Stony 800: Restoring Natural Patterns over Existing Disturbances

The Canadian boreal forest today is managed based on two principles:  a series of independent rules and regulations for each natural resource type (timber vs natural gas, etc.), and defining objectives based on the requirements of individual values (e.g. woodland caribou, recreation, timber, etc.).

This section adapted from: Andison, D. W. 2015. Using a Healthy Landscape Approach to Restore a Modified Landscape in Northeastern Alberta. Foothills Research Institute. Hinton, Alberta, Canada.

An unintended outcome of these policies is that they have helped create landscapes that are far beyond their pre-industrial range in areas where the energy sector is active, such as in northeastern Alberta. There is increasing evidence that these unfamiliar landscapes create lower levels of diversity and productivity, new and unpredictable relationships among species, fewer ecosystem services, and an ecosystem less resilient to climate change.

We proposed reversing these two traditional principles by modeling a landscape managed using a single set of rules applied to everyone and where the rules focused largely on defining desirable future landscapes. We hypothesize that both of these principles can be addressed by creating a shared vision of a desired future landscape that uses pre-industrial conditions as a guide. Aligning landscapes conditions more closely with their historical dynamics is thought to have a positive effect on ecological function and productivity, diversity, resilience, and ultimately, sustainability. These outcomes are shared goals of all stakeholders and management agencies today. In this study, we design and test the ability of a “Healthy Landscape” (HL) planning approach to create a more sustainable future landscape on an industrially modified 330,000 hectare area in northeastern Alberta.

The term “HL approach” is a generic reference to resource management premised on managing natural ecosystems for ecosystem integrity, health, and resilience. The foundation for an HL approach is historical landscape patterns, but also the relationship between climate, disturbance activities, and ecosystem conditions. An HL approach does not require landscapes to fall within the historic range, but rather the historic range and the associated dynamics becomes a starting point for identifying desired future landscapes. HL theory suggests that ecosystem conditions that are beyond their pre-industrial ranges represent novel conditions that resident species—including humans—will be unable to recognize or predict.

We acknowledge the potential magnitude of change this project represents in terms of both policies and practices. It is also not a simple research topic. As such, we consider this project exploratory in nature—a proof-of-concept, as opposed to a definitive set of recommendations relative to this or any other landscape.

As the name suggests, an HL approach refers more to a concept as opposed to a specific set of rules and practices. The approach that we developed for this study included two specific, highly novel innovative elements.

Step 1: Partitioning disturbance activity in time and space

Historical wildfire activity in the boreal clusters over both time and space, at any given time creating areas with both high disturbance activity called WHEREs (i.e. WHERE you are) and little or no disturbance activity called WYNs (i.e. Where You are Not).

The ratio, location, and timing of WHEREs and WYNs is in part how nature is able to create large old forest patches, caribou habitat, and diverse, resilient landscapes. In contrast, human-caused disturbance activity tends to spread out uniformly across a landscape, creating neither WHEREs nor WYNs.

Using this concept as our planning foundation, we identified the historical ratio of WHERE and WYN grid cells from historical fire records in northern Saskatchewan based on a 10,000-hectare cell using 20-year periods. To determine whether a cell was a WHERE or a WYN we created a scoring system. Cells with high levels of existing industrial activity and low levels of old forest were favoured for WHEREs, and those with low levels of industrial activity and high levels of old forest were favoured for WYNs.

Note that we only considered a single 20-year period for this study, but we imagined that the process of identifying WHEREs and WYNs is repeated every 20 years. In other words, a new WHERE-WYN (W-W) map was generated every time period.

Step 2: A disturbance plan

The next step was to assign patterns, levels, and types of industrial activities across the landscape, classified by cell type. We imagined this step being done collaboratively, although for the purposes of this pilot study we imposed our own rules (a disturbance plan). In this case, we have three types of cells on our landscape; WHEREs (in which industrial activity is concentrated, WYNs (in which industrial activity is not allowed, and Other (in which status quo rules pertain.

1. WHEREs would become focal areas for any new industrial activities such as harvesting, road building, exploration, and industrial installations. In contrast to the approach used today, the spatial design of the desired disturbance pattern at the end of each 20-year period was defined first, and collaboratively. Moreover, these disturbance designs were created by forest harvesting, and modelled on historical wildfire patterns. In part, this means leaving a pre-designed network of undisturbed patches and corridors designed to closely approximate those left by a forest fire. How and when the desired disturbance pattern is achieved was up to the stakeholders to reconcile. Although a range of industrial activities will be allowed, harvesting played the dominant role in creating natural disturbance patterns given its relative flexibility, and the ability of mechanical activities to “erase” the footprint of existing linear features.
2. WYNs are areas where all industrial activity is absent for the 20-year period. The ecological role of WYNs is to be the areas of natural and undisturbed vegetation. That translates into no harvesting, road-building, exploration, or well-site development. In this way, WYNs are de facto temporary deferral zones. WYNs also become the focal areas for linear feature restoration activities.
3. Other cells are those in which there are no new specific rules of development. Business as usual can be maintained.

The main hypothesis of the study was that the HL approach described above would create healthier future landscapes than would the continuation of traditional management approaches. To test this, we projected the traditional approach and our HL approach (i.e., the partitioning disturbance activity, plus the disturbance plan) forward in time on the Stony 800 study area using a scenario model (Patchworks).

The results suggested that the HL approach created a significantly healthier landscape than the current, traditional approach. At 20 years into the future, our tested HL approach created twice as much area in large old forest patches, restored twice as much area in linear features, and created 75% less disturbance edge compared to the existing management approach—all with the same financial investment in restoration activities and the same level of harvesting. These are dramatic improvements over current practices in just 20 years.

The results also suggest that the natural range of variation approach adopted by many forest management companies may be challenging to impose on boreal landscapes with either high proportions of non-merchantable vegetation, or a high degree of existing modification by industrial activities.

The proposed management approach addressed several issues that many stakeholders in Alberta agree are high priorities, including sustainability, integrated planning, eliminating cumulative effects, and making ecosystem health a shared priority. However, the predicted improvement in landscape health is only achieved with some considerable changes to policies and practices. First and foremost, the proposed HL approach requires a fully and truly collaborative planning framework, within which responsibility is shared among all stakeholders and managers. Second, the proposed approach assumes that the temporal deferral system suggested by the WYNs will be universally accepted by all industrial partners, or implemented and imposed by the Alberta government. It will take considerable and deliberate political will for both of these changes to occur.