In 2019 the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) funded Fort Nelson First Nation (FNFN) to implement the Caribou Habitat Restoration Fund (CHRF) Kotcho Lake Restoration Area project to benefit the Snake-Sahtahneh caribou herd by limiting predator use of legacy seismic lines and using re-vegetation to increase habitat suitability for caribou.
Project goals:
- Develop a prioritization scheme for identifying boreal caribou restoration areas within FNFN’s territory and apply it to identify large (60,000 – 100,000 ha) areas for restoration over three year periods for the next 20 years; and
- Develop a restoration plan for the highest priority area, the Kotcho Lake Restoration Area. The resulting plan will use different approaches to restore the entire 600,000 ha area over the next three years.
FNFN has implemented a prioritization scheme for identifying key areas for boreal caribou habitat restoration and created a restoration plan. Restoration progress will be monitored over the course of several years to evaluate the impacts of restoration on caribou habitat.