Boreal caribou populations are declining across Alberta and much of their Canadian range. Key factors causing this decline include a warming climate along with habitat change from industrial exploration and development. The Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) Land Environmental Priority Area (EPA) is interested in better understanding where it makes most sense to undertake restoration in the seven ranges that are located within COSIA’s area of interest which encompasses the Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River Oil Sands Areas.
The primary goal of this project was to prioritize restoration in defined zones in such a way as to maximally benefit caribou habitat given the resources available, while maintaining a working landscape. The release of the Environment Canada Recovery Strategy for Woodland Caribou, Boreal population (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Canada (2012) has highlighted the need to coordinate regional efforts into a larger framework in order to achieve the federal recovery strategy target of 65 % undisturbed habitat in each caribou range. This document discusses the development of priority zones from individual features through compiled data and mapping, to maximize restoration efforts on a broad scale while considering factors important for caribou recovery and future industrial development.
This project aims to identify and prioritize zones for habitat restoration work across the COSIA area of interest by quantitatively incorporating habitat, land use, and oil and gas resource information. Specifically, the objectives are to:
1. Accurately determine the type and location of linear features in the COSIA area of interest and map those results in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment;
2. Meet with other investigators conducting similar prioritization work, to compare approaches;
3. Develop defensible criteria to define restoration zones for the COSIA area of interest, including recommending and applying a minimum patch size for planning restoration work;
4. Develop a method for weighted consideration of selected criteria and optimal selection of restoration zones to direct restoration efforts for maximal benefit; and
5. Provide COSIA member companies with ranked restoration zones and potential project ideas for future restoration work.
For version 2 of this report, please refer to Prioritizing Zones for Caribou Habitat Restoration in the Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance Area V2.0.
For version 3 of this report, please refer to Prioritizing Zones for Caribou Habitat Restoration in the Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance Area V3.0.