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  • OPEN ACCESS
    Building a common description of land cover in a tropical watershed plagued with intercultural conflicts: The value of participatory 3D modelling
    FACETS • Vol. 2 • pp. 195 - 211
    Natural forest management and conservation projects such as reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD+) face many challenges in the field. Implementation of these projects depends on such factors as clarity of information among stakeholders, legal security of territories, and local decision-making power. These challenges have been previously identified in the Upper Bayano watershed of eastern Panama, where a long history of land cover and land-use conflicts is present between three different human groups. With a long-term objective of natural forest conservation, this study aims to develop and test participatory approaches (participatory mapping and participatory 3D modelling) for the Upper Bayano watershed in an attempt to create a consensus among all stakeholders on current land cover and land-use conflicts to overcome challenges faced by projects as REDD+. We found that the third dimension allows a common understanding over the landscape, creates a common ground discussion, and leads towards a consensus, while the participatory approach brings discussion and positive effects among the stakeholders and the bridging institutions bring equity and transparency. Finally, we discuss implications of this knowledge generation and common agreement over the landscape for future forest management projects such as REDD+’s implementation.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Channel geomorphology differences between stream reaches with grass- or tree-dominated riparian vegetation in southern Manitoba
    FACETS • Vol. 4 • No. 1 • pp. 336 - 349
    Removal of trees for pasture or crop production is common along the stream reaches in the Canadian Prairies, resulting in a patchwork of forested and nonforest riparian vegetation along most streams. The effect of vegetation type on channel geomorphology and potential to influence sediment dynamics was studied using eight paired reaches (forested and nonforest) within agricultural watersheds in southern Manitoba, Canada. High potential for bank erosion was observed at all sites (bank erosion hazard index scores), but Pfankuch channel stability scores were significantly higher for forested reaches compared with nonforested reaches. Furthermore, forested reaches had higher width to depth ratios, but flood-prone widths did not differ significantly, resulting in lower entrenchment ratios. Reduced channel width and cross-sectional area in nonforested reaches created an overall reduction of in-stream habitat, increased velocity, and increased potential for exceedance of channel capacity and floodplain access during high-flow events. Channel widening in response to riparian afforestation efforts has been observed in a variety of other locations globally and the results of this study suggest that widening with afforestation can still be anticipated in this region where stream gradients are low, hydrology is dominated by snowmelt, and forest cover is minimal.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Combining high-resolution remotely sensed data with local and Indigenous Knowledge to model the landscape suitability of culturally modified trees: biocultural stewardship in Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory
    FACETS • Vol. 6 • pp. 465 - 489
    Environmental management and monitoring must reconcile social and cultural objectives with biodiversity stewardship to overcome political barriers to conservation. Suitability modelling offers a powerful tool for such “biocultural” approaches, but examples remain rare. Led by the Stewardship Authority of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation in coastal British Columbia, Canada, we developed a locally informed suitability model for a key biocultural indicator, culturally modified trees (CMTs). CMTs are trees bearing evidence of past cultural use that are valued as tangible markers of Indigenous heritage and protected under provincial law. Using a spatial multi-criteria evaluation framework to predict CMT suitability, we developed two cultural predictor variables informed by Kitasoo/Xai’xais cultural expertise and ethnographic data in addition to six biophysical variables derived from LiDAR and photo interpretation data. Both cultural predictor variables were highly influential in our model, revealing that proximity to known habitation sites and accessibility to harvesters (by canoe and foot) more strongly influenced suitability for CMTs compared with site-level conditions. Applying our model to commercial forestry governance, we found that high CMT suitability areas are 51% greater inside the timber harvesting land base than outside. This work highlights how locally led suitability modelling can improve the social and evidentiary dimensions of environmental management.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Perspectives from landscape ecology can improve environmental impact assessment
    FACETS • Vol. 6 • pp. 358 - 378
    The outcomes of environmental impact assessment (EIA) influence millions of hectares of land and can be a contentious process. A vital aspect of an EIA process is consideration of the accumulation of impacts from multiple activities and stressors through a cumulative effects assessment (CEA). An opportunity exists to improve the rigor and utility of CEA and EIA by incorporating core scientific principles of landscape ecology into EIA. With examples from a Canadian context, we explore realistic hypothetical situations demonstrating how integration of core scientific principles could impact EIA outcomes. First, we demonstrate how changing the spatial extent of EIA boundaries can misrepresent cumulative impacts via the exclusion or inclusion of surrounding natural resource development projects. Second, we use network analysis to show how even a seemingly small, localized development project can disrupt regional habitat connectivity. Lastly, we explore the benefits of using long-term historical remote sensing products. Because these approaches are straightforward to implement using publicly available data, they provide sensible opportunities to improve EIA and enhance the monitoring of natural resource development activities in Canada and elsewhere.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Safety Net Ontario: Ontario’s outsized role in the “Global Safety Net” for climate and biodiversity
    FACETS • Vol. 8 • pp. 1 - 17
    Dinerstein et al. present a spatially explicit global framework for protected areas needed to reverse catastrophic biodiversity losses and stabilize climate. The Province of Ontario (Canada) stands out in this “Global Safety Net (GSN)” as a critical jurisdiction for meeting those goals, because of both the large extent of roadless lands and high carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems. Simultaneously, pressure is increasing to develop unmanaged lands in Ontario, particularly in the Far North, for resource extraction. Here, we extract data from the GSN to identify and calculate the areal extent of target regions present in Ontario and critically review the results in terms of accuracy and implications for conservation. We show that when region-specific data are incorporated, Ontario is even more significant than what is shown in the GSN, especially in terms of carbon stocks in forested and open peatlands. Additionally, the biodiversity metrics used in the GSN only partially capture opportunities for conservation in Ontario, and the officially recognized extent of Indigenous lands vastly underestimates the role of First Nations in conservation. Despite these limitations, our analyses indicate that Ontario plays an outsized role in terms of its potential to impact the trajectories both of biodiversity and climate globally.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    An integrated assessment of impacts to ecosystem services associated with prairie pothole wetland drainage quantifying wide-ranging losses
    FACETS • Vol. 9 • pp. 1 - 15
    In many regions, a tradeoff exists between draining wetlands to support the expansion of agricultural land, and conserving wetlands to maintain their valuable ecosystem services. Decisions about wetland drainage are often made without identifying the impacts on the services these systems provide. We address this gap through a novel assessment of impacts on ecosystem services via wetland drainage in the Canadian prairie landscape. Draining pothole wetlands has large impacts, but sensitivity varies among the indicators considered. Loss of water storage increased the magnitude of median annual flows, but absolute increases with drainage were higher for larger, less frequent events. Total phosphorus exports increased in concert with streamflow. Our analysis suggested disproportionate riparian habitat losses with the first 30% of wetland area drained. Dabbling ducks and wetland-associated bird abundances respond strongly to the loss of small wetland ponds; abundances were predicted to decrease by half with the loss of only 20%–40% of wetland area. This approach to evaluating changes to key wetland ecosystem services in a large region where wetland drainage is ongoing can be used with an economic valuation of the drainage impacts, which should be weighed against the benefits associated with agricultural expansion.
  • OPEN ACCESS
    Drivers of high rates of carbon burial in a riverine-influenced freshwater marsh in the Long Point Walsingham Priority Place of southern Ontario
    FACETS • Vol. 10 • pp. 1 - 14
    Reported rates of soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation in wetlands are markedly higher over recent versus longer timescales, caused by SOC losses through decomposition, paleoenvironmental changes, and recent increases in sedimentation or biomass production. Explaining changes in SOC sequestration rates and determining the time horizon over which high rates are sustained are both critical for accurately measuring the potential for wetland conservation as a natural climate solution. Here, we present analyses on a 4-m core from a riverine-influenced marsh in Big Creek watershed, southern Ontario, to track changes in SOC accumulation regimes. Since wetland initiation ∼5700 years ago, mean long-term (pre-industrial) rates of SOC accumulation were 24 g C m−2 year−1, and recent rates up to four times higher. We demonstrate that elevated recent rates of SOC accumulation are largely explained by more labile carbon in surficial soils, and are sustained for less than a century before transitioning to slower burial rates of predominantly recalcitrant organic matter. However, there are exceptions to this trend, such as when labile SOC was buried intermittently during Holocene Lake Erie highstands. Our research underscores the importance of organic matter type and hydroclimatic context in predicting long-term potential for marsh soils to stabilize atmospheric carbon.