WTA Issues and Projects

Like any investor, nature based tourism operators require certainty before investing in and developing a tourism product or service. Nature based tourism operators, operating on B.C.s crown land, have less security than do other resource-dependent industries. To realize investment and growth potential in nature-based tourism, the sector requires secure access to the land base and resources, and long-term tenure with associated rights.  A tenuring system also needs to be efficient and affordable and supported by enabling public policies.  

Tenure Taking and Compensation - this issue relates specifically to the way in which government makes decisions that may result in “takings” to our tenured bundles of rights, and the way in which our operators are compensated – or not – if/when these takings occur. Currently, most government tenure documents allow termination at the government’s discretion. Few of these documents offer compensation for losses. This situation decreases contract security and certainty, reduces the likelihood that tenure operators will invest further in their business, creates barriers for the selling of businesses, and decreases the willingness of lending institutions to finance such operations.

Tenure (Crown Land and Park Use Permit) adjudication and allocation - while we have made some progress in this area with the Adventure Tourism (AT) tenure policy and Parks Act, and the move towards harmonizing the two, their remains some key issues to address. We still need pricing updates or changes, especially in some specific sectors, to remain competitive. Operators are also experiencing issues with respect to inconsistent tenure renewal terms. We need a fair, rules-based system for tenuring, but not one which is overly complicated and burdensome.

Remote Land Sales - We are also interested in government continuing to look at the option of Remote Land Sales.

Tenure Security Update - In the Spring of 2011 Minister Bell (Jobs, Tourism and Innovation) announced that the liberal government understood the issues around tenure security and its importance to over-all business security, and that they were prepared to move forward with appropriate legislation. "We need a clearly articulated compensation regime that allows operators a level of security," said Minister Bell.  "If a tourism operator needs to go to the bank and finance their activities, or if they were to acquire a tenure from another operator they can do so having confidence in the tenure and the ability to be appropriately compensated for it." Click here to read the full press release regarding this announcement.  Minister Bell committed to consulting with tourism stakeholders and other land based industry sectors over the next couple of months with the view of developing a single package of legislation to take forward to the legislature. Since this announcement we have met with staff in both the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, and Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation to make progress on this issue.  This is a complicated file, which will take some time to address. 

Forestry

Despite the various planning processes the controversy between forest harvesting and maintaining wilderness characteristics remains a major provincial and regional issue. The impact of timber harvesting on wilderness characteristics on which tourism depends has been severe in some locations around the province.

The mountain pine beetle epidemic is another significant concern for the B.C. tourism industry. Access to the interior regions of the province to harvest MPB damaged forests now and in the future continues to require careful, often site specific management to minimize conflict with competing land and water use interests, this would include both during and after forest harvesting activity. Measures should be taken to ensure that areas particularly valuable to the tourism industry are managed in light of extensive pine beetle salvage logging. In addition alternative harvesting methods and incentives should be utilized to the extent practicable in order to focus harvesting on beetle-impacted trees.

Tourism property owners and tenure holders should have available to them requirements and supports that promote fair and effective consultation and cooperation with forest licensees operating within or adjacent to their areas of operation. Tourism operators should be automatically notified when harvesting plans are being prepared, and forest licensees should be responsible for taking the interests of tourism operators into consideration when developing harvesting plans. This should include such considerations as access road development & deactivation, harvesting timelines, as well as how licensees will manage such tourism attributes as trails, viewscapes, and other site-specific amenities supporting tourism.

In high value tourism areas timber harvesting must be done in a manner that is sensitive to the need to provide an enjoyable experience to tourism clientele with very differing backgrounds and interests. In some high value tourism areas the potential impact of resource use on the tourism experience or the associated impact on a wilderness lodge site may mean no resource activity or it may mean extraction only under very specific conditions.

Energy and Mining

The impact of mining and oil and gas development on wilderness characteristics and ecosystems on which tourism depends is a major concern. In some locations around the province these impacts can be quite severe. Mining and Oil and Gas development can provide economic stimulus and support for communities throughout BC, but it needs to be done sustainably, with minimal impact on ecosystems and with consideration to other important land uses like wilderness tourism.

Similar to Forestry, tourism property owners and tenure holders should have available to them requirements and supports that promote fair and effective consultation and cooperation with mining and energy licensees operating within or adjacent to their areas of operation. Tourism operators should be automatically notified when exploration and development plans are being prepared, and mining and energy licensees should be responsible for taking the interests of tourism operators into consideration when developing these plans. This should include such considerations as access road development & deactivation, exploration and development timelines, tailings and by-product management, as well as how licensees will manage such tourism attributes as trails, viewscapes, and other site-specific amenities supporting tourism.

In high value tourism areas exploration and development activity must be done in a manner that is sensitive to the need to provide an enjoyable experience to tourism clientele with very differing backgrounds and interests. In some high value tourism areas the potential impact of resource use on the tourism experience or the associated impact on a wilderness lodge site may mean no resource activity or it may mean development only under very specific conditions.

Land Use Planning

In broad terms the goal of multiple use is to provide the optimum blend of uses from an area of land. This could mean that all uses would be sought on every small unit of land. Or, it could mean that different tracts would be zoned for different primary uses so that the larger area is managed for all feasible uses.

The first approach is difficult because many activities desired on the land base are incompatible. The second approach is more practical and has been taken, to a large extent in the national Forests of the United States. For example there are areas where logging is the prime use and other areas where wilderness preservation is primary. Many of the wilderness areas within National Forests are larger than a million acres, and they include substantial forested areas.

The approach taken in BC is closer to the first. There is little room for designation of wilderness areas or consideration of wilderness tourism related values. The only areas reserved from logging for example are provincial parks, areas mostly without merchantable timber (glaciers and snowfields, rock and tundra, alpine slopes) and some areas that are deemed “environmentally sensitive”. The prime use in the rest of the land still seems to be logging or mining of undersurface resources. Any other activity can take place as long as these activities have priority and aren’t unduly interfered with. This approach seems little different from the business as usual scenario the tourism industry was faced with before the land use planning processes.

Government claims that the pressures on land for economic development in British Columbia are intense, and so they are unsupportive of sizeable wilderness areas for tourism and recreation. The pressure though is based on faulty economics and a misunderstanding of the tourism industry. There is still a need for a dramatic increase in understanding of the sustainability requirements necessary for the various wilderness tourism products by government and all other land and water users.

Those land use plans that do have objectives (legal and non-legal) for tourism values, landscapes and viewscapes (VQOs), etc. need to be fully implemented and complied with. Those land use plans do not have such objectives that support tourism viability and sustainability need to be revisited. We also need to update our land use planning processes and associated regulatory processes to address issues like IPPs and increased recreation conflicts.

Land Use Planning Update - Minister Bell (Jobs, Tourism and Innovation) has committed to work collaboratively with the tourism industry to develop land use strategies that can address conflicts, such as the interaction between heliskiing and snowmobiling in the backcountry.  Bell also committed that his Ministry would be a strong advocate for the tourism industry and our collective interests. The WTA will be working with the appropriate government ministries to try and advance these commitments.

The WTA has worked for several years to bring the important issue of salmon farming to the attention of both levels of government in order to prevent a catastrophic decline in wild salmon and the corresponding impacts on BC’s nature-based tourism industry. The concern has be heightened greatly with the discovery that the number of sockeye returning from the ocean to the Fraser River in 2009 was one of the lowest in the past 50 and followed two years of dangerously low returns. Many salmon runs besides Fraser sockeye are also endangered, while others have disappeared altogether.

Wild salmon have been heavily fished over the years, much of their spawning habitat in rivers and lakes has and is being destroyed, their survival is threatened by warming oceans and rivers due to climate change, and they are being impacted by sea lice and diseases from open-net salmon farms. Even though we may not be able to link an exact cause to every salmon population decline (though there is considerable research suggesting causal links), we do know some of the major threats, and some of these threats like open-net salmon farms we can manage to minimize their impact.

Specifically, we need to change the way salmon farming is practiced to remove the impacts of sea lice and disease by creating a thriving closed-containment industry that separates farmed fish from wild. Fortunately, commercial-scale trials of closed-containment salmon farms are underway off the east coast of Vancouver Island and at other sites around the world. We hope that the whole salmon farming industry will move to closed containment as soon as possible. In the meantime we must take precautionary actions to curtail current activities that we know harm salmon including removal of open net salmon farms from wild salmon migration routes. Freshwater habitat needs to be conserved and/or rebuilt, and the destruction of streamside vegetation from logging and other activities should be stopped. We must also take a serious look at the destructive practices of converting fish-bearing lakes to mine-tailings ponds.

The collapse of wild pacific salmon would be devastating to BC’s economy from the impacts to sport and commercial fishing, and tourism, and those that depend on salmon for food. Salmon are also essential to the healthy functioning of ecosystems and in maintaining carbon sinks. Wild salmon needs to be protected. Now is the time to allocate resources to the Wild Salmon Policy and put it to work as the Province hands over responsibility for tidal finfish aquaculture including salmon farming to the Federal government. The DFO also needs to put some teeth in its new finfish aquaculture regulations. We must also invest more funding in closed containment technology and science to understand the exact details of the impacts to wild salmon.

WTA Aquaculture Principals

1. The WTA supports the precautionary principle in resource management and asks for a moratorium on the expansion of open net caged fin fish aquaculture on the coast of BC until peer reviewed science shows minimal or no impact on wild fish stocks;
2. The WTA agrees there is no other option but to close or fallow the salmon farms (located) on migratory routes such as in the Broughton Archipelago or Discovery Islands; and,
3. The WTA is confident the aquaculture and wilderness tourism industries can co-exist and flourish, provided both are operated in a sustainable manner. Therefore we urge the Province, the government of Canada and the industry to commit to a program exploring emergent closed containment technologies and work with First Nations and stakeholders in selecting the most ecologically and economically viable model for a full-scale operational trial.

Lice infestation affecting wild salmon populations on the BC coast

How? Wild adult salmon are clad in scales and so the naturally occurring parasitic sea lice do not harm them. Sea lice carried inshore on spawning adult salmon die in freshwater and this protects the young salmon that enter seawater the next spring. Fish farms upset this balance, by supporting lice infestations on salmon held in pens near salmon rivers.

Click here to view a comprehensive diagram/explanation about sea lice and salmon.

Tourism operators have experienced a general trend in the overall nature and extent of tax shifts in recent years (e.g. the changes in the cost structures of tourism businesses associated with government-levied taxes and/or fees - i.e. property taxes, tenure pricing) where there is a degree of tourism-related taxation unfairness and/or imbalance.  In some certain regions this situation has escalated at an unprecedented rate.  One of the most pressing tax areas is property tax and the assessed value of tourism properties.  This issue has been compounded with the introduction of the HST.  Tourism services where previously exempt from PST, but with the HST have experienced a 7% increase with input tax credits only accounting for a portion of this increase (see HST below).

With our industry partners, the WTA is working towards taxation relief for the nature based tourism sector. 

Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)

The impact (negative of positive) of the HST on the nature based tourism industry is somewhat complicated and differs through out our sector.  In 2010 the WTA conducted a theoretical analysis of the HST impact and calculated that on average our sector would see a net impact (increase) of 3.95% (or 4%) in moving from the PST/GST to the HST, after input tax credits (ITCs) were accounted for.  To date we do not have any specific information or analysis on how this increase has had a direct negative impact on tour sales (with several variables impacting the industry in recent times), but we can speculate from anecdotal evidence that such an impact is present at least in some sub-sectors.

This impact needs to be weighed against things like the rate of HST (12% or 10%), whether a company or sector can claim Visitor Rebates through the Federal government's Foreign Convention and Tour Incentive Program (FCTIP), how much in specific ITCs a company can claim depending on its business expense profile, and the efficiencies of a single value added tax (VAT) system.  As an industry it would also be prudent to look at the impacts of HST to the overall economy and consumer confidence/spending.

The best outcome for the tourism industry would likely be a HST system with a full functioning visitor rebate program and enhanced ITCs for things like labour.  Prior to the recent BC HST referendum, the WTA was working towards meaningful mitigation that reduced the negative impact of the new tax on the tourism industry.  With the referendum now complete and it looking like BC will return to a PST system our work on the HST will need to refocus.  For now Premier Clark has said that services previously exempt from PST (i.e. tourism services) will continue to be exempt from PST in the future, under a new act.  There was no doubt that going back to a PST system where tourism services might be included and where ITCs wouldn't be available would have been the worst outcome.  We are told that it could take up to 18 months to implement a new PST system. 

WTA is working with industry partners to develop an effective and independent provincial destination marketing organization (PDMO) for BC to replace the Tourism BC organization that was absorbed back into government.  To be successful, such an organization would require the following elements:

1. The need to be independent from government (i.e. incorporated as a not-for-profit organization under the Societies Act), and with industry governance based upon a clear set of skills developed by the industry.
2. The need to be funded, based upon a legislated formula, linked to a guaranteed future flow of cash (i.e. from any future tax system), thereby creating certainty around long term funding at the provincial, regional, and community level.
3. The need to be accountable to the Legislature, with a Dispute Resolution Agreement with government, in the event of any dispute in the operations or governance of the organization.
4. The need to lead a process of brand integration, co-operation and alignment of all related BC tourism marketing and management agencies while safeguarding the independence, flexibility, and creativity of these agencies.
5. The need to be work in a cooperative and collective manner with all BC tourism industry stakeholders and to promote marketing best practices at all levels of the system in order to enhance overall effectiveness and innovation in the system.

The tourism industry needs every effort to re-establish the best tourism marketing system possible. We will continue our work on this key industry issue.

PDMO Task Force

An industry Task Force has now been set up by TIABC and has been working on the development of a new PDMO.  Recently, the WTA participated in an Industry Engagement Session with Task Force representatives to review work and recommendations to date including draft principles, and provide our input.  We are generally very pleased with what the Task Force has done to date.  The WTA provided support for the process with some conditions.  For more information on the PDMO process and WTA's input please contact Evan Loveless at evan@wilderness-tourism.bc.ca.

The WTA represents one of the greenest tourism sectors in the world by advancing sustainable operating practices, investing in environmental stewardship, and working towards a triple bottom line.  Our members fully understand the importance of maintaining a high quality environment to their success, and are developing environmental policies to reduce impacts on the environment. They also make a connection between tourism’s economic contribution and the importance of redirecting some of that benefit directly to stewardship and conservation of the environment so that both can be sustained.

WTA members are donating financial resources, time, talent and economic patronage to protect and positively impact the environments they use and visit.  They invest in real, “on the ground” stewardship and habitat conservation projects.  Examples of projects include: the restoration of salmon spawning streams, research on the impacts of sea lice from fish farms on juvenile wild salmon, identifying and preserving bear habitats, identifying and preserving mountain goat populations and trail maintenance projects.


In 2005 the WTA entered into a protocol with the BC Ministry of Environment regarding shared environmental stewardship principles.  This protocol formalized a commit to develop a government/industry partnership that shared the responsibility for stewardship of the environment with the two parties who share similar stewardship interests including:

Click here for a copy of this protocol.

WTA members are also leaders in green tourism certification.  WTA is helping develop a sustainable tourism certification program with Green Tourism Canada (a subsidiary of Green Tourism Business Scheme in the UK).  WTA members rated the highest in the BC certification pilots conducted last year with many attaining a gold standard certification in the launch of Green Tourism Canada .

For more information on Stewardship issues and projects please visit our Wilderness Stewardship page.