Land-Use References

Integrated Landscape Management Tools for Sustainable Development Policy Making

Policy Research Initiative

Sustainable Development Briefing Note

Integrated Place-Based Approaches for Sustainable Development

The Policy Research Institute

Place-based approaches address social, environmental or economic issues and thus offer the promise of operationalizing Sustainable Development (SD) principles. By focusing attention on policy issues as they play out in concrete geographic and community settings, place-based approaches provide a means to grasp complex and sometimes unexpected connections. This issue of Horizons provides a sense of the diversity of place-based approaches as they are applied in different policy areas, and identifies some of the lessons learned from an SD perspective.

Lake Simcoe Basin’s Natural Capital: The Value of the Watershed’s Ecosystem Services

Sara J. Wilson

This study quantifies the natural capital value of the ecosystem goods and services provided by Lake Simcoe’s watershed, a section of which is located in Ontario’s Greenbelt. At a minimum estimated worth of $975 million per year, the services provided by the watershed are worth $2,780 to each of the 350,000 permanent residents annually. This study represents the first application of this methodology to a watershed in southern Ontario. Goods and services provided by ecosystems are traditionally undervalued as they go unmeasured by conventional economics. These benefits include storage of floodwaters by wetlands, air pollution absorption, climate regulation, pollination of crops and water filtration, resulting in clean air and water and safe and abundant local food sources. In order to measure the value of these benefits, this study first describes the watershed’s natural assets – that is, the extent of the forests, wetlands, grasslands, water bodies, agricultural lands and urban or built-up areas. Then, using market-determined values (e.g. the avoided increased costs of a man-made water filtration service as a proxy for the existing capabilities of a natural system to filter water), the study was able to quantify many of the goods and services that are provided by the watershed.

Land Advocate: News for Canadians living with oil and gas production

Andrew Nikiforuk

A democratic voice for landowners and the land. An advocate for more 100,000 farmers, ranchers and landowners in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. We'll separate the oil from the gas to give you the best and most informed perspective on what's right and what's wrong in the oil patch.

Land and Water Impacts of Oil Sands Production in Alberta

Sarah Jordaan

Review of the Land and Water Impacts of Oil Sands Productions in Alberta

Leverage Points: Places to intervene in a system

Donella H. Meadows

What you are about to read is a work in progress. It's not a simple, sure-fire recipe for finding leverage points. Rather, it's an invitation to think more broadly about the many ways there might be to get systems to change.

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

Stephanie Melles

Logging to Supply Timber vs. Logging to Supply Water Is there a Difference?

Nigel Douglas

In all of the long-drawn-out, at times acrimonious disputes over logging in Alberta’s southern Eastern Slopes, one question has continued to baffle observers. Why has the Alberta government, despite all of the mounting opposition, been so determined to push ahead with logging these precious watersheds when the economic benefits are so minimal and the environmental costs so high? One possible answer to that question has been hinted at in recent comments from government spokesmen in the media. What if the government is indeed logging full speed to maximize resource extraction from the forest, but the primary focus is not on the production of timber, but on the production of water? If you have a tunnel-vision focus on managing forests to supply one thing – be it timber or water – then other things, including wildlife and recreation are likely to suffer. This seems to be the case in Alberta.

Mayatan Lake State of the Watershed Report

Melissa Logan, P.Biol., Billie Milholland, B.A., and David Trew, P.Biol.

The purpose of this report is to summarize all available environmental information for Mayatan Lake and its surrounding watershed. This report also provides a benchmark against which future stewardship activities and best management practices aimed at maintaining and improving watershed health can be assessed. The information will provide landowners, stakeholders, Parkland County and the Mayatan Lake Management Association (MLMA) with the information needed to support sound management decisions and develop solutions to protect or enhance land and water resources in the watershed. It also serves as a localized component and example of NSWA’s larger basin planning initiative, the Integrated Watershed Management Plan for the North Saskatchewan River Basin.

Modeling Cumulative Effects in Barren-ground Caribou Range: Proceedings of a Workshop in Yellowknife

Jan Adamczewski, John Nishi, Anne Gunn, Terry Antoniuk, Chris Johnson, Don Russell, Ted Blondin, All

In the early 2000s, most herds of barren-ground caribou in the Northwest Territories (NWT) were declining. The declines aroused considerable concern in NWT communities because caribou have been a resource of great value to people in the north for many generations. Possible explanations for the declines include a natural cycle, variation in weather and forage conditions, predation, hunting, disease, and industrial development. Of these factors, some are beyond immediate control, but effects due to direct human influence, like hunting and development, can be managed. The impact of development on caribou is usually not due to single roads, mines, cut-blocks or seismic lines, rather it is the cumulative effects of many habitat alterations over time that affect caribou numbers and distribution. Concerns over effects of development on caribou have been raised in environmental assessments and particularly by aboriginal groups for many years, but progress on assessing them has been limited. To be objective, assessment of cumulative effects must account for other factors, including hunting and natural variation in weather. Due to the need for overall knowledge of a caribou herd‟s complex ecology in assessing cumulative effects, biologists have turned to computer models to help track multiple variables and relationships, and to look at “what if” simulations. While these models cannot predict the future, they can help users understand how various factors interact and what likely consequences of particular management decisions might be. In the 2006-2010 NWT Caribou Management Strategy, a commitment was made by the Government of the Northwest Territories to developing a modeling approach that could assess development in its proper context of natural variation. In this report we summarized the presentations and participant responses at a public workshop held in February 2008, Yellowknife, NWT, on modeling cumulative effects in the range of the Bathurst herd. In addition, we report on progress towards a demonstration project initiated at the February 2008 workshop.