NEW PAPER: A scientific consensus: the impacts of roads and human access on #grizzlybear and what we can do to fix the problem.
researchgate.net/publication/32…
Firstly, I'd suggest checking out the report just to view the amazing graphic design by @kate_sciart:
The story is simple, and compelling.
👉There are nearly 1 million km of resource roads accessing grizzly bear habitat in BC and AB. For reference, the earth is only 40,000 km in circumference.
👉See graphic for why this is bad for bears
What can we do? Managing human access is key to maintaining secure habitat for bears. Motorized access controls come in a variety of styles, with inverse relationships between ease of implementation and the benefits to bears
And the spatial arrangement of roads, and road closures, matters. #Grizzlybear needs some #wildplaces, so a checkerboard of small roadless places isn't great, better to pool roads in poor bear habitat and leave productive habitat roadless.
This is our idea of how to partition roads across the landscape: No roads in the best habitat, some in medium habitat, more in poor habitat. This is of course a compromise between the economic needs of the provinces for resource extraction and the preservation of #wildlife
Here is what the road footprint looks like in BC and AB's grizzly bear range. The width of roads is exaggerated due to pixel size at this scale, but the distribution is correct. These roads would wrap around the earth >25x if stretched end to end.Why #RoadlessWild is so important
I'm proud to say that I generated some of the science used to support this scientific consensus:
A link to the report again, if you've got to the end
researchgate.net/publication/32…
The @BC_FPBoard let Leopold say it best in their report on access management of resource roads: bcfpb.ca/wp-content/upl…
But a happy medium must exist, people mustn't be separated from the wild
We do have a lot of roads in BC though. That's 800,000 km total, half a million of which are roads to access and harvest trees
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