Parks Canada is taking steps to protect a rare coastal plant at Kouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island National Park.
This year, online purchases of shirts, tote bags and other official Parks Canada merchandise will support efforts to protect the Gulf of St. Lawrence beach pinweed at the two parks.
David Mazerolle, the ecosystem scientist at Kouchibouguac in eastern New Brunswick, said the plant’s remaining global population has suffered steep declines because of climate change and severe winter storms.
“Once upon a time, it was a reliable thing that our coasts would be protected by sea ice during the winter, but, with milder winter temperatures, we’re seeing the loss of that coastal ice in wintertime,” Mazerolle said. “So, the winter storms are also having an increased impact on those ecosystems.”
He said Parks Canada has been collecting the plant’s seeds and working with research partners at Acadia University to develop ways to germinate and grow the species and develop the best methods for transplanting the species into habitats where it isn’t found yet and can flourish.
Why is protecting this species important?
Mazerolle said the particular species of beach pinweed the project aims to protect is very rare and unique to eastern Canada.
“The species itself ranges from the Maritimes all the way south to North Carolina, along the coast of North America, but all the plants that are known from Canada, from the Maritimes are of a distinct variety of beach pinweed,” he said.
“That variety is endemic to the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, meaning that it’s not known from anywhere else in the world.”
Mazerolle described the Gulf of St. Lawrence beach pinweed as a short, skinny shrub that stands about 20 to 30 centimetres off the ground. The perennial plant is only found on large, stable dune systems in coastal areas that are a safe distance away from ocean waves.
“In New Brunswick, it’s only found from the Bay of Miramichi and it only goes south to the Bouctouche Dune,” he said.
About 85 per cent of the population of this coastal plant resides on land co-managed by Parks Canada and Mi’kmaw First Nations, he said.
This means Parks Canada is in a good position to take the lead on protecting the plant, said Sean Blaney, the executive director and senior scientist with the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre. Blaney was involved in writing the report for the federal government outlining the status of the beach pinweed in Canada.
“The national parks are really important for this species,” he said.
Blaney said the work being done to protect the beach pinweed in Canada is an insurance policy, as more and more of the habitat it grows in is being threatened by climate change, leaving fewer opportunities for the plant to grow in the wild on its own.
“The first and best conservation is always maintaining the habitat the species needs and just letting it do its own thing, but, in this case, we’re concerned that individual populations of this species will disappear entirely or potentially over a long period, as a whole, this species could disappear.”
Blaney said protecting species within coastal landscapes is an important and challenging task, because the coasts are a special and definitive part of the Maritimes and also one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
He said the beach pinweed is an important indicator of climate change and the effects it’s having on coastal ecosystems and protecting it is a good way to measure that impact.
“It’s a species that’s not incredibly showy, but it’s a good example of impacts that human-induced climate change is having that we wouldn’t probably even notice unless we were looking carefully and taking a comprehensive approach to looking at the status of all species that were out there,” he said.
“Without the work that we do, this species could have just disappeared.”
Transplanting successful so far
It’s work Mazerolle and his team will continue to do.
Mazerolle said so far the group has finished the first round of transplants and the work being to germinate the plants at Acadia has been promising.
“This is something that had never been done for this species, so we’re starting pretty much at zero, trying to figure out how to get these seeds to germinate,” he said.
“We’ve had promising results so far, we’re entering our second year of planting and that will be done in Kouchibouguac National Park and P.E.I. National Park as well, and we’re pretty excited to move to that phase of the project.”
Lindsey Burke, a resource management officer with Prince Edward Island National Park, said the species has been in decline on the island too from climate change and increased coastal erosion.
“Because it requires such a specialized dune habitat, it can be indicative of areas that are well-protected, sheltered dune ecosystems,” Burke said.
“So when we’re protecting areas that are important for this species, we’re also protecting the dune systems more broadly.”
Through the work with Acadia and transplants, Burke said the hope is for pinweed to become self-sustaining in more parts of the park.
“Because we know in many cases with Parks Canada, you let nature take its course,” she said. “But sometimes this is one of those cases where it needs a hand.”
Before they’re planted, Burke said, the plants are acclimated to the conditions in the park.
“And that will hopefully give them a better shot of thriving.”
