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North and recommended that “transportation and transmission
corridors needed to be planned in a coordinated fashion, recognizing
community needs and protecting significant ecological
features.”
• The anticipated intensity of use for industrial all-weather roads
may be relatively high compared to existing winter roads. The
infrastructure corridor linking the Ring of Fire to the south will
likely receive more than 100 large trucks per day 47 . Experience
elsewhere (Forman and Alexander 1998, National Research
Council 2005, Foreman et al. 2003, Beckmann et al. 2010)
suggests that heavily used roads through otherwise intact landscapes
cause impacts that are disproportionate to their physical
footprint not only by acting as mortality sinks, but also by
fragmenting movement and gene flow within populations. In
the James Bay Region of northern Quebec, roads were found to
be the most important factor affecting caribou occurrence and
caribou aversion to roads was observed at distances exceeding
1 km (Rudolph et al. 2012). The high impact of infrastructure
corridors in the region may be further exacerbated by their location
in upland habitat such as eskers, which have been shown
elsewhere to be disproportionately important for wildlife (e.g.,
Johnson et al. 2005, McLoughlin et al. 2010).
Potential impacts are such that infrastructure corridors demand
careful consideration in terms of their location, level of use, and
potential mitigation strategies, such as access management planning,
and enforcement. Examples of mitigation strategies include prohibiting
lateral road development from the corridor to limit cumulative
effects, and minimizing traffic during periods critical to wildlife such
as spring dispersal and calving (Rudolph et al. 2012). Achieving the
simulated result of northern economic development and continued
ecological integrity will require a proactive and regional planning
approach to manage risks to species sensitive to industrial development.
The Far North Science Advisory Panel reviewed the state of
proposed and current development in the Far North and made three
relevant recommendations. Our work supports these recommendations.
47
Cliffs Chromite Project estimates
traffic frequency of 50-100 trucks
a day for most of the mines
projected 30 year lifespan (Cliffs
2011). Given that multiple mines
are likely to be developed concurrently,
traffic exceeding 100
trucks per day is likely.
• The creation of a coordinated government-wide strategy for the
management of interim and ongoing development.
• Acknowledge the development and infrastructure issues in the
Ring of Fire by designating it as a Priority Management Area
with an interim sub-regional planning process.
46 Canadian Boreal Initiative | Wildlife Conservation Society Canada