An Ecological Framework for Wildlife Habitat Design for Oil Sands Mine Reclamation
Oil sands companies are required to reclaim the land that has been disturbed during their operations to self-sustaining, locally common boreal forest. An important facet of the reclaimed landscape is support of locally-relevant wildlife communities. Wildlife communities are an important part of the...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Other/Unknown Material |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.7939/R3W80P https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/638e7105-c723-4f96-91be-249dbdcc32d8 |
| Summary: | Oil sands companies are required to reclaim the land that has been disturbed during their operations to self-sustaining, locally common boreal forest. An important facet of the reclaimed landscape is support of locally-relevant wildlife communities. Wildlife communities are an important part of the biodiversity of the post-mining landscape, and are crucial elements of the traditional landscape for First Nations and other users of the land. The current philosophy of “Build it and they will come” (the Field of Dreams hypothesis) should be replaced by applying wildlife and landscape ecology principles to mine reclamation, to effectively achieve wildlife habitat and other end land-use goals. A new ecological framework for wildlife reclamation that fits with operational practices is needed. Here we provide this framework, and outline some of the first steps toward a research and demonstration program that will improve success in wildlife reclamation in the mineable oil sands region. Because natural systems are so complex, we do not have the ability to fully understand the intricacies of wildlife habitat and communities, or their interactions with each other and their environment. However, we can adopt natural analogs, using reference conditions and the range of natural variation, to guide our reclamation designs. For example, diversity in boreal forest habitat is largely driven by wildfire cycles. We can emulate the effects of natural disturbances such as wildfire by designing a mosaic of interconnected patches with a diversity of sizes and shapes on the reclaimed landscape, adding in artificial snags as surrogates for structures that would naturally remain after fire, etc. By emulating natural systems, we are more likely to impart ecological form and function to the systems we design and build. Such wildlife design for oil sands mine reclamation needs to be done with explicit consideration of spatial and temporal scales: • Spatial – includes region, lease/landscape, landform, patch, and microsite. These scales are ... |
|---|