meetings, numerous published appeals, and lobbies by diverse organizations. 3 9 Sensitive Ecosystem Inventories were initiated in 1992 to systematically identify, map and evaluate ecologically - significant areas in British Columbia. Rare Garry oak meadow on Island preserved 47 STEPHEN HUME VANCOUVER SUN The Garry oak meadow is B.C.'s most rare and endangered ecosystem but a significant remnant was preserved this week in Maple Bay when the Nature Conservancy of Canada purchased 12 hectares for $900,000. \"I'm ecstatic,\" said Barb Stone, the Cowichan Valley res-ident who launched a commu-nity-based effort to raise funds to preserve what's known as the - Elkington Farm. Still occupied by Gerald Elk-ington, who celebrated his 100th birthday earlier this year and is a son of the original homesteader, the farm was con-sidered for subdivision and de-velopment. About 40 minutes drive north of Victoria, the property lies in the midst of a region that has experienced rapid growth over the last decade. Usually comprised of a se-quence of open oak forest and open meadows punctuated by rocky outcrops, the Garry oak ecosystem provides habitat for many wildflowers and rare species of butterflies, insects and small animals. When the Maple Bay site was studied by botanists and biologists they found species on the provincial government's red list for plants and animals threatened with ex-tirpation from their range. Garry oak forests once char-acterized the landscape of southern Vancouver Islandr Sir James Douglas described it as \"a perfect Eden\" when he came ashore to found Fort Victoria for the Hudson's Bay Company. in 1843 and painter Emily Carr wrote about the mesmerizing effect of fields that blazed with blue camas lilies behind the house where she grew up on the edge of what later became the manicured urban gardens of Beacon Hill Park In Victoria. But the very attributes of the ecosystem that made it so beau-tiful also made it the most sought-after land for home sites. Today it's estimated that somewhere between 95 and 99 per cent pf B.C.'s Garry oak , forests have been destroyed. Of what remains, only 0.5 per cent is protected. \"I often walked past the Elk-ington farm and enjoyed the GERALD ELKINGTON Easter lilies, shooting stars and blue camas and, of course, those magnificent oak trees,\" Stone said. \"When I learned that the family might have to sell it to developers I was very, very alarmed. I was also deeply con-cerned about how we could preserve it while making sure the family's interests were pro-tected.\" Starting in 1997, she forged a partnership between a commit-tee of 24 local people with simi-lar concerns, the Cowichan Community Land Trust that provided an office and issued tax receipts for donations and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. \"The Nature Conservancy asked if we could raise $100,000 locally toward the purchase price. We held a walk-a-thon, garage sales, that kind of thing. The community response was overwhelming. Donations — we got large donations, but we got many, many small donations of $25 or $50 from people who often couldn't really afford it. \"Duncan elementary school gave $100. The high school do-nated money and the high school's environment club made a separate donation. And now the big money from gov-ernment and corporations has put us over the top.\" Earlier this week, Shell Cana-da announced a $200,000 con-tribution to the fund, part of $750,000 the oil company will use to boost Nature Conservan-cy projects over the next three years. Ottawa has contributed $100,000 through the Georgia Basin Ecosystem Initiative. R A R E E C O S Y S T E M S A V E D : Part of a Garry oak forest near Maple Bay on Vancouver Island is being Preserved as the Nature Conservancy of Canada has purchased 12 hectares for $900,000. Figure 10. \"Garry oak meadow on Island Preserved\" (Vancouver Sun , 6 Feb., 1999, Bl and B2). 48 S i x M u n i c i p a l i t i e s T a k e P a r t i n n election day, November 20, voters in six , ; ' municipalities will give their opinion on a proposed fund that would help buy parkland '; for the Capital Regional District. Called the Parkland Acquisition Fund, this special fund would enable CRD Parks to expand its parks and trails systems. Six municipalities are asking voters, in an opin-ion poll, if they would accept a tax increase to support the Parkland Acquisition Fund. Victoria, North Saanich and Sidney are asking the ques-tion at the $6.00 per average regional house-hold level. ($2.64 per $100,000 assessed value). Langford is asking the question at $4.50 per average Langford household ($2.64 per $100,000 assessed value). Saanich and the Highlands are asking the question at the $10.00 per average regional household level ($4.40 per $100,000 assessed value). Background Back in August, the CRD Board asked all regional municipalities and electoral areas to put the following question to their voters on November 20— Do you support the imposition of a property value tax at a rate of $2.64 per $100,000 of assessed property value (about $6 per average regional household) for the purpose of estab-lishing a regional parkland acquisition fund? Official results — CRD Parks-parkland acquistion funding question on municipal election ballot In 1998, there were 2.2 million visits to regional parks and trails. Municipality* Yes No Saanich ($10)\" 10,301 (71.2%) 4,174 (28.8%) Highlands ($10)\" 407 (50.9%) 392 (49.1%) North Saanich ($6)\" 2,136 (67.8%) 1,015 (32.2%) Sidney ($6)\" \" 1,324 (59.9%) j§887 (40.1%) Victoria ($6)\" 10,757 (78.9%) 2,884 (21.1%) Langford ($4.50)\"\" 1,400 (62.5%; 840 (37.5%) TOTAL 26,325 (72.1%) 10,192 (27.9%) \"Several municipalities and electoral areas which did not carry out an opinion poll indicated their support for establishment of; a parkland acquisition fund. ** opinion expressed on a S per avg regional household per year. *** represents S6 per avg regional household in Langford. Figure 11. \"Six municipalities take part in opinion poll\" (CRD Parks Newsletter, 1999). 49 centres, and comprised of steep, rocky, barely-buildable terrain. Even if acquisition funds become available, additional strategies are still needed, particularly since conservable oak ecosystems within Capital Regional District's parklands acquisition plan are not contiguous. Isolated patches of oak meadow are more likely to experience extinctions than are patches that are interconnected or within seed dispersal distance from one another (MacArthur and Wilson 1967, Sullivan 1981, Fahrig and Merriam 1993). Greenspace on private lands that are not available for parkland acquisition may therefore help to avoid localized extinctions of rare species on bioreserves. By connecting isolated patches of endangered populations, private-land meadows can provide the important ecosystem function of connectivity. Rare species recolonization (reestablishing young plants in patches where the species is nearing extinction) on bioreserves may rely upon site series on private land for seed source and dispersal. Extending the bioreserve site series so the total habitat is amenable to recruitment of new plants is vital for regional survival of fragmented populations (Fahrig and Merriam 1993). Enabling recolonization between patches of public- and private-use lands requires setting aside landscape elements that are spatially suitable for seed dispersal and plant regeneration. Landowners wishing to contribute part of their land for rare ecosystem retention can benefit from a landscape ecological analysis that determines which parcels are particularly suitable to the inter-patch matrix through which seeds can be dispersed. Private land dedications can be voluntary or legislated. Voluntary dedications can be encouraged by tax incentives, such as waiving or reducing property taxes on land that contains a 50 bioreserve. Tax incentives to ecological donations in Canada are few; there are, however, tax obstacles. For example, the Income Tax Act currently levies Capital Gains taxes on privately held land donated as ecological reserves. Changes to tax-action to encourage setting aside private land as conservation covenant is a strategy recommended by the Nature Conservancy (Vancouver Sun. Feb 6, 1999). Another strategy is the use of conservation covenants, which are registered on the title of the land for perpetuity. Covenants may describe how the vegetation on the parcel is to be protected or maintained, and the operational activities that may occur on the registered area. The problem with many conservation covenants, however, is that the vegetation on the protected land sometimes fails to survive, due to displacement by exotic species or for other reasons. Many of these reasons are predictable using principles of landscape ecology, but covenants are frequently drafted without input from science. Legislation of land dedications can occur when landowners apply to a municipality to change the use or density of their land. This type of dedication is particularly important where remnant plant associations, such as Garry oak meadows, are a vital component of regional biodiversity, and regional extinctions are imminent. Legislated dedications can be perceived as incentives or punishment. The incentive system grants the landowner a development 'bonus'—an advantage that is beyond the outright provisions of zoning bylaws—in exchange for sensitive ecosystem reclamation and/or conservation covenants (Pavlik et al 1992). As with tax-incentive covenants, the description and surrounding uses of the covenant may be vital to the survival of protected plant associations. Legislation which may appear punitive includes bylaws which \"down-zone\" ecologically-sensitive land—that is, the development potential of a parcel is reduced below the normal 51 provisions of municipal bylaws. Ecological devastation has been known to result, as some landowners clamor to remove sensitive ecosystems from their land before down-zoning bylaws can be enacted. (In the author's experiences, forested areas have been clear-cut and streams filled with heavy clay just before subdivision applications are filed, to avoid \"punitive\" stream setbacks and tree protection regulations which would limit the form of development). The underlying principles that rationalize such a response are twofold. Firstly, post World War II escalations in mass production, consumption and human population are connected to the spread of an ideology wherein economic growth is valued more highly than biodiversity (Hironaka 1996). More specifically, \"the narrow and special interest of the commercial subsystem of our society have been elevated to the status of society's basic values, and consumption is overwhelming conservation\" (McNeely 1996:268). The domination of economic processes over all others leads to a variety of unsustainable practices. The converse—sustainable development—depends both upon recognition that people are dependent upon nature, and upon people's knowledgeable management of earth's resources (Campeau 1996). Unfortunately, when sustainable development regulations are seen as confrontational rather than cooperative, a \"brownlash\" or reaction against the legislation is anticipated (Nassauer 1995, Campeau 1996, Nassauer 2000). The second principle underlying rejection of imposed legislative controls relates to our cultural appreciation of property as a private, profitable expression of individualism. Land is seen as a secure investment: \"down-zoning\" threatens the security of that investment, and is likely to be opposed. 52 Ecosystem-protection legislation, which is perceived as non-punitive, must somehow mediate among the hegemony of economic growth, the ideology of possessive individualism,40 and sustainable land uses. One proposal recommended by ecologists is to require landowners that seek zoning amendments to set aside space as park dedication or ecosystem covenant. Erickson (1996) recommends that land-use development parcels allocate between thirty-five to seventy-five percent of site area to ecological conservation space. His recommendation is based on the observation that the more common ten percent open space dedications often nearly vanish due to encroachment of surrounding land uses. Recommended antidotes to observed shrinkage of covenanted open space include instituting a system of buffers (Ussery 1993, Erickson 1996) and controlling the spread and further planting of invasive exotic flora (Dunn 1998, Roemer 1999, Erickson 1999). Like open space dedication requirements, tree bylaws have mixed ecological results. For example, negative bylaws intended to protect mature oaks in California resulted in a decrease in the number of surviving oaks. California's bylaws enforced fines on anyone cutting native oaks over a specified height and girth. Some landowners, unhappy with the prospect of fines and the principle of forcible control over vegetation on private land, responded to the bylaws by cutting down all oaks smaller and younger than bylaw size. Before the law was enforced, some mature oaks were cut down to avoid future fines (Pavlik et al 1992, Nosal 1999). The future of oaks in California was therefore negatively impacted by bylaws that focussed on large trees of the present. It may be deduced from the California experience that bylaws that 4 0 See Duncan and Duncan (1997) for discussion of possessive individualism. The components of the ideology are \"private ownership, democracy among equal individuals, and local control\" (164). 53 levy fines for mature-tree cutting collide with cultural resistance to unwanted control. Bylaws prohibiting removal of trees larger than a specified height and girth also ignore the principle of Conservation Biology that all aspects of a species' life cycle are vital to population dynamics (Ussery 1993). The larger problem indicated by these bylaws is that while many conservation principles are clearly defined in academia, they are poorly-defined and limited in law. By contrast, property values are well-defined and are protected in law (Craighead 1993, McNeely 1996). This imbalance between the legal rights of biological diversity and the legal rights of property owners, leads to a possible conclusion that trees on private property can be uncontestably protected only if the property upon which they grow is owned by a conservation agency, or if the ecologically-sensitive land is otherwise removed from the land bank of developable space. Yet tree bylaw successes are also evident. Bylaws to save Garry oaks enacted in Saanich and Oak Bay have commumty support, and are recognized as having successfully raised public awareness of Garry oak trees' ecological, aesthetic and cultural value. A more recent bylaw drafted in 1999 (but not yet enacted) by the city of Victoria protects seedlings as well as mature oaks (Appendix VII). Community support is not yet evident, but will be necessary, for this bylaw which protects seedlings, saplings or slender oaks. Also missing in all enacted bylaws to date are supportive clauses for the approximately one hundred rare plants of the Garry oak meadow community. Plant communities can be either conserved or restored with community support. This has been demonstrated in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. In this densely populated region, waste areas near cities are being revegetated with a diverse, ecologically-balanced patchwork of native floral species (Miyawaki 1996). The ecologist-led effort relies entirely on community groups— including school children—for soil preparation, planting and maintenance. 54 On this continent, waste sites abound in and near cities. Blighted landscapes \"where human activity or natural catastrophe has visited the land,\" (Kruckeberg 1982:16) are ideal sites for ecologically-valuable plantings of native vegetation complexes. Abandoned industrial land, sanitary land fills, gravel quarries, damaged stream corridors, seaport wastelands, construction site edges, and other abused habitats can be reclaimed as repositories for native plant communities, as an alternative to leaving sites as collectors of non-native weeds. Both public and private sector involvement, as well as community support, are valuable components of revegetation efforts. In this section, numerous strategies that influence peri-urban biodiversity have been summarized: bioreserve acquisition; private land conservation by tax incentive or development bylaws; tree protection bylaws; reclamation of blighted landscapes. Bioreserve acquisition is often the focus of conservation groups such as Nature Conservancies; yet bioreserves alone are inadequate to ensure rare plant community survival. Protected islands of conservation within a rapidly changing landscape are limited in both area and site series type. It is estimated that even with extensive acquisition efforts, the cumulative worldwide area of bioreserves will never exceed ten percent of the earth's area (Heywood 1996). A bioregional approach, which integrates protected areas with their total landscape context, enables biodiversity efforts to extend beyond reserve boundaries (Sullivan 1981, Heywood 1996, Sauer 1998). Community- and site-scale reserves of native species within settled areas are vital components of bioregional conservation (Craighead 1993, Erickson 1996, Heywood 1996). Strategies for designing sites and landscapes to effectively retain rare species habitat have been developed within the science of landscape ecology. It is important to note that ecological strategies are not limited to protected areas. 55 When integrated with community needs, landscape ecology can enhance a variety of land-use categories, particularly in areas where bioreserves are in short supply. It is important that ecological site-scale solutions be communicated to land-use professionals whose decisions may influence retention of rare species communities that are endemic to settled areas. As stated in Chapter one, landscape ecology principles function across scales and landscape types. When merged with social, demographic, legal and other site-specific information, ecological principles used in a design can maintain or improve the biodiversity of a region. Retaining a diverse array of natural habitats has been, correlated with improved carbon dioxide assimilation (Schmid 1996), high educational value (Reduron 1996, Heywood 1996, Schmid 1996), enhanced cultural diversity, and visual and aural amenity (Sullivan 1981, Kempton and Boster 1996). People, not just ecological systems, benefit from an array of indigenous plant communities. Biodiversity can be assisted by the analytical and (partially) predictive systems presented in landscape ecology. At a site scale, the needs of human settlement can be considered alongside habitat values of the site and its surrounds. 2.1 Closing the Schism Between Disciplines While there are some site-scale solutions to problems of habitat fragmentation and species losses which have been verified by landscape ecology, these solutions are not often implemented by those who design and manage land-use development sites (Dramstad et al 1996). For example, ecologists have correlated changes in hydrological patterns with reduction in or extirpation of rare species, yet land-use developments employ both de-watering and irrigation as \"standard\" construction practice. Further, escalation of habitat loss has been correlated with extirpation or 56 extinction of species; meanwhile habitats favoured by rare species communities are being swallowed by growing peri-urban settlement. Ecologist B. Schmid warned in 1996: Peri-urban environments suffer from high human impacts such as pollution and habitat fragmentation [...] Habitat fragmentation in peri-urban environments is often caused by road building, condominium development, and intensive agriculture. [...] Our diagnosis of the problem is severe, because a series of events appears to trigger a vicious cycle of habitat change—reduced biodiversity—disturbed ecosystems—further habitat change— etc. that eventually may even disturb human culture. (Schmid 1996:576) Despite the ongoing habitat fragmentation due to land-use development, and the absence of implementation of known ecological solutions into land-use development processes, several disciplines have begun to convey an awareness of the conflict between the spatial needs of limited-range plant communities, and the demand for peri-urban growth. In 1999, the North American Journal Planning recorded recent efforts by the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) branch of the National Science Foundation to document the ecological health of two American cities. Prior to this, the LTER had concentrated on sites far from habitation. This change in the focus of scientific interest is noted by Mari Jensen: \"For most ecologists, big cities are off limits. Ecological research usually focuses on locations that appear unaltered by human activity [... ] Today, those attitudes are changing.\"41 The interdisciplinary teams working on peri-urban projects for LTER involved planners, ecologists and landscape architects—but no architects. Yet architects are often the team leaders who direct site-planning decisions and set project goals. Architects are also speaking with renewed interest about the integration of landscape with architecture. Two speeches made to architects in 1999—one to the International Congress of Architects in Beijing, and the other to Mari Jensen, \"Ecology Moves Downtown\", Planning (July 1999):4. 57 the Royal Institute of British Architects' award ceremony in London—speak of wedding architecture with landscape strategies: If architecture is an art, a cultural effort, it must be an act of innovation towards the future [...] Perhaps the only possibility open to architects is [...] that architecture should be primarily a consequence of the form of the city and of the landscape, and should participate in the new configuration of these.42 (Bohigas 1999) Few options are available that are truly capable of improving the socio-cultural and ecological character of the average urbanized region [...] one possible [approach] seems to be universally- applicable: the blanket application of landscape strategies.43 (Frampton 1999) This renewed architectural interest in the configuration of landscape as an integral part of architectural form and function needs to be directed towards ecological rather than predominantly aesthetic solutions, if Biodiversity protection is the goal. However, a working knowledge of landscape ecology is rarely part of the architects' (or clients') design arsenal. For example, the problem of diminishing peri-urban plant communities, known by ecologists, is rarely addressed specifically by architects. There are several explanations for architects' and ecologists' differing spatial and conceptual responses to the landscape. Ecologists focus on entire species communities, their interdependency, and their physical environments. Individual-species conservation is a last 4 / Oriol Bohigas, quoted in \"Ten Points for an Urban Methodology\", Architectural Review 1231 (September 1999): 90. 4 3 Kenneth Frampton, speaking to the twentieth Congress of the International Union of Architects (UIA) in Beijing, as quoted in \"View\", Architectural Review 1230 (August 1999): 16. Frampton also stressed the importance of society's understanding and acceptance of \"environmental design\". 58 resort, recommended by ecologists only for the rarest of species.44 These scientists also work over an extended temporal term: three years of data collection is considered a relatively brief ecological survey. Architectural teams, by contrast, work with land surveys that are usually produced in days or weeks. Land surveys typically show topography, and trees with chest-high diameters of six inches or greater. With land surveys as their site-planning tools, architects usually focus their conservation efforts on individual trees (Craighead 1993). Further, duration of the site-planning phase of an architectural project is generally weeks to months, and rarely exceeds one year. Different data collection methods (Geographic Information System mapping for ecologists, land surveys for architects), different data shown on the maps (species communities for ecologists, trees and topographic changes for architects), and different time frames (years for ecologists, weeks or months for architects) lead, not surprisingly, to contrasting awareness of, and response to, the problems of species losses due to land-use development within rare ecosystems. There is an apparent schism between ecological processes recommending conservation of rare species communities, and existing conservation efforts within land-use development processes, including architectural efforts at conservation. 2.2 Bioregional Diversity and Site-scale Solutions In this chapter, the importance of biodiversity, and the threats of biodiversity losses in our own province, have been emphasized. As one remedy, communication among scientific (ecological) disciplines, land-use professionals, and those who commission and use the professional services K. D. Rothley, \"Designing Bioreserve networks to satisfy multiple, conflicting demands\", Ecological Applications 9 (August 1999): 743. 59 of architects is recommended in the effort to reverse habitat fragmentation which has resulted from speculative commodification, ecologically-unhealthy aesthetic preferences, and subdivision of landscapes. To be effective, ecological principles must be organized in such a way that they can become structural, intrinsic knowledge for land-use professionals, while decisions made by land-use professionals require correlation with their ecological results. Architectural teams can assist ecologists to design ecologically healthful solutions in a culturally acceptable way so people will recognize them and maintain them appropriately (Nassauer 1995,1999; Sauer 1998). Methods of establishing three-way communications among landscape ecologists, architectural teams, and project users are initiated in this research. Communication strategies are derived from case-study evaluations of six architectural sites, and from published ecological principles. Together, these research sources are used to explain, and illustrate, impacts of land-use decisions on ecological processes of adjacent and on-site plant communities. In providing illustrated remedies for these impacts, it is recognized that architects tend to speak of landscape as something other than ecological processes: a range of cultural and functional roles are played by landscape in architects' work. The multifarious cultural roles of landscape include reflecting the owners' standard of care (Nassauer 1995), encoding meaning of order and power (Hunt 1991), and evoking a philosophical link between nature and architecture (Frampton 1991). It is argued here that nature and architecture can also be functionally linked, by bringing a working understanding of ecological principles into architects' realm of knowledge. Ecological principles, when merged functionally and culturally with architectural form, allow new linkages among cultural attitudes to landscape, common landscape practices, land-use decisions, and landscape ecology research. 60 Ecological links to land-use development apply to decisions made during pre-design, design and documentation, construction, and occupancy. Ecological principles also apply across scales, from the smallest site to a regional landscape (Dramstad et al 1996, Sauer 1998). This research emphasizes the importance of the timely integration of land-use decisions with ecology, to affect a reversal of environmental declines leading to extinctions and biodiversity losses. 2.3 Garry Oak Meadows and the Orderly Frame: Native and Exotic Plant Uses Garry oak meadows are a vital part of British Columbia's ecological health. Biodiversity is enhanced: numerous rare birds and butterflies are uniquely suited to Garry oak landscapes. Restoration of mature oak meadows offers potential for successful reintroductions of western bluebirds, and other extirpated native species. These reintroductions have significance to cultural as well as ecological health, as shown in anthropological research demonstrating that songbirds are among the most culturally-valued natural amenities found near cities (Kempton et al 1996). If rare fauna, including songbirds, are to be saved from extinction, it is important to understand the role of native plants in the ecological food web. For example, many geophytes (with bulbous or corm forming root systems) have prominent flowers which are an important early nectar source for birds and migrating butterflies (Johnson 1999). Garry oak meadows in British Columbia boast an unusual diversity of geophytes, in combinations found nowhere else in the world (Roemer 1993, 1999). Depletion of these floral species parallels depletion of rare and colourful fauna. Both flora and fauna are ecologically and culturally valued: both are at risk. The meadows also have historical-cultural significance to both indigenous and immigrating populations, as demonstrated earlier in this chapter. Yet unmitigated planting of native species in favour of any exotic species (biota with origins elsewhere in the world) is not always 61 culturally appreciated (Nassauer 1999). Further, plant species, like people, migrate \"naturally\" from one continent to another: glaciers, for example, distributed several species in a circumpolar ring from Russia to Baffin Island. Advocates of \"natural landscaping\" would need to research many millennia of history to find which plants are truly \"native\", only to find that this is not a useful exercise: being good environmental stewards does not imply total rejection of any environmental change which may have occurred since deglaciation. This thesis proposes that there is a place for both exotic and native plants, within the overall project of conserving ecosystems that have ecological and cultural value. Non-invasive exotic plants, carefully used, can help naturalized landscapes to look colourful, neat and orderly. For example, non-native, large flowered plants can be used to form a colourful frame around a native ecosystem (Nassauer 1999). Exotic plants in this application, however, need to be carefully screened for hydrological compatibility with native species, as well as for non-invasive properties. (For example, many Victoria gardens are still being planted with a reputedly \"sterile\" variety of broom: however, the new variety is more difficult to control than the original broom, and is proving extremely destructive to oak meadows in nearly parks and private landscapes). There are other instances where native plant communities, such as oak meadows, offer obvious aesthetic, ecological and cultural improvement over standard revegetating practices such as sodded or hydroseeded grasses. In residential areas where native plants and plant communities are rare or endangered, \"backyard stewardship\" replenishes and conserves pockets of rare species (Hebda 1993, \"Plants in Peril\" 2000) (Figure 12). Suburban homesites and neglected rural woodlands are enhanced by judicious retention and addition of native plants (Figure 13). 62 11. 13. fol lii&ljao We \"have.3Z wilfnw heefs«xr or rack ' cvou) Species rVciervsbon ...JJo/neaJows vJere set aside •for- protection. One ef*f>e n'cr>«s+\"l wasf-Jiverre pla rrf\" cojwwvni-feier in t?C ir du© -fc exit a? end &e»-i{i/vy-. fOFtMEZ. G A R R Y O A K •fc,_^--*i ^ H A S / T A T urban e n v e l o p m e n t Ecologists <3it? a si/rvey-to d«tcrv*iir>e wha+- was Tetr. t7 14. SncTOak Sayhpv^ icv appea'OJTcc.. 4-. Not rWYoducioj-rT. ^ rone-tD trvrect infertsLtcrf-ir. Af&jJrelics will he Ie-fr. 15. Biodiversity begins in -ytrur be ckyaird. 16. 3. Convert all ovpa^of vouv garden-fo g3\"Y odk- rviea