Appalachian Corridor and Association ds biologistes du Québec (ABQ)
- McGill University/ Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science
- Quebec’s Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs (MFFP)
Session B: Sainte-Anne Room
Session B: Culverts/Bridges & Aquatic Wildlife
- Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Session A: Large Mammal Passages
- The Nature Conservancy, Massachusetts
Session B: Culverts/Bridges & Aquatic Wildlife
Most investments in ‘grey infrastructure’ solutions for disaster risk reduction focus on single purpose – dams, levees and seawalls are meant to hold back water or prevent land erosion. Natural features or ‘nature-based infrastructure,’ such as oyster reefs, floodplains, coastal wetlands, etc. can also perform these functions yet do so in a way that provides multiple additional benefits, including fish habitat.
To build the case for nature-based approaches, it is essential to engage communities about their goals and evaluate the social, economic and environmental outcomes of natural infrastructure projects. This talk will explore how measuring outcomes can improve practices for siting, constructing and monitoring these approaches, and by using a standardized set of performance measures across projects we can gain a broader perspective on success of projects at multiple scales to protect and restore fish populations while meeting other goals.
Session B: Sainte-Anne Room
Session B: Culverts/Bridges & Aquatic Wildlife
The Nature Conservancy, Vermont
Session A: Large Mammal Passages
- USFW Gulf of Maine Coastal Program
Session B: Culverts/Bridges & Aquatic Wildlife
Session B: Sainte-Anne Room
Session B: Culverts/Bridges & Aquatic Wildlife
- Quebec’s Ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable, et de l’Électrification des transports (MTMDET)
Session A: Large Mammal Passages
Research as well as numerous studies and environmental assessments have been carried out to inform various infrastructure development, improvement or maintenance projects, whether or not required by environmental legislation. In this context, the presentation will provide a detailed picture of the MTMDET's actions in the field of road ecology, from maintaining connectivity on both sides of the transportation network to the ecological control of vegetation and rainwater management.
and - Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)
Session B: Culverts/Bridges & Aquatic Wildlife
- Center for Large Landscape Conservation
- ARC Solutions & Center for Large Landscape Conservation
- Yannick Autret (France) (ITTECOP Program & French Ministry of the Environment, Sustainable Development & Energy) - Conference from 18:40.
and - Two Countries, One Forest (2C1F)
In this bi-national region, many roads are significant barriers to the movement of wildlife. To address this challenge, SCI partners collaborate on science – including GIS modeling and field research with wildlife cameras and tracking – to identify priority road segments, key sites for wildlife movement, and design specifications for transportation infrastructure that will help wildlife move safely under roads. Across the region, SCI partners are implementing a range of cost-effective mitigation solutions, including construction and installation of wildlife “shelves” inside culverts and under bridges, to make roads safer for wildlife and people. SCI’s transportation work is complemented by land protection and land use planning to ensure that wildlife have access to habitat beyond the right of way, by community outreach to build support for this work, and by policy solutions to leverage investments like these and help ensure they are enduring.
Session D: Sainte-Anne Room
Session D: Managing Transportation Rights-of-way: Alien Invasive Species, Surface Runoff and ATV Trails
- Eco-kare International
Session C: Existing Structure Adaptation & New Wildlife Passages
- Université Laval
Session D: Managing Transportation Rights-of-way: Alien Invasive Species, Surface Runoff and ATV Trails
Session D: Sainte-Anne Room
Session D: Managing Transportation Rights-of-way: Alien Invasive Species, Surface Runoff and ATV Trails
- Ministry of Transportation, Ontario (MTO)
Session C: Existing Structure Adaptation & New Wildlife Passages
- Quebec's Ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable et de l’Électrification des transports (MTMDET), D.T. de la Capitale-Nationale
Session D: Managing Transportation Rights-of-way: Alien Invasive Species, Surface Runoff and ATV Trails
An example made by the MTMDET in the interchange between the Félix-Leclerc and Laurentienne highways (QC) demonstrates that an integrated design can optimize retention basins by multiplying their ecological functions in a highway context. Fauna, flora and landscape enhancement practices have led to the creation of an aesthetic and productive riparian ecotone, and development of a biodiversity typical of wetlands and aquatic environments. Inspired by this success, other developments incorporating the same principles are in preparation.
In addition to enriching the visual experience of motorists, such an approach reintegrates into the urban fabric ecological services that were hitherto absent from vast unmanaged areas. The achievement of these objectives, however, is accompanied by several challenges, including the control of invasive plants and the promotion of the ecological value of these developments both to the public and relevant environment protection authorities.
Session D: Sainte-Anne Room
Session D: Managing Transportation Rights-of-way: Alien Invasive Species, Surface Runoff and ATV Trails
- Quebec's Ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable et de l’Électrification des transports (MTMDET), D.T. de la Capitale-Nationale
Session C: Existing Structure Adaptation & New Wildlife Passages
- Fondation de la faune du Québec
Session D: Managing Transportation Rights-of-way: Alien Invasive Species, Surface Runoff and ATV Trails
Session F: Sainte-Anne Room
Session F: Wildlife Passage Design & Engineering
and student - Appalachian Corridor & Concordia University
Session E: Wildlife Movement Detection & Monitoring
and - ARC Solutions
Session F: Wildlife Passage Design & Engineering
To fulfill the criteria set out by the ARC competition, wildlife crossing structures required a new category of infrastructure and an interdisciplinary approach for effective planning and design. Wildlife infrastructure design is necessarily a collaborative craft, one that requires the input of many different types of experts, from ecologists to architects to landscape designers to engineers and transportation specialists. The ARC competition demonstrated that it is possible to design not only innovative and practical crossing structures, but also a process that can resolve the challenge of building both for transportation and for resilience in response to changes in climate, habitat conditions and the increased necessity for wildlife movement.
Session F: Sainte-Anne Room
Session F: Wildlife Passage Design & Engineering
et l’étudiant - Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
Session E: Wildlife Movement Detection & Monitoring
and - Quebec’s Ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable, et de l’Électrification des transports, D.T. Chaudières- Appalaches
Session F: Wildlife Passage Design & Engineering
The design of the A-73's various road projects spanned over nearly 20 years. Since the 1990s, the problem of road collisions involving cervids has become a concern in several regions of Quebec. In partnership with Quebec’s ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs (MFFP), the MTMDET began to design a section of highway that crosses a White-tailed Deer winter yard; it thus seemed essential to construct a road permeable to deer movements. Twenty years later, the A-73, which crosses two White-tailed Deer winter yards, includes 22.3 km section of fenced road, 62 jumps and 10 large mammal crossings.
and - Concordia University and Quebec's MTMDET, D.T. Capitale-Nationale
Session H: Sainte-Anne Room
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
- Ouranos
Session G: Climate Change Adaptation
- Vermont Agency of Transportation (Vtrans)
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
Road ecology training for VTrans staff has been ongoing since 2002. This training targets engineers, designers, project managers, transportation planners, and operations personnel by getting them out of their offices and garages and into the critical habitat adjacent to Vermont’s roads and bridges. Trainings help these decision makers and designers better understand Vermont ecology in order to help create and implement solutions to the ongoing concerns with wildlife-transportation interactions. These solutions often involve partnerships with sister state agencies, federal agencies, neighboring states and provinces, and non-government organizations who have been utilized as powerful tools for VTrans to work outside of the transportation right-of-way.
VTrans is tasked with moving people and goods in a safe and efficient manner while taking the natural environment into consideration. VTrans does not conduct land use planning or land management outside of the transportation network, where roadway infrastructure ends and wildlife habitat begins. Without key partnerships, there is a definite risk of losing critical habitat adjacent to transportation infrastructure that was designed to help wildlife move safely through the system.
Session H: Sainte-Anne Room
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
- Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
Session G: Climate Change Adaptation
- Queens University
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
Session H: Sainte-Anne Room
Session H: The Power of Partnership
- The Nature Conservancy, New Hampshire
Session G: Climate Change Adaptation
- Nature-action Québec
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
During this presentation, the following elements will be discussed:
• Beware of projects involving strategic partnerships in a complex and multi-stakeholder context
• Aspiration to work outside "silo" operating dynamics
• Demonstrating that together we may move slower but we are stronger and more resilient
• Understand the triggers and success factors of this partnership
Session H: Sainte-Anne Room
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
- Vermont Agency of Transportation (Vtrans)
Session G: Climate Change Adaptation
Since Tropical Storm Irene, Fluvial geomorphology, the study of streams and how they interact with the landscape, has become a critical component when designing culverts, bridges and roads spanning or adjacent to waterways. Not only does this reduce risk of failure during a storm event, it allows for and encourages better movement of aquatic and terrestrial wildlife through the transportation network.
Vermont has also reconsidered how it approaches design standards on state and local highways to ensure eligibility for federal emergency relief funding. When design standards do not require a structure to be sized to withstand future storm events, relief funding may only allow for replacement in-kind, risking future emergency situations.
- The Nature Conservancy
Session H: The Power of Partnerships
Under the umbrella of the NACCC, The Nature Conservancy has recently completed the Northeast Aquatic Connectivity Project. This project expanded on the original 2011 Northeast Aquatic Connectivity project by incorporating road-stream crossings as well as dams and through the development of a web-based decision support tool. The results can be used to identify potential stream restoration projects as well as to support funding applications, to help inform funding allocation decisions, and for communication and outreach.
- Appalachian Corridor
To date, over 130 km2 of natural habitats have been protected on the territory of action of the organism, mainly in the large core areas. The priority is now to safeguard connectivity between these core areas; there are many challenges and hurdles ahead. This great project cannot be completed through private stewardship alone. A broader approach and the pooling of the all relevant stakeholders’ expertise on land use planning and road infrastructure must be put forward.
The presentation will provide an overview of the ongoing work to identify and protect connectivity in the Northern Green Mountains, and will address conservation tools on private lands as well as the need for dialogue with municipal authorities, in order to make sure land use planning contributes to maintaining connectivity.
Session J: Sainte-Anne Room
Session J: Technical Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation
- Marguerite-D’Youville Regional County Municipality (RCM)
Session I: Land & Development Planning and Ecological Connectivity
- Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
Session J: Technical Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation
Session J: Sainte-Anne Room
Session J: Technical Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation
- Vermont Fish & Wildlife
Session I: Land & Development Planning and Ecological Connectivity
- Helping Nature Heal Inc.
Session J: Technical Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation
Session J: Sainte-Anne Room
Session J: Technical Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation
- Municipality of Austin (QC)
Session I: Land & Development Planning and Ecological Connectivity
- Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Centre Eau Terre et Environnement
Session J: Technical Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation
- Carleton University
- Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO)
Session L: Sainte-Anne Room
Session L: Municipality and Community Involvement
- Appalachian Corridor
Session K: Wildlife Passages for Smaller Species including Herpetofauna
- Ontario Road Ecology Group (OREG)
Session L: Municipality and Community Involvement
This multi-partner, multi-year project has produced an extensive dataset of wildlife/road interactions, turtle population studies, a committed team of Citizen Scientists, public engagement, and support for road ecology initiatives and infrastructure. A mitigation strategy was developed and delivered with the installation of a dedicated wildlife culvert and exclusion fencing among other measures. Next steps include monitoring the site and continuing to champion for the protection of wildlife from the threats of roads through improved landscape connectivity.
Session L: Sainte-Anne Room
Session L: Municipality and Community Involvement
Session K: Wildlife Passages for Smaller Species including Herpetofauna
Road mortality: Dead porcupines were found most often, followed by red foxes, woodchucks, striped skunks, and snowshoe hares. The fences reduce road mortality within the fenced sections, but every fence has two fence-ends, at which mortality is higher ("fence-end effect"), and their combined effect did not result in lower road mortality compared to unfenced sections, indicating that the fences are too short.
Effectiveness of wildlife passages: On average, 6.3 species per passage were documented to perform full crossings. Mortality was lower at wildlife passages that were used more frequently, except for porcupines. The results represent a major success for the existing wildlife passages. However, several species were never documented by the photos to perform a full crossing, e.g., American marten, fisher and Canada lynx; and few full crossings were recorded for river otter, red fox, porcupine and raccoon.
Permeability of the highway: Martens are able to cross the 4-lane HWY 175, but do so less often than martens along a 2-lane highway (HWY 381). The genetic analysis detected a negative relationship between genetic relatedness of martens and presence of the road. The findings suggest that the 4-lane highway is a stronger barrier than the 2-lane HWY.
We provide 16 recommendations, for example, the use of a variety of types of wildlife passages with a preference for those types that perform best for the target species considered.
- Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC)
Session L: Municipality and Community Involvement
This project aims to support local and regional actors (MRCs, municipalities, forest managers, citizens, NGOs) in maintaining the connectivity on their territory in order to facilitate adaptation to climate change. The following organizations contributed to the project’s development: Appalachian Corridor, Éco-corridors laurentiens, Nature-Action Québec, Two Countries, One Forest (2C1F) and its program Staying Connected Initiative. Local and regional expertise will be shared in order to carry out activities in the five targeted connectivity areas. The interventions will encourage changes in behavior and the support of local and regional authorities for the maintenance of ecological corridors. Activities will be carried out to target knowledge integration, co-creation and co-construction, mutual commitment and support.
Over the next three years, actions will focus on five major connectivity areas across southern Quebec. In 2020, a regional response plan for each priority connectivity area will be in place for the next decade. Community involvement in maintaining corridors as a response to climate change will be expressed through actions taken by municipal stakeholders, forest managers and private landowners.
Session L: Sainte-Anne Room
Session L: Municipality and Community Involvement
- Glenside Ecological Services Ltd
Session K: Wildlife Passages for Smaller Species including Herpetofauna
and - Cold Hollow to Canada (CHC) and Ruiter Valley Land Trust (RVLT)
Session L: Municipality and Community Involvement
*The WildPaths Project was developed in order to provide additional data to ground truth the wildlife crossing modeling done by the state of Vermont. CHC Program Director, Bridget Butler, will share the origins of the protocols for the project, the challenges in engaging and retaining volunteers and the open source platform iNaturalist they are using to document sightings.
- ITTECOP Program (France), ARC Solutions, and Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC)
In Quebec, how can we financially support the construction of wildlife crossings and ensure their maintenance, improvement and monitoring of long-term effectiveness? What should be the role of the government and the private sector in funding the structures needed to foster biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change? When it comes to improving road safety, the financial involvement of the federal state and the provincial department responsible for transportation may be considered, but what should we do for the wildlife conservation component? Should the governments also play a mobilizing role and ensure the establishment of a long-term start-up fund to encourage community participation? Should we consider private sector compensation funds in relation to adaptation to climate change? Can we interest private contributors to increase the benefits for wildlife and recreational or tourism activities in a region? The connectivity of ecosystems extending across borders, can we bring stakeholders together in an international effort?
Panel :
Facilitators : Yves Bédard (ABQ) and André Champoux (Appalachian Corridor) -Appalachian Corridor, Kheops, Concordia University, ITTECOP and Association des biologistes du Québec (ABQ)
- • Generate a discussion around the central question: How can the Province of Quebec progress in the field of road ecology?
- • Establish the first bases for action, looking ahead at priorities and concrete measures post-conference
- Ecological connectivity and road ecology
- Road Ecology toolbox
- Resource center/ standard practice register on measures implemented to mitigate natural habitat fragmentation by roads
- Partnerships and funding
- Social acceptability of road ecology projects
Appalachian Corridor
Appalachian Corridor