Riparian Areas 

A riparian area, home to willows, shrubs and deciduous trees, is the area between the water, be it a river, lake or creek, and the dense forests at higher elevations. This zone naturally floods during snowmelt or rain events. The plants that make up a riparian area are water tolerant making them able to survive flooding by storing water, which in turn reduces the stream’s energy flow. This flood resistance helps stabilize the banks  with roots that  hold the soil together. The rich moist soils here also create habitat for many plants and animals here  and in the aquatic area next to it. This zone keeps the thick forests safe from the flooding and erosion that causes many felled trees in the river. 

Unfortunately, human constraints and development have disrupted these processes. When the riparian area isn’t there flooding erodes the bank making the river more curled. The lack of a riparian area also reduces shade increasing water temperatures. The plants in the riparian areas help clean and filter the runoff water before it enters the stream, and effective riparian areas remove a majority of pesticides or pollutants from surface runoff. Riparian areas also store flood water, releasing it in the low season so the overall water table isn’t as affected.

Riparian Areas & Salmon

Riparian areas are very beneficial to the local salmon populations because they help keep their spawning habitats cool with the shade they provide, preventing the water from getting too heated which would be deadly to the salmon. The riparian area also filters and/or dilutes any pollutants that could affect the water. Two common pollutants in areas with a lot of farmland are pesticides and fertilizers, both have detrimental effects on the habitat. While pesticides can more directly kill the fish, some fertilizers cause massive algal blooms effectively killing off most of the plants and fish that were once there. 

Riparian areas in the Upper Bulkley River (UBR) watershed in Northern BC have been impacted by agriculture, forestry, mining, diking and linear developments of the highway and railway. A Rocha Canada, in partnership with local government and consultants, have  worked with willing landowners since 2016 to restore riparian zones in hay fields where the land was cleared right to the edge of the river or creek. In 2023 the Office of the Wet’suwet’en (OW) received a 3 year grant from the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund, allowing this work to continue in the Upper Bulkley. 

This October the team at the Buck Creek Hatchery & Nature Centre partnered with the OW, Woodmere Nursery, Whanau Forestry, and local rancher Roger Groot to restore 2 banks, one directly on the UBR near Perow and another on Robert Hatch Creek which feeds into Richfield Creek and then the UBR. 

The bank on the UBR had been planted with willow stakes in May 2021, but due to a heat dome and gravelly soils, the majority of willow stakes didn’t take root. So this year our team, as well as a team of tree planters, went to the site and spent 3 days cutting willow stakes, planting 700 rooted willow and also using a water stinger to plant 300 more willow stakes. Our hope is that by planting them in the fall the stakes will have a better chance at rooting, and concentrating the rooted willow in gravelly areas where the water jet stinger couldn’t plant willow stakes deep enough, there will be better overall survival. 

At the Robert Hatch locations we planted 150 rooted willows where a bridge used to be, which had been restored in 2022 and another 150 at the main location. The main location was a sloping bank that was pure dirt/mud where we buried bundles of willow vertically and used willow stakes to hold them in place. The hope is that the bundles will add stability to the eroding bank, and eventually take root and begin sprouting new willow shoots.Willows are the tree/shrub of choice in these cases due to its fast growing nature and easy propagation. If you grab a mature willow and cut off a branch or trunk you will find that the next year the branch has already started to grow back, and if you plant that cutting it too can root and become a separate tree. We hope to see much more willow flourishing along the Upper Bulkley River and its tributary creeks in the coming years as we continue to cut, stake, propagate, plant and plant some more!