Prioritizing Zones for Caribou Habitat Restoration in the Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance Area V2.0

Authors
Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute
Contacts
Resource Date:
June
2017
Page Length
26

Seismic lines and other linear features created by humans are thought to negatively impact woodland caribou. It is estimated that there are c. 100,000 km of conventional seismic lines in caribou ranges located within the Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance‘s area of interest. However, only a fraction of that amount can be restored each year because of high costs, limited equipment and continued access requirements to current and future oil sands projects. Given these constraints, prioritizing which seismic lines are to be restored has been identified as an important planning exercise for the recovery of woodland caribou and their habitat. In 2016, COSIA partnered with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) to develop a method for prioritizing seismic line restoration.

This report represents Version 2.0 of a project designed to prioritize townships for the restoration of caribou habitat in northeast Alberta. The specific study area occurs within the purview of the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA). Version 1.0 was completed in July 2016, but it was recognized at the time that several iterations were needed to incorporate new information and as new ideas were developed. This report (Version 2.0) is intended to be a stand-alone product, but for the full context, Version 1.0 can be used as a reference (ABMI 2016).

This document outlines the methods for prioritizing townships within each caribou range, as well as assessing disturbance thresholds of each area and limitations of the project. In addition to the analysis of conventional seismic line habitat recovery of ver. 1, ver. 2 considers additional types of human footprints for restoration, such as access roads, cutblocks, and transmission lines. The document also discusses the implications of disturbances including and excluding fire to restoring semi-permanent features and for ranges to meet their disturbance thresholds. Finally, ver. 2 discusses alternative weighting options to ensure the Resource Valuation Layer (RVL) and improvement to caribou habitat are equally weighted when considering economic and habitat values.

 

For version 1 of this report, please refer to Prioritizing Zones for Caribou Habitat Restoration in the Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance Area V1.0.

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.