Multi-Indicator Analysis in Northwestern Ontario

Balancing Boreal Caribou conservation with forestry, mining, and tourism in Northwestern Ontario’s Brights and Churchill ranges requires integrated landscape-level planning that supports habitat recovery and regional development goals.

Managing Boreal Caribou populations in Ontario is complex when balanced between resource development activities and other land management objectives. The Brights and and Churchill caribou ranges in Northwestern Ontario overlaps with active forestry, mining, and tourism, introducing anthropogenic disturbances to Boreal Caribou populations, alongside natural disturbance pressures such as wildland fires. This region supports social and economic development while also providing habitat for many other species of interest, such as moose. To support the Conservation Agreement for Boreal Caribou in Ontario, landscape-level planning is essential for critical habitat recovery while considering the array of social, ecological, and economic values. 

The Northwest Ontario Multi-Species Adaptive Management Working Group (the “Working Group”), is a collaborative effort comprising of representatives from the forest industry, government, academics, and subject matter experts.    

The Working Group’s primary goal is to support the Caribou Conservation Agreement by improving environmental conditions necessary for the recovery of the Boreal Caribou at the Range-scale in Ontario. Previously, the Working Group completed the development of a framework for analyzing the impacts of various landscape management strategies, within and outside of current policy, for caribou habitat and their effects on other values (social, economic, and environmental). This multi-indicator approach was used to understand threats to Boreal Caribou habitat and develop potential mitigation strategies with respect to a range of values on the landscape.

This included:  

• Identifying gaps in caribou habitat disturbance modeling: The Working Group recognized that existing models left a gap where other values such as other species or socioeconomic factors were not considered as important as caribou related indicators. To address this, new models were developed that quantified the impacts of various management decisions on Boreal Caribou habitat along with other wildlife habitat requirements, socioeconomic metrics, and landscape indicators.   
• Modeling management scenarios: By analyzing various scenarios at a landscape level, the team Working Group was able to identify potential benefits and consequences of different management approaches. This work provided a foundation for understanding how management decisions can affect multiple aspects of the landscape.   

Building on this progress, the Working Group has been tackling new challenges by:  

• Enhancing our understanding of habitat threats: The team Working Group has delved deeper into identifying knowledge gaps related to potential future habitat threats to Boreal Caribou, aiming to developing strategies to mitigate these risks.  
• Integrating natural disturbances: Worked to develop models that incorporate natural disturbance factors like wildfires to better reflect the dynamic nature of caribou Boreal Caribou habitats. Wildland fire risk was integrated into scenario analysis to understand the impact of management decisions on landscape changes relative to fuels.   

Funding for this work comes from the   Ontario Caribou Conservation Stewardship Program, part of the Species at Risk in Ontario Stewardship Program. Eligible projects like this aim to contribute the research and knowledge towards to the maintenance, recovery, or adaptive management of Boreal Caribou populations.

To learn more about the program and other funded projects, visit: 

https://www.ontario.ca/page/caribou-conservation-stewardship-program   

In our next blog we will take a deeper diver into the analysis.