Alberta Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan 2008-2013 - Alberta Sustainable ...

7.4 Improve and Deliver Education and Outreach Program
Develop a provincial wide education and outreach program to inform and engage the
public in grizzly bear recovery. The foundation of the program will be a communications plan
(determine target audiences, priorities, and nature of communication i.e., presentations, signs,
written material, etc.) A communication/education specialist needs to be involved in developing
and implementing the communications plan, with advice from the Recovery Team. Regional
Teams can advise on local level issues and needs. The program will be directed at two levels of
audience: 1. The public (message should include ecological value of bears, need for recovery
actions, threats to bears, and bear biology/behaviour), and 2. People who live, work, and/or are
active in grizzly bear range; including hunters, recreational users, people working, First Nations,
landowners, and local governments and planning agencies (integrate with conflict prevention
strategy to work with municipalities to control attractants). The education message will be
tailored to target groups to address relevant issues.
7.5 Identify, Track, and Maintain Habitat for Grizzly Bears
a. Continue model development of maps to quantify bear habitat by quality rankings and
to document their change over time (e.g., cumulative effects of landscape changes,
including urbanization, recreational and industrial footprints); this work is directly
related to population inventory (refer to appendix)
b. Continue model development of maps to identify known and potential movement corridors
(for land use managers and stakeholders)
Several habitat related actions could be considered in the future. These include investigating and
developing habitat enhancement protocols, enhancing or creating corridors, and evaluating
potential of using “habitat credits” 2 to protect and enhance bear habitats, especially for high
quality habitats.
7.6 Improve Inter-jurisdictional Coordination
a. Participate in IGBC (Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee) and other groups.
b. Participate in comprehensive inter-agency database.
2 Habitat Credits - This concept places a numerical value on habitat that allows resource developers and
landowners to earn “habitat credits” for reclamation, enhancement, or other types of improvements in quantity or
quality of wildlife habitat. This could serve to offset the “habitat debits” a development might incur from impacting,
reducing, or removing habitat during resource extraction operations, and could serve as a compensatory mechanism
for landowners. This concept could be extended to create incentives by generating a marketable “habitat credit”
commodity that would function much like carbon credits do for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
34