From the Eco-Research Project: “In March of 1993 the University of British Columbia was awarded an Eco-Research Grant of $2.4 million by the Tri-Council secretariat. The Eco-Research Program was established with funds from the Federal Government’s Green Plan to stimulate broad interdisciplinary research on regional ecosystems. The program has three major objectives: 1) to foster interdisciplinary research on regional ecosystems that integrates natural, social and medical science; 2) to foster research that is relevant to sustainable development policy; and 3) to train students in interdisciplinary research techniques.”

The results of the study were published in 1997. The study concluded that the rapidly growing urban environment would overwhelm the natural resource base. As indicators of serious environmental decline, it noted high nitrogen pollution in groundwaters and the presence of visible abnormalities in more than 90 percent of the fish samples taken from the Fraser River. As many as 50 streams in the greater Vancouver area that had once supported runs of Pacific salmon had been turned into storm sewers. Many of the remaining streams were being degraded because of pollution from automobiles, agriculture, and other sources. At the time, the population level in the area was considered three times above the sustainable level. When the report was released, principal investigator Michael Healey said:

“The lower Fraser basin exemplifies all the social, environmental, and economic problems of modern industrial nations. These problems are not going away and it is high time that we faced up to them.”

Of course, we have done no such thing. Vancouver is Canada’s second largest city and one of its most rapidly growing cities. There is no reason to think that the problems outlined in the Healey report have vanished or indeed have not become worse. Yet when Tim Murray, a resident and population activist on Quadra Island, BC, asked a Member of the Provincial Parliament of BC about the concerns raised in the report some two decades after its publication, he was informed that it was out of date. A prime example of how politicians avoid addressing the environmental impact of mass immigration and population growth!

The PDFs below were created from information accessed at the link.

https://web.archive.org/web/19971009094216/http:/www.ire.ubc.ca/ecoresearch/