In Situ Land Habitat Restoration and Interim Reclamation Best Practices Tour

Silvicultural techniques have been applied at number of sites, dating back to 2008, the longest standing trials in the oil sands. This work is very relevant to the issue of restoration of historic footprint, as expected within upcoming caribou range plans, and can provide valuable learning opportunities to inform future work. The objectives of this project were to: (1) tour these caribou habitat restoration trials and evaluate successes and failures to inform COSIA members as they manage compliance with caribou range plans to be released in October 2017; and (2) tour and discuss interim reclamation and bioengineering trials designed to support the development of woody vegetation in alignment with the COSIA Land in situ performance goal to reduce the operating footprint intensity of in situ operations by 10% by 2022. This field tour and resulting discussions took place from October 1st to 3rd, 2018.

Main discussion themes included: (1) how to determine ultimate restoration goals – caribou conservation is main focus of most oil sands restoration projects and funding, and they may be functioning as an umbrella species in that caribou conservation may be benefiting overall biodiversity, but if restoration only considers metrics relevant to caribou, other species may suffer; (2) how to balance simple metrics with complexity of understanding ecosystems? – hard to link one metric (e.g. tree height) to caribou populations, but operators need clear metrics to engage in restoration projects. Balance needed between incentivizing restoration treatments and continuing ongoing research and monitoring on complexity of ecosystem effects; (3) how to address logistical and social challenges of landscape-scale treatments – restoration should prioritize features of highest benefit to caribou and allow for landscape-scale experimental treatments, but there are logistical and safety challenges for operators in remote areas , and access routes for indigenous community members is a key concern. Collaboration between stakeholders is crucial to ensure restoration efforts meet needs of industry, indigenous activities and research while also assisting caribou recovery.