Biodiversity Intactness Report

The Oil Sands Region (OSR) of Canada comprises 142,200 km² of boreal forest in northeast Alberta. It is on treaty lands and traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples, important for hunting and fishing, cultural practices, and maintaining traditional ways of life. The OSR represents the world’s fourth largest proven oil reserves and includes both oil sands and conventional oil and gas development. Other common land uses include agriculture, forestry, and municipal developments. Managing cumulative effects of these multiple land uses is a key challenge in this region. As part of their commitment to environmental stewardship, the energy sector invests in understanding and minimizing the impact of their activities on species and habitats, including collaborative approaches with other land users to reduce human footprint. This project report summarizes the status of land cover and biodiversity in the OSR using up to 20 years of monitoring data collected by the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI).

Summary of status of land cover and biodiversity in the Oil Sands Region: (1) human footprint increased from 12.0% to 16.5% between 2000 and 2021, with agriculture (7.9%), forestry (4.2%), and energy (2.6%) being the main types of human disturbance in 2021; (2) wildfire (8.1%) affected more area than human activities (2.7%) from 2010 to 2021; (3) biodiversity intactness averages 87%, indicating much of the habitat across the region is in good condition; however, human development activities are impacting habitat suitability in some areas; (4) ongoing research focuses on vegetation regeneration on seismic lines and their impacts on species like Woodland Caribou; (5) the ABMI continues its field and geospatial monitoring programs, with updated data available through the Online Reporting for Biodiversity (ORB) tool. The regional summary includes results for several indicators that align with the monitoring framework for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, such as native cover, interior habitat, and biodiversity intactness.