An Ecological Reserve is an area of Crown land with the most special conservation designation within the British Columbia Protected Areas system. The purpose for designating an ecological reserve is for scientific research, establishing benchmark areas to measure changes in ecosystems, protecting biological diversity, protecting rare and endangered organisms, and preserving unique, unusual or outstanding natural phenomena. In the 1960s and 70s, Canada participated in a decade of research known as the International Biological Program (IBP); this involved describing essential sites on standard international check-sheets. In some cases, check sheets are the only source of information for many ecological reserves. The British Columbia Ecological Reserves Act was passed in 1971; this meant that BC became the first province in Canada to give permanent protected status to ecological reserves. As a result, BC has the world's most comprehensive environmental reserves program. As of 2015, there are 148 ecological reserves in BC.
The University of British Columbia Professor Vladimir Joseph Krajina (1905-1993) advocated for the formation of ecological reserves throughout the 1950s amidst the increase in logging in the province. Krajina had a remarkable life, having emigrated after World War II from Czechoslovakia, where he had been an Intelligence Service leader. During the war, he was captured, served time with his wife in a concentration camp and narrowly missed execution. After the war, Krajina joined the UBC Botany Department, where he taught plant ecology for over twenty years and developed a reputation as a distinguished teacher, botanist, ecologist, and conservationist.
Krajina argued for ecological reserves, emphasizing during debates on the reserve concept, "They [the ecological reserves] serve as genetic banks of paramount importance which accomplish a museum function. Distinctive, large, heterogeneous, natural gene pools of different organisms and especially indigenous trees are an irreplaceable resource." In 1968, in BC, Krajina's work, the Ecological Reserves Committee, was formed to advise selecting potential reserve sites to preserve in British Columbia. On May 4, 1974, the first 29 reserves received protective status by Order-in-Council, a conservation landmark. In 1974, a full-time ecological reserve coordinator was hired, and a volunteer warden program was put into effect in 1980.