Phase 2 Developing a Roadmap for Linear Restoration in Caribou Habitat

Restoration of legacy seismic lines within woodland caribou habitat has received considerable attention in the last seven years in Alberta, and restoration programs have transitioned from testing techniques at an experimental scale to delivering operational scale programs of up to 350 km per year. As restoration programs shift in scale, one of the major challenges has been the cost of treatments, regularly cited at costs of $8,000-16,000 per km. To help guide the identification of innovation opportunities for linear restoration, a series of organizations came together to fund a two-phase Restoration Innovation Roadmap. The first phase, funded by the Regional Industry Caribou Collaboration (RICC), focused on identifying key learnings to date to facilitate an adaptive management process. The second phase, contained within this report, was funded by COSIA and Alberta Innovates – Clean Energy. The focus of this second phase was to identify a series of new technologies and techniques that could significantly increase the efficiency of restoration treatments, while maintaining or improving the ecological effectiveness.

The top five technologies and techniques applicable in near term were: (1) virtual training simulators; (2) the Hummock Transfer Technique; (3) a multi-function machine to treat wetlands and uplands more efficiently; (4) planting shrubs in wetlands to avoid site prep costs; and (5) alternative equipment for uplands. Three forward-looking technologies needing more R&D to be applied in longer term: (1) airships to transport people and equipment, and serve as a mobile camp; (2) autonomous equipment operations; and (3) explosives to create surface roughness and apply woody materials. Combining methods could help – for example, combining virtual training simulators, alternative access vehicles and the Hummock Transfer Technique could reduce costs in wetland sites by 27-35%. Cumulative impacts can be explored through modelling, changes to restoration programs can be explored visually and the importance of project planning/managing can’t be overlooked. Interviews with innovators and funders about how to advance an innovation ecosystem for restoration suggested: (1) a test site to showcase innovations, (2) increasing communication about funding, (3) reducing admin burden of funding applications, and (4) creating an X-Prize challenge for restoration.