Land-Use References

Year Title (Author, Description) File Download
2011

Guidelines for Using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria

The Standards and Petitions Subcommittee of the IUCN Species Survival Commission

The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria were first published in 1994 following six years of research and broad consultation (IUCN 1994). The 1994 IUCN Categories and Criteria were developed to improve objectivity and transparency in assessing the conservation status of species, and therefore to improve consistency and understanding among users. The 1994 categories and criteria were applied to a large number of species in compiling the 1996 Red List of Threatened Animals. The assessment of many species for the 1996 Red List drew attention to certain areas of difficulty, which led IUCN to initiate a review of the 1994 categories and criteria, which was undertaken during 1998 to 1999. This review was completed and the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (version 3.1) are now published (IUCN 2001). This document provides guidelines to the application of version 3.1 of the categories and criteria, and in so doing addresses many of the issues raised in the process of reviewing the 1994 categories and criteria. This document explains how the criteria should be applied to determine whether a taxon belongs in a category of threat, and gives examples from different taxonomic groups to illustrate the application of the criteria. These guidelines also provide detailed explanations of the definitions of the many terms used in the criteria. The guidelines should be used in conjunction with the official IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria booklet (IUCN 2001).

Contact ALCES for The Standards and Petitions Subcommittee of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, 2011
2003

Habitat Management in the Yukon Winter Range of the Little Rancheria Caribou Herd

J.Z. Adamczewski, R.F. Florkiewicz and V. Loewen

Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) ranges have shrunk substantially across North America due to the complex effects of human-caused habitat changes. As a result, COSEWIC1 listed nearly all woodland caribou populations in Canada as either Threatened or of Special Concern in May 2002. The Little Rancheria Herd (LRH) of caribou, which numbered about 1,000 in 1999, has a lowland forested winter range with some merchantable pine and spruce stands just west of Watson Lake, Yukon. Timber harvest in this range has to date (2003) been limited but the potential for habitat fragmentation is high. In this report we develop a long-term approach to habitat management of the Yukon LRH winter range, based on the herd’s habitat use and ecology, together with studies and management of woodland caribou elsewhere. The direct and indirect effects of development on woodland caribou include: • loss of fragile, slow-growing lichens, the • primary caribou winter forage, • avoidance of disturbed areas, particularly those with heavy traffic, • increased hunter access and harvest, • collisions with vehicles, • increased access to remote caribou range for predators, primarily wolves, and • improved habitat suitability for other • ungulates like moose. Where these other prey sustain elevated wolf numbers, caribou numbers often decline. Alberta studies showed that caribou were more likely to be killed by wolves in areas within 250 m of all recent cut-blocks and other developments, and that caribou used these areas much less than undisturbed forests. The development “footprint” was defined as the proportion of the land-base within such avoidance zones. Where the development footprint in a caribou range was 50% or greater, the population was likely to be declining at 1–3% annually, even with little or no hunting. Threshold levels limiting the footprint in caribou range have been proposed as a management option for the Yukon. Management guidelines for caribou ranges in British Columbia and Ontario focus on protecting critical caribou habitat from development and access, and allow carefully managed development in less sensitive caribou range. Three management zones in the Yukon LRH winter range were identified in the 1990s based first on reconnaissance surveys and later confirmed by radio-collar locations: a heavily used core, a surrounding extended range, and a migration corridor. Although just 3.6% of the land-base had been cut for timber by 2002, the development footprint in the LRH Yukon winter range was 16% overall, with 18% in the core, 18% in the extended range, and 5% in the migration zone. Like most Yukon caribou herds, the LRH is hunted. The estimated annual harvest rate averaged 5% from 1992 to 2002. To enable continued hunting of this herd, and to allow for periodic range losses to fire, development in this winter range must be kept at levels well below the 50% footprint values linked to serious declines in Alberta. The suggested management approach for the LRH Yukon winter range is based on British Columbia models, Alberta studies, and recent reports proposing thresholds for development footprint in caribou range. The main points of the approach are: • withdraw the core winter range from further logging or development, • establish a connected reserve network of high-quality habitat in the extended range and migration zone, and • establish maximum development footprint values of 30% in the extended range and 25% in the migration zone.

Contact ALCES for J.Z. Adamczewski, R.F. Florkiewicz and V. Loewen , 2003
2009

Literature Review of Selected Best Management Practices Specific to Agricultural Practices in Red-Assiniboine River Watersheds

Stephanie Melles

Contact ALCES for Stephanie Melles , 2009
2007

Protecting Water, Producing Gas: Minimizing the Impact of Coalbed Methane and Other Natural Gas Production on Alberta’s Groundwater

Mary Griffiths

Contact ALCES for Mary Griffiths, 2007
2008

Quantification of Extinction Risk: IUCN’s System for Classifying Threatened Species

G. Mace, N. Collar, K. Gaston, C. Milner-Gulland, and S. Stuart

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species was increasingly used during the 1980s to assess the conservation status of species for policy and planning purposes. This use stimulated the development of a new set of quantitative criteria for listing species in the categories of threat: critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. These criteria, which were intended to be applicable to all species except microorganisms, were part of a broader system for classifying threatened species and were fully implemented by IUCN in 2000. The system and the criteria have been widely used by conservation practitioners and scientists and now underpin one indicator being used to assess the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010 biodiversity target. We describe the process and the technical background to the IUCN Red List system. The criteria refer to fundamental biological processes underlying population decline and extinction. But given major differences between species, the threatening processes affecting them, and the paucity of knowledge relating to most species, the IUCN system had to be both broad and flexible to be applicable to the majority of described species. The system was designed to measure the symptoms of extinction risk, and uses 5 independent criteria relating to aspects of population loss and decline of range size. A species is assigned to a threat category if it meets the quantitative threshold for at least one criterion. The criteria and the accompanying rules and guidelines used by IUCN are intended to increase the consistency, transparency, and validity of its categorization system, but it necessitates some compromises that affect the applicability of the system and the species lists that result. In particular, choices were made over the assessment of uncertainty, poorly known species, depleted species, population decline, restricted ranges, and rarity; all of these affect the way red lists should be viewed and used. Processes related to priority setting and the development of national red lists need to take account of some assumptions in the formulation of the criteria.

Contact ALCES for G. Mace, N. Collar, K. Gaston, C. Milner-Gulland, and S. Stuart, 2008
2007

Road Sediment Production and Delivery: Processes and Management

Lee MacDonald and Drew B.R. Coe

Unpaved roads are often considered to be the predominant sediment source in forested catchments. In steep, wet climates roads can cause a 10- to 300-fold increase in the landslide erosion rate, and this increase is due to the effects of roads on hillslope flow paths and the structural integrity of hillslopes. The proportion of sediment that is delivered to the stream will generally be very high for road-induced failures in hollows and inner gorge landforms, and much lower for planar hillslope failures. The pulsed input of sediment from roadinduced landsliding can greatly alter stream channel habitat and morphology. Unpaved roads can increase sediment production rates by more than an order of magnitude as a result of road surface erosion. The high surface erosion rate stems from the generation of surface runoff from the highly compacted road travelway, the lack of surface cover, and the availability of fine sediment due to traffic and road maintenance procedures such as grading. Sediment delivery to streams occurs primarily at road-stream crossings and secondarily by road-induced gullies. The proportion of the road network that is connected to the stream network is primarily a function of mean annual precipitation (R2=0.9), and is increased by about 40% in the absence of any engineered drainage structures. The chronic input of the fine sediment from roads can have adverse effects on freshwater aquatic ecosystems as well as coral reefs. Our present understanding of road surface erosion processes is good, but our models to predict road surface erosion and landsliding are much better for relative than absolute predictions. Climate change can greatly increase road-induced landslides and road surface erosion by increasing the magnitude of large storm events and increasing the amount of rain relative to snow. Extensive field surveys also show that relatively few road segments typically generate most of the road-related increases in sediment yields. Road surface erosion, the risk of road-induced landslides, and road sediment delivery can be greatly decreased by improved road designs and maintenance practices. Hence the greatest needs are to develop and provide land managers with the tools for identifying high-risk segments, and then to make the necessary investments in road reconstruction and restoration.

Contact ALCES for Lee MacDonald and Drew B.R. Coe, 2007
2008

Sediment Production and Delivery from Forest Roads and Off-Highway Vehicle Trails in the Upper South Platte River Watershed, Colorado

Matthew J. Welsh

Sediment is a principal cause of impairment to surface water quality. Erosion is a particularly important environmental issue in the Upper South Platte River (USPR) watershed of Colorado because it is the primary source of drinking water for Denver, has a high-value fishery, and several stream reaches are impaired by high levels of sediment. Unpaved roads are often considered a dominant source of sediment in forested watersheds, and off-highway vehicle (OHV) trails are another potentially important but largely unquantified sediment source. The objectives of this study were to: (1) quantify sediment production and delivery from forest road and OHV trail segments in the USPR watershed; (2) test the accuracy of WEPP:Road, SEDMODL2, and two empirical models for predicting sediment production from roads and OHV trails; and (3) compare sediment production, sediment delivery, and sediment yields from forest roads and OHV trails. Rainfall, site characteristics, and sediment production were measured on 14-22 native surface road segments from 2001 to 2006, and these data were used to test the accuracy of WEPP:Road and SEDMODL2. Empirical models for predicting storm-based and annual sediment production were developed from the first four years of data; the last two years of data were used for model testing. Similar measurements on 5-10 OHV trail segments from 2005 to 2006 were used to test WEPP:Road and SEDMODL2. Sediment delivery was assessed by detailed surveys along 17 km of roads and 10 km of OHV trails. In 2006 mean sediment production from the 10 OHV trail segments was 18.5 kg m-2 yr-1, or six times the mean value from the 21 road segments. The percentage of OHV trails connected to streams was 24%, or 70% higher than for roads, largely because more OHV trails were in the valley bottoms. None of the models accurately predicted sediment production from roads or OHV trails, but the performance of SEDMODL2 was greatly improved by calibrating the geology and traffic factors to the study area. SEDMODL2 also could be improved by adjusting the slope factor, better accounting for rill density on native surface roads, and making the rainfall factor dependent on rainfall erosivity rather than rainfall depth. WEPP:Road could be improved by making sediment production decrease rather than increase with higher soil rock content, and increasing the effect of a categorical change from no traffic to low traffic. Road density in the study area is 0.6 km km-2, or three times the density of OHV trails. Multiplying unit area sediment production normalized by summer erosivity times the density, mean active width, and percent connectivity indicates that roads and OHV trails are respectively delivering approximately 1.1 Mg km-2 and 0.8 Mg km-2 of sediment to the stream network per year. Sediment delivery to streams can be reduced by locating roads and OHV trails out of valley bottoms and off steep hillslopes, decreasing segment lengths, and reducing segment slopes.

Contact ALCES for Matthew J. Welsh, 2008
1990

Sediment Production from Forest Roads with Wheel Ruts

Randy b. Foltz and Edward R. Burroughs, Jr.

Artificial rainfall was applied to two sets of paired plots 30.5 m long by 1.52 m wide, each set on a different soil type. One plot in each set contained a wheel rut while the other did not. Measurements of water and sediment yield on rutted plots showed sediment production declined with cumulative runoff while unrutted plots did not show a significant sediment depletion. This difference was a result of concentrated flow versus sheet flow.

Contact ALCES for Randy b. Foltz and Edward R. Burroughs, Jr., 1990
2012

Shell Jackpine Mine Expansion Project

Oil Sands Environmental Coalition

The Panel’s responsibilities to determine if the Project is in the public interest and determine if it will create significant adverse effects, is onerous. We believe it would assist the Panel in discharging its responsibility to protect the public interest and make its assessment of the residual impacts, if it ensured that mitigation will, in fact, be implemented and knew the status of its previous recommendations, and commitments made by the proponent on which the Panel and ERCB relied upon – particularly as it relates to Shell’s projects and the projects in the Muskeg River basin.

Contact ALCES for Oil Sands Environmental Coalition, 2012
2003

Scenario Planning: a Tool for Conservation in an Uncertain World

Garry Peterson, Graeme Cumming, and Stephen Carpenter

Conservation decisions about how, when, and where to act are typically based on our expectations for the future. When the world is highly unpredictable and we are working from a limited range of expectations, however, our expectations will frequently be proved wrong. Scenario planning offers a framework for developing more resilient conservation policies when faced with uncontrollable, irreducible uncertainty. A scenario in this context is an account of a plausible future. Scenario planning consists of using a few contrasting scenarios to explore the uncertainty surrounding the future consequences of a decision. Ideally, scenarios should be constructed by a diverse group of people for a single, stated purpose. Scenario planning can incorporate a variety of quantitative and qualitative information in the decision-making process. Often, consideration of this diverse information in a systemic way leads to better decisions. Furthermore, the participation of a diverse group of people in a systemic process of collecting, discussing, and analyzing scenarios builds shared understanding. The robustness provided by the consideration of multiple possible futures has served several groups well; we present examples from business, government, and conservation planning that illustrate the value of scenario planning. For conservation, major benefits of using scenario planning are (1) increased understanding of key uncertainties, (2) incorporation of alternative perspectives into conservation planning, and (3) greater resilience of decisions to surprise.

Contact ALCES for Garry Peterson, Graeme Cumming, and Stephen Carpenter, 2003
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