Summary | Towards Undisturbed Habitat: Forest Management in Alberta’s Caribou Ranges

This project was completed by Steven F. Wilson of EcoLogic Research. This is the project’s summary report. There is also a full report and a webinar.

From the Executive Summary

This report addresses the lack of guidance from the federal recovery strategies for woodland caribou on when suitable habitat, after being disturbed by anthropogenic activities such as forest harvesting, should once again be considered “undisturbed,” for the purposes of caribou recovery planning. In the absence of federal direction, Alberta has adopted a 40-year threshold for considering caribou habitat undisturbed, but the adequacy of this metric is not fully known. As management efforts increasingly turn to actions designed to restore the functioning of caribou ranges, there is a need to further define restoration endpoints to clarify objectives and measure progress.

This report:

1. Reviews work on this issue by other jurisdictions as they align recovery efforts with the federal boreal and mountain caribou recovery strategies;
2. Presents a review of relevant literature to inform the development of undisturbed habitat definitions;
3. Proposes caribou forest management goals, desired outcomes, forestry objectives, related strategies and beneficial management practices for managing to undisturbed habitat conditions;
4. Identifies a proposed workflow for companies operating in caribou habitat, and,
5. Identifies knowledge gaps and next steps.