Building a centre of excellence in restoration practice

Resource sectors operating within the habitat of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), Boreal population (“boreal caribou”), need to build capacity regarding forest restoration. In response, scientists at the Canadian Forest Service and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) developed a forestry toolkit, which provides practical knowledge and information based on decades of experience from the forest sector. This toolkit, consisting guidebooks, factsheets and videos, can be used by end users such as restoration workers, planners, consultants and operators. While geared toward oil and gas settings, the toolkit can be applied wherever disturbed sites need to return to forest cover.

With support from COSIA, this project is also developing demonstration and monitoring sites, virtual field tours and a knowledge portal to share restoration and reforestation best practices.

External team members: Michael Cody (Cenovus Energy), Matthew Pyper (Fuse Consulting Ltd), Doug Kulba and Chris Walsh (Evergreen Centre for Resource Excellence and Innovation).