The value of ecosystem services in British Columbia's parks and protected areas

BC Parks manages the third largest parks system in North America and the sixth largest in the world. The BC Parks network includes 1,036 unique protected areas comprising 14.1 million hectares of natural land in British Columbia (BC). These areas are protected by the provincial government of BC and include a variety of protected parks, conservancies, ecological reserves, protected areas, and recreation areas. Although direct economic impacts have been estimated for BC Parks, the natural capital within their portfolio produces a variety of other direct and indirect benefits, more commonly known as ecosystem services. This study estimates the value of ecosystem services stemming from BC’s parks and protected areas to be approximately $132 billion per year, or $3.77 trillion in total current value. The benefit transfer method was used to estimate the value within each unique area and incorporated mean global values for ecosystem services from the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD). Land cover raster data was supplied by the Government of Canada while BC Parks provided geospatial shapefiles representing the borders of the protected areas within their jurisdiction. This study is intended on serving as a first step in estimating the value of ecosystem services in BC’s parks and protected areas, with hopes of raising public awareness regarding the immense benefits that natural capital provides to societies. Translating their benefits into this monetary figure also helps contextualize their contributions and assist decision-makers in managing these areas.