Managing human footprint to achieve large-landscape conservation outcomes: Establishing density limits on motorized route-user networks in Alberta’s Eastern Slopes

Abstract

The relationships between human footprint and measurable impacts to biodiversity and ecosystems are complex. Also problematic is the hesitancy to derive threshold-based management tools from the scientific literature. Road ecology points to road densities as a useful surrogate for human footprint, and the research is replete with links between cumulative effects and various density thresholds. Yet there are few practical examples demonstrating how to go about managing the cumulative effects to biodiversity and how to reduce human footprint for large-landscape conservation.In Alberta’s Eastern Slopes, a sub-regional planning process resulted in regulatory density limits being deployed on public lands in the Livingstone-Porcupine Hills. The density limits are applied to two classes of motorized route-use – open public use and restricted use by statutory consent holders – and are informed by biodiversity modeling analysis. Several elements supported the establishment of these density limits including a robust regional planning framework, legislative and regulatory tools, and thorough community engagement and participation in the planning process. Implementation success depends on resources for operational management, education, enforcement, monitoring, and restoration. We examine the Livingstone-Porcupine Hills Land Footprint Management Plan as an example of a real-world approach to manage a common and growing problem. We demonstrate that there is sufficient scientific literature to support a conceptual framework for motorized route-user networks, and that real-world applications in threshold-based decision-making have practical merit. Density limits on motorized route-user networks constitute a viable cumulative effects management tool, especially for land managers seeking to maintain biodiversity and healthy ecosystems on large unprotected landscapes.