Achieving British Columbia’s (BC) goals of stable Boreal Caribou populations and a positive habitat trend across Boreal Caribou ranges will require habitat restoration as a key management lever. For habitat restoration to be applied for caribou recovery, there is a need to move towards coordinated and accelerated habitat restoration programs within priority areas in northeast BC. The BC Oil and Gas Research and Innovation Society (OGRIS) Research Effectiveness Monitoring Board (REMB) commissioned the development of this report to be provided as guidance on a restoration framework to the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (MFLNRORD). The intent of this report is to provide a common approach to the MFLNRORD, and other agencies to guide restoration planning and implementation in Boreal Caribou ranges under the proposed Boreal Caribou Recovery Implementation Plan (BCRIP).
We suggest that in restoration priority area selection at the range scale, that it is appropriate to provide a priority area(s) within each Boreal Caribou range identified at the landscape scale to meet the Province’s commitment within the BCRIP to manage caribou by each range. Criteria identified as important for establishing priority restoration areas within each Boreal Caribou range included:
1) Candidate Restoration Areas should have a high use and high value for caribou. These areas can be spatially denoted through the overlap with telemetry/observed caribou locations, including knowledge of habitat use patterns based on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
2) Focus on high value caribou habitat areas identified through TEK and oral history.
3) Restoration should focus on increasing the size of core areas or the intact habitat available for caribou within important habitat areas.
4) Areas of high predation risk, or known overlap with predators in historical caribou refuge areas (e.g., peatlands or areas adjacent to peatlands).
5) Area selected for restoration should have a low cost:benefit ratio (cash output/gain in undisturbed habitat).
6) Restoration areas should have a low potential for future industrial and recreational disturbance (low tenure activity and low future disturbance).