Report Memorandum

The proposed project is the construction of a ski resort in the Garabaldi Squamish region of British Columbia Canada. The proposed area is demarcated in the finished map (ProjectBoundary). My involvement in the project was to take the data available in regards to protected areas in the project area and show how much of the project area falls under protected status. Be it old growth forest, riparian buffers, ungulate winter ranges or red-listed species habitat.

During the analysis the data was collected from provincial databases which showed the areas protected for the entire province.

-Data was checked for map projections and all data was projected in the same manner.
-All data was clipped to the project area (so only areas within the project area shown)

-Elevation was divided between upper and lower elevations (below 555m)
-Streams and rivers were buffered by provincial standards for riparian areas. 50m for upper elevations and 100m for lower elevations.
-Red listed plant species habitats were selected and shown on the map.
-All protected areas were combined to show total protected area.
-All lower elevations were displayed using a crosshatched overlay on the map.
-Total areas for each protected area were calculated as a percent of total project area, both individually and combined.

In general I found 6.79% of area is protected old growth forest, 7.89% ungulate winter range, 24.8% red-listed species, and 30.13% riparian buffers. In total 55.4% of the project area is protected. Of the total project area 30.13% is below 555m in elevation.

In my opinion the two greatest environmental concerns are the riparian buffer zones and the red-listed species habitat. To mitigate impacts to these areas I would suggest building the resort on the upper elevations where red-listed species are not as prevalent and the riparian zones are fewer. Also using pre-existing road networks as much as possible during construction of the resort and during its operation could help mitigate the impacts as well.

I personally feel that this project should not go ahead with construction. I believe that since protected areas make up more than fifty percent of the project area any construction would have too large of an environmental impact.  In the memo I wrote did not recommend that the project should go ahead or not. I only wrote what could be done to potentially mitigate any impacts. I believe however that this project should not go ahead.