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39
http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/
Business/Species/2Column
SubPage/249504.html
40
http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/
Business/Species/2ColumnSub
Page/STDPROD_092934.html
41
According to page 76 of Gordon
Cosens management plan, the
majority (> 90%) of harvest area
exceeds the size of a cell (5 km 2 ).
Forestry was therefore simulated
to harvest all merchantable forest
within a cell. This approach,
combined with the 500 m buffer
around cutblocks, implies that
cells in the management forest
containing forest younger than
40 years will be interpreted as
100% disturbed.
3.4 Ecological Indicators
In addition to forest age and anthropogenic footprint, four indicators
were incorporated to track impacts on wildlife: caribou, wolverine,
moose, and watershed impact. Although the list of potential
indicators was constrained by information availability, the selected
indicators permitted an assessment of some of the key impacts of
land use to wildlife in the region. Mining, hydroelectric development,
and forestry have the potential to impact wildlife through a
variety of mechanisms, including changes to forest age, increased
anthropogenic footprint and associated human access, and various
impacts to aquatic systems such as fragmentation of aquatic habitat,
altered flow regimes, and contaminants (Browne 2007). Caribou
response was assessed due to the species’ sensitivity to forest disturbance
and government commitments to species recovery and
assessing cumulative effects on ranges 39 . Similarly, wolverine was
included due to the species sensitivity to human access that is associated
with anthropogenic footprints as well as provincial direction
to address cumulative effects in Ontario’s recovery strategy for wolverine
(Ontario Wolverine Recovery Team 2011) 40 . Moose are also
negatively affected by human access but, unlike caribou, the species
is positively associated with recently disturbed forest. The lack of
data for freshwater fish in the pilot study area precluded the development
of species-specific fish habitat models (Jenni McDermid, pers.
comm.). As a preliminary assessment, a watershed impact score
was adopted that was developed as part of an assessment of freshwater
fish in the same region (Browne 2007). In addition to being
related to simulated stressors, it is hoped that the indicators will be
useful for conveying land-use consequences to decision-makers and
stakeholders due to their relevance to legislation (e.g., species at risk,
environmental assessment) and First Nations (e.g., moose, water
resources).
3.4.1 Caribou
Caribou response to the simulated landscape transformations
was assessed by applying risk categories developed for the federal
caribou recovery strategy (Environment Canada 2012). The risk
categories are based on a relationship between caribou population
parameters and disturbance estimated from a meta-analysis of boreal
caribou population data from across Canada (Environment Canada
2011). Risk categories are assigned to levels of disturbance, where
disturbance refers to anthropogenic footprint (including cutblocks 41 )
buffered by 500 m and areas burned within the past 40 years. When
applying the relationship to maps of future landscape composition,
percent disturbance was calculated within each cell (5 km 2 ) and
26 Canadian Boreal Initiative | Wildlife Conservation Society Canada