In the pursuit of sustainable development, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are acknowledged globally as a tool designed to assist governing authorities by providing the information required to make an informed decision regarding development proposals. South Africa has entrenched this EIA requirement in the presiding environmental legislation: the National Environmental Management Act (Act 107 of 1 998). In the effort to manage the negative impact of development on the rocky ridges of Johannesburg, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture, conservation, Environment and Land Affairs (GDACEL) has introduced a buffer zone requirement in the procedure of the EIA. The Red Data Plant Policy for Environmental Impact Evaluations for GDACEL described a buffer zone as a collar of land that filters out inappropriate influences from surrounding activities. As a tool in the EIA, a buffer zone is a worthwhile concept. However, the determination of the dimension of the buffer zone on rocky ridges, is non-discriminatory between sites, and thus, presents potential contention between decision-making authorities and developers. There is a need for further research to establish a scientifically acceptable method of determining site-specific buffer zones for individual EIA applications. The key objective of this paper is to suggest the possibility of determining a buffer zone that accommodates the unique environmental aspects of each site. This is achieved by determining the distance between the edge of existing developments and the point at which the successional climax community within the adjacent natural vegetation is established. Three suitable study sites, consisting of developed residential estates on ridges adjacent to nature reserves, were identified within the greater Johannesburg metropolis. The three study sites identified for this assessment include Kloofendal (west), Morning Hill (east) and Kliprivier (south). Within each study site field surveys were conducted along transects starting 5m from the development edge and ending 75m within the nature reserve adjacent to each site. Quantitative (species density) and qualitative (Braun-Blanquet cover-abundance values) data analysis was employed to describe and evaluate the identified plant communities. The data in this study provides clear indication that a 25-35m buffer zone would suffice for these specific plant communities to maintain a climax successional status if impacted on by residential development. This paper thus makes a case for permitting the determining of variable buffers zones, based on a gradient analysis of a plant community, as a potential panacea to the problem of resistance and reluctance to accept present standard buffer zones. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Open grassland productivity was measured within adjacent East Kootenay range units to evaluate forage availability and calculate elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) and cattle (Bos taurus) sustainable carrying capacity targets. This research extends rangeland monitoring with an analysis of site differentiation and comparative grazing pressure to 2008 population estimates. Significant productivity differences were found between grass and shrubs for range units (p=0.024 and p<0.0001) and different biogeoclimatic zones (p=0.042 and p<0.0001). Notable grazing pressure distinctions occurred: cattle exceeded the Rampart Mayook carrying capacity, elk exceeded the Pickering Hills carrying capacity, and both species had sustainable populations within the Power Plant range unit. These results provide clear direction for stock management and offer valuable rangeland insight. Furthermore, the study introduces cover-percentage productivity estimation (CPPE), a simple grassland productivity assessment method. Pearson correlation coefficients were significant and high between productivity results and cover estimates, indicating that CPPE will be a useful field tool.

In the summer of 2010, fieldwork was conducted in the Robertson Valley, Canadian Rocky Mountains, Alberta to assess the magnitude and controls of microbial nitrification in proglacial till and in supraglacial, subglacial, and proglacial streams. Seasonal precipitation and glacial and proglacial runoff was sampled for hydrochemical and stable isotope analyses (δ18O and δ15N of nitrate [NO3-]). Lower Ca:Mg ratios, higher mean Σmajor ions, and an increased importance of reactions with slower dissolution kinetics in subglacial streams and proglacial seeps indicated waters here experienced longer rock-water contact time than in dilute supraglacial streams. Additionally, waters emanating from longer residence time flowpaths acquired substantial NO3- from nitrification reactions. Using δ18O-NO3- in a simple end-member mixing model, the fraction of NO3- derived from microbial nitrification was estimated to be 44 to 56% in the two subglacial streams, and greater than 80% in proglacial seeps. These results show that atmospherically-derived nitrogen (N) in this glacial valley undergoes substantial biological cycling prior to export in surface runoff. Water flowing from the east subglacial stream (RE) received a larger portion of its melt from a sediment-rich, slow drainage system and had a higher proportion of nitrified NO3- compared to the west subglacial stream (RW), where runoff was similar in composition to supraglacial runoff, indicating that the nature of subglacial flowpaths is an important factor in determining the amount of microbially-cycled nutrients that are exported from a glacier. Sixteen 34-day in situ soil incubations revealed that net mineralization and net nitrification occurred at all four sampling sites in the glacier forefield along a 1.6 km chronosequence; however, there was no significant difference among these rates with time since deglaciation or temperature. Instead, net mineralization and net nitrification rates were significantly correlated (p < 0.05, n = 16) with measured physical and chemical soil variables, including total organic carbon, total N, bulk density, pH, and clay content, suggesting that substrate availability is a larger control on N-cycling processes than time since deglaciation. High variability in inorganic soil N pools and N-cycling rates indicates that there are likely hot spots of biogeochemical activity within glacial till. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-26 14:47:17.29

No description available.

In the face of an expanding global human footprint, mammalian carnivores have become vulnerable to the effects of large-scale landscape change. Throughout North America, wide-ranging terrestrial carnivores have experienced significant species declines and range retractions. Understanding the complex and interacting effects of human-caused habitat disturbance on highly mobile species remains an ongoing challenge for ecologists. To address these challenges, studies commonly select a focal species to examine the adverse effects of human disturbance. Due to the paucity of multi-species study, little is yet known about the relative role interspecific interactions play within communities of carnivores in human-altered systems. In an effort to address this knowledge gap, I examined occurrence patterns of one species known to be sensitive to human disturbance – the wolverine – and compared occurrence patterns among multiple carnivores across a gradient of increasing human land use within a rugged and heterogeneous landscape in the Canadian Rocky Mountains of Alberta. I surveyed carnivore occurrence by combining remote camera trapping and non-invasive genetic tagging. Using a systematic grid based design, medium to large sized carnivores were detected over an area approximately 15,000km2. Consistent with the literature, I found wolverines to be less likely to occur outside of protected areas boundaries and with increasing human-caused landscape disturbance. Contrary to recent climate-focused hypotheses, the spatial pattern of wolverine occurrence was best explained by cumulative effects. When modeling multiple carnivore occurrence across this spatial gradient of human land use, no generality in response was observed. However, a consistent and distinct dissimilarity in response to natural and anthropogenic landscape features was found between wolverine and coyote. The patterns of occurrence led me to infer that habitat condition in the more human-altered systems found along eastern slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains is less suitable for some more sensitive species and benefits more human-adapted species. I further hypothesized that an indirect and additive effect of human disturbance is increased interspecific competition between co-occurring carnivores that differentially respond to changes in habitat condition. My results emphasize that by broadening our scope to investigate both single and multiple species, ecologists and managers may better understand the full suite of factors influencing current and future distribution patterns. / Graduate / heimnikki@gmail.com

In 1975, the US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the grizzly bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Following the listing, a recovery plan was drafted in which the Bitterroot Ecosystem of central Idaho and extreme western Montana was one of six proposed grizzly bear recovery areas. It was the only one of the six, however, which did not contain a resident population of grizzlies. The Fish and Wildlife Service eventually accepted a proposal submitted by a coalition of environmental and timber industry groups. The coalition proposed to reestablish a population of grizzlies in the Bitterroot by translocating 25 bears over five years from existing populations in the US and Canada. The proposal, however, included significant concessions, including reduced protection for the reintroduced grizzlies and management of the grizzly population by a Citizen Management Committee. A large contingent of regional and national environmental groups quickly rose up in vociferous objection to the proposal exposing a significant rift within the environmental movement. These environmentalists objected to the very idea of Citizen Management and also claimed that the proposed recovery area was too small to ensure recovery. Drawing on interviews and document analyses, this dissertation employs an environmental pragmatist approach to examine the intra-environmentalist disputes that flared up throughout the Bitterroot grizzly recovery debates. The dissertation focuses on the relationship between environmental ideologies, science, and conservation advocacy, with an eye toward examining how environmentalists crafted and defended rival proposals for grizzly recovery. Through this interpretive lens, the dissertation aims to explain the existence and persistence of this intra-environmentalism rift as well as explore its ramifications for environmentalism in the region. While no wholly unified environmental movement can ever be possible or is even necessarily desirable unwavering commitments to unreachable ideals on the part of many environmentalists are hindering the growth, flexibility and efficacy of conservation in the region. The main contribution of this dissertation will be to provide an empirical case study that defends the environmental pragmatist assertion that hostile and unnecessary divisiveness within the environmental movement ultimately obstructs the development of a more successful environmentalism.

Remote ecosystems in Canadian Rocky Mountain parks and protected areas are being pressured by indirect impacts of human activities across the landscape. Ecological impacts can result from a variety of stressors such as climate change, fire suppression and prescription, visitor use, invasive species, and surrounding land-uses. With intensified challenges relating to logistics and moral issues inherent in remote ecosystem management (Higgs and Hobbs, 2010; Higgs and Roush, 2011), managers of these landscapes continue to struggle with questions of "what do we do here?" For ecological restoration and conservation management, historical landscape changes (predominantly following years of fire suppression and rapid climate change) are complicating decisions and our understanding of ecological processes. While intervention may become increasingly necessary for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services under conditions of rapid change (Hobbs et al., 2011), direct action may not be the most appropriate tactic, especially when lacking adequate information and foresight (Harris et al., 2006; Higgs and Roush, 2011). This study investigates observable historical remote landscape change in two protected areas in the Canadian Rockies, and examines the resulting implications for management and restoration. Present conditions in Willmore Wilderness Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park were evaluated in a comparative case-study approach. The influence of factors such as jurisdiction, climate, socioeconomics and settlement history were seen to strongly shape how environmental changes impacted management efforts and decisions. Long-term landscape changes were observed through repeat photography with the Mountain Legacy Project. Through focus groups using photo-elicitation with park managers, repeat photo pairs guided discussion. I pursued this research question: "how do long-term landscape changes influence conservation and restoration objectives in remote mountain ecosystems?" This also incorporated subsidiary questions: "what are the inherent challenges in managing (and restoring) remote ecosystems?” and “how could managers of remote ecosystems best approach these issues in the face of rapid ecological change?” Significant landscape changes are observed in both parks and include glacier retreat, forest stand aging, valley infill (encroachment) and upward movement of the treeline ecotone. While ecological changes are seen as significant and as threatening to various park values and public safety, efforts to better understand these changes or address them are limited. The majority of remote ecosystem management efforts in both parks are indirect (passive), with the exception of fire management. This is largely due to capacity and resource constraints, and agency recreation mandates and visitor needs monopolizing manager focus. Suggested restoration efforts would assist climate adaptation and reduce indirect impacts without placing notable pressure on remote ecosystems. The use of repeat photography for monitoring of ecological change is a strong possibility for parks management, particularly if public engagement through citizen science was implemented to minimize dependence on management resources. / Graduate / 0368 / 0768 / jlfalk@uvic.ca

In the pursuit of sustainable development, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are acknowledged globally as a tool designed to assist governing authorities by providing the information required to make an informed decision regarding development proposals. South Africa has entrenched this EIA requirement in the presiding environmental legislation: the National Environmental Management Act (Act 107 of 1 998). In the effort to manage the negative impact of development on the rocky ridges of Johannesburg, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture, conservation, Environment and Land Affairs (GDACEL) has introduced a buffer zone requirement in the procedure of the EIA. The Red Data Plant Policy for Environmental Impact Evaluations for GDACEL described a buffer zone as a collar of land that filters out inappropriate influences from surrounding activities. As a tool in the EIA, a buffer zone is a worthwhile concept. However, the determination of the dimension of the buffer zone on rocky ridges, is non-discriminatory between sites, and thus, presents potential contention between decision-making authorities and developers. There is a need for further research to establish a scientifically acceptable method of determining site-specific buffer zones for individual EIA applications. The key objective of this paper is to suggest the possibility of determining a buffer zone that accommodates the unique environmental aspects of each site. This is achieved by determining the distance between the edge of existing developments and the point at which the successional climax community within the adjacent natural vegetation is established. Three suitable study sites, consisting of developed residential estates on ridges adjacent to nature reserves, were identified within the greater Johannesburg metropolis. The three study sites identified for this assessment include Kloofendal (west), Morning Hill (east) and Kliprivier (south). Within each study site field surveys were conducted along transects starting 5m from the development edge and ending 75m within the nature reserve adjacent to each site. Quantitative (species density) and qualitative (Braun-Blanquet cover-abundance values) data analysis was employed to describe and evaluate the identified plant communities. The data in this study provides clear indication that a 25-35m buffer zone would suffice for these specific plant communities to maintain a climax successional status if impacted on by residential development. This paper thus makes a case for permitting the determining of variable buffers zones, based on a gradient analysis of a plant community, as a potential panacea to the problem of resistance and reluctance to accept present standard buffer zones. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Remote ecosystems in Canadian Rocky Mountain parks and protected areas are being pressured by indirect impacts of human activities across the landscape. Ecological impacts can result from a variety of stressors such as climate change, fire suppression and prescription, visitor use, invasive species, and surrounding land-uses. With intensified challenges relating to logistics and moral issues inherent in remote ecosystem management (Higgs and Hobbs, 2010; Higgs and Roush, 2011), managers of these landscapes continue to struggle with questions of "what do we do here?" For ecological restoration and conservation management, historical landscape changes (predominantly following years of fire suppression and rapid climate change) are complicating decisions and our understanding of ecological processes. While intervention may become increasingly necessary for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services under conditions of rapid change (Hobbs et al., 2011), direct action may not be the most appropriate tactic, especially when lacking adequate information and foresight (Harris et al., 2006; Higgs and Roush, 2011). This study investigates observable historical remote landscape change in two protected areas in the Canadian Rockies, and examines the resulting implications for management and restoration. Present conditions in Willmore Wilderness Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park were evaluated in a comparative case-study approach. The influence of factors such as jurisdiction, climate, socioeconomics and settlement history were seen to strongly shape how environmental changes impacted management efforts and decisions. Long-term landscape changes were observed through repeat photography with the Mountain Legacy Project. Through focus groups using photo-elicitation with park managers, repeat photo pairs guided discussion. I pursued this research question: "how do long-term landscape changes influence conservation and restoration objectives in remote mountain ecosystems?" This also incorporated subsidiary questions: "what are the inherent challenges in managing (and restoring) remote ecosystems?” and “how could managers of remote ecosystems best approach these issues in the face of rapid ecological change?” Significant landscape changes are observed in both parks and include glacier retreat, forest stand aging, valley infill (encroachment) and upward movement of the treeline ecotone. While ecological changes are seen as significant and as threatening to various park values and public safety, efforts to better understand these changes or address them are limited. The majority of remote ecosystem management efforts in both parks are indirect (passive), with the exception of fire management. This is largely due to capacity and resource constraints, and agency recreation mandates and visitor needs monopolizing manager focus. Suggested restoration efforts would assist climate adaptation and reduce indirect impacts without placing notable pressure on remote ecosystems. The use of repeat photography for monitoring of ecological change is a strong possibility for parks management, particularly if public engagement through citizen science was implemented to minimize dependence on management resources. / Graduate / 0368 / 0768 / jlfalk@uvic.ca

The goal of biodiversity conservation has been described as the conservation of diversity at three levels: ecosystem, species and genetic diversity. Developing a representative system of marine protected areas is considered an effective way to achieve this goal in the marine environment. The growing concern associated with threats to the marine environment has resulted in an increased demand for marine reserves (i.e. no-take areas) that conserve representative and adequate examples of biodiversity. Often, the decisions about where to locate reserves must be made in the absence of detailed information on the patterns of distribution of the biota. Alternative approaches are required that include defining habitats as surrogates for biodiversity. The development of biodiversity surrogates at fine-scales (i.e. habitats) will have an increasingly important role in the identification of sites that will contribute to a representative system of marine protected areas. This is because it will increase the likelihood that the system will adequately achieve biodiversity objectives by ensuring protection of a greater range of habitats and species. Surrogate measures of biodiversity enable decisions about where to locate marine reserves to be made more reliably in the absence of detailed data on the distribution of species. There is concern, however, about the reliability of surrogate measures to represent biotic diversity and the use of such measures in the design of marine reserve systems. Currently, surrogate measures are most often based on broad-scale (100s to 1000s of kilometres) bioregional frameworks that define general categories (sandy beach, rocky shore) for intertidal systems. These broad-scale categories are inadequate when making decisions about conservation priorities at the local level (10s to 100s of metres). This study provides an explanation of an intertidal shoreline habitat surrogate (i.e. shoreline types) used to describe 24,216 kilometres of Queensland’s coastline. The protective status of shoreline types was evaluated to assist with designing a representative system of intertidal marine protected areas. The shoreline types derived using physical properties of the shoreline were used as a surrogate for intertidal biodiversity to assist with the identification of sites for inclusion in a candidate system of intertidal marine reserves for 17,463 kilometres of the mainland coast of Queensland, Australia. This represents the first systematic approach, on essentially one-dimensional data, using fine-scale (10s to 100s of metres) intertidal habitats to identify a system of marine reserves for such a large length of coast. A range of solutions would provide for the protection of a representative example of shoreline types in Queensland. Shoreline types were used as a surrogate for intertidal biodiversity (i.e. habitats, microhabitats) to assist with the identification of sites to be included in a representative system of marine reserves in south east Queensland. The use of local-scale shoreline types increased the likelihood that sites identified for conservation achieved representation goals for the mosaic of habitats and microhabitats, and therefore the associated biodiversity present on rocky shores, than that provided by the existing marine reserve protection in south east Queensland. These results indicate that using broad-scale surrogate measures (rocky shore, sandy beach) for biodiversity (habitats, microhabitats and species) are likely to result in poor representation of fine-scale habitats and microhabitats, and therefore intertidal assemblages in marine reserves. When additional fine-scale data were added to reserve selection the summed irreplaceability of 24% (for spatial extent of habitats), and 29% (for presence/absence of microhabitats) of rocky shore sites increased above zero, where a value close to one means a site is necessary, for inclusion in a reserve system, to meet conservation targets. The use of finer-scale physical data to support marine reserve design is more likely to result in the selection of reserves that achieve representation at habitat and microhabitat levels, increasing the likelihood that conservation goals will be achieved. The design and planning of marine and terrestrial protected areas systems should not be undertaken independently of each other because it is likely to lead to inadequate representation of intertidal habitats in either system. The development of reserve systems specially designed to protect intertidal habitats should be integrated into the design of terrestrial and marine protected area systems. Marine reserve networks are a necessary and effective tool for conserving marine biodiversity. They also have an important role in the governance of oceans and the sustainable management of marine resources. The translation of marine reserve network theory into practice is a challenge for conservation practitioners. Barriers to implementing marine reserves include varying levels of political will and agency support and leadership, poorly coordinated marine conservation policy, inconsistencies with the use of legislation, polarised views and opposition from some stakeholders, and difficulties with defining and mapping conservation features. The future success of marine reserve network implementation will become increasingly dependent on: increasing political commitment and agency leadership to remove conflicts within and between government agencies involved in site identification and selection; greater involvement and collaboration with stakeholders; and the provision of resources to define and map conservation features. Key elements of translating marine reserve theory into implementation of a network of marine reserves are discussed based on approaches used successfully in New Zealand and New South Wales (Australia).