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OSLI is undertaking a reclamation project in the Algar Region of northeastern Alberta to improve woodland caribou habitat despite the fact that no OSLI company has operated in the region.

"None of the OSLI companies have worked in this region but there is historical industrial disturbance that no company is on the hook to reclaim," says Jeremy Reid, of OSLI's Land Stewardship Working Group (LSWG).

The area of the Algar Region targeted for reclamation is 570 km2, which has 20 km2 of land disturbance. The area spans six townships along the Athabasca River, southeast of Fort McMurray. Although the Algar Region has not been the site of heavy industrial and forestry activity, oil and gas work has left linear paths through the forest that cause forest fragmentation, which is thought to negatively affect woodland caribou habitat.

"We're looking at how we can minimize our impact not only on our own leases but also in areas outside of our leases. If every company only does reclamation work on their own leases then we will miss the bigger picture," Reid says.

The Algar Region is located in the southern Lower Athabasca region, which is home to most of Alberta's in situ oil sands operations and the East Side Athabasca River (ESAR) caribou range. The Algar Region is host to one of the seven woodland caribou herds of the ESAR caribou range.

The ESAR caribou population is estimated to be 90 to 150 animals and is declining by 10 to 20 per cent a year, according to the Status of Woodland Caribou in Alberta: Update 2010, which was completed for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development and the Alberta Conservation Association.

Woodland caribou are designated as "threatened" under Alberta's Wildlife Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act. The federal and provincial governments define threatened as "a species likely to become endangered if limiting factors are not reversed."

"Industry is one cause of the decline in caribou population because the fragmentation caused by our activities has had a negative effect on their habitat," says Reid, citing hunting, animal predators, disease and climate change as contributing factors in the caribou decline.

Reid points out that one of the main objectives of the LSWG is to contribute to the recovery of woodland caribou, an issue that has to be managed on a local and regional scale.

"While reclamation work is conducted locally, woodland caribou protection is a regional issue that we have to address right away."

As part of its regional approach, OSLI is using a tool called Landscape Ecological Assessment and Planning (LEAP) to help plan reclamation activities in the Algar Region and surrounding southern Lower Athabasca region. (See OSLI Takes LEAP Into the Future)

Combining these maps with forest modelling techniques will allow OSLI to predict what the Algar Region will look like in five, 10, 20 and even 50 years, which will help drive today's reclamation efforts. Local stakeholders, such as trappers, have been consulted, and site preparation and planting is scheduled for 2011.

"We need to know whether reclamation work undertaken today will put us on a good ecological trajectory for the Algar Region. Basically, we need to know if we are headed in the right direction and LEAP allows us to do this."

Comments

• Tigre
  March 18, 2012, 11:13 am
  It's my understanding that back in the early 90s, the DNR loeokd into reintroducing Caribou in the BWCAW. I think the program never went anywhere for a number of reasons, including the presence of whitetail deer which carry viruses that kill caribou and just the sheer difficulty of effectively introducing a large mammal into a wilderness. I also think that the blowdown of 1999 sort of served as the death knell for such ambitions, as the agencies found their attention elsewhere.Anyway, I sure would love to see woodland caribou someday

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