Working Together to Protect Habitat in Mackay Creek

August 4, 2024

At Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards in North Vancouver, our team is deeply committed to protecting the marine habitat in the community where we design and build ships under the National Shipbuilding Strategy.

Over the past several years, Seaspan has been collaborating with community partners to restore and protect the habitat near its Vancouver Shipyards at the mouth of the MacKay creek estuary, connecting to Burrard Inlet. In 2021, we completed construction on the habitat restoration site – transforming the steeply sloping area into a landscaped riparian area featuring a more natural sloping shoreline with rock benches to provide shelter for marine life. You can read more about the project here.

To ensure that the habitat restoration site continues to thrive, Seaspan has partnered with Inlailawatash, a local Indigenous-owned environmental resource management business to help monitor and maintain the site, as well implement improvements.

“It’s been great to work with Inlailawatash and watch them apply their expertise gained from other successful local habitat restoration projects. We know it’s going to take time and effort to create self-sustaining habitat where there wasn’t before, but we’re all really looking forward to the results.” commented Daryl Lawes, Senior Environmental Manager at Seaspan 

Inlailawatash joined the habitat restoration project last year when they were brought on to work alongside Hatfield. Hatfield manages the subtidal zones (below water), while Inlailawatash is responsible for the intertidal and riparian zones. After monitoring the intertidal benches, they noticed that the plants had low rates of survival. To improve this, the team built several pocket marshes with rock retaining walls and a log jam to help prevent the plants and soil from washing away. This work was completed in April of this year, and since then the team has been focused on ongoing maintenance including monitoring and invasive species removal.

Flowers

Named after an ancient Tsleil-Waututh village at the northern point of səl̓ilw̓ət (Indian Arm), Inlailawatash centres First Nations values in their work. Working closely with Tsleil-Waututh, they follow recommendations for plant species and natural materials used for their restoration projects, such as willow stakes as an eco-cultural fencing technique.

The team has also planted several tree species to increase shade which will eventually function to shade out invasive species naturally and reduce the need for ongoing removal. They have also planted salt marsh species like salt grass and sea asparagus, with a goal of increasing overall plant coverage in the area.

“We really appreciate how collaborative Seaspan has been throughout this process – especially their willingness to test out the rock structures and log jams as a pilot project. We are taking an adaptive management approach which will ultimately benefit the project,” said Erin Rutherford, Inlailawatash Ecosystem Services Manager.

Since starting work on the site, the team has encountered wildlife like beavers, seals, blue herons, and osprey, and ultimately aim to ensure that the habitat site protects all kinds of wildlife. Seaspan is proud to work with Inlailawatash on this habitat project and look forward to watching the habitat site prosper thanks to their efforts.