Wood Buffalo National Park

Parks Canada (2009) noted "an abundance of non-native plants occupying large areas of the delta meadows”, in particular of Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense) and Perennial Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis). The 2016 UNESCO/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission report notes First Nations' concerns about introduced plant species in the Peace-Athabasca Delta. Parks Canada, through the Wood Buffalo Action Plan, partnered with Ducks Unlimited Canada to complete updated wetland mapping for the park. This recent (~2019) work included mapping current distributions of Canada Thistle and Perennial-Sow Thistle. This information was then applied by Parks Canada (Quirouette et al. in prep) to historic Landsat imagery to backcast trends in invasive thistle marsh from 1984 to 2019. This work will become a component to a new Integrated Research and Monitoring Program developed through the Wood Buffalo Action Plan.

High latitudes and wetlands are known to be disproportionately affected by climate change. This illustrates that the property is exceptionally vulnerable, the complex Peace-Athabasca Delta serving as a prime example. Warmer and drier conditions, as well as changing precipitation patterns will strongly affect the hydrological and ecological processes (Beltaos, 2014). Given the significance of climate change-related effects on the OUV, the Wood Buffalo Action Plan recognizes the need for a collaboratively developed Integrated Research and Monitoring Program. This program is currently under development and is being led by a multi-partner Monitoring and Science Task Team.

Commercial logging within the boundary of WBNP ended in 1991. While there are forest management units adjacent to WBNP, many are no harvest and others, largely Indigenous-owned or operated, have modest levels of harvest. Environmental impacts of forestry operations include themodification of water of water regimes and characteristics, as well as the indirect consequences of facilitating motorized land access to remote wilderness. Logging is known to be a major driver of landscape change across much of Canada's boreal forest region (COSEWIC, 2013, 2002).

The Alberta Oil Sands are a globally significant fossil fuel deposit, which has been massively extracted along the lower Athabasca River since the mid 1960s. Over time, a highly industrialized zone has been expanding and moving ever closer to the southern boundary of WBNP. Surface mining and in situ approaches are applied and both have been raising well-documented concerns in terms of environmental and human health (Schindler, 2013, Hodson, 2013; Timoney, 2013, Kurek et al. 2013; Weinhold, 2011). Ongoing monitoring is occurring and more comprehensive programmes are becoming established currently. Fennell and Arciszewski (2019) reviewed data on seepage from oil sands tailings ponds in northeastern Alberta. Data suggest infiltration into groundwater is common, seepage into surface waters is not, and anthropogenic biological impacts are not likely. Meanwhile, Hebert (2019) studied mercury in aquatic birds downstream of oil sands operations, and highlights the importance of the Athabasca River as a conduit for mercury transport to ecologically-sensitive downstream ecosystems such as the Peace-Athabasca Delta and the property. The 2020 report of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) on Alberta tailings ponds stated that tailings are leaking into the riverine system, and that fedral and provincial management frameworks for tailings are inadequate or at least inadequately enforced (CEC, 2020). Findings from such studies suggest that oil sands development threaten the values of the site. It is acknowledged that determining cause-effect impacts from oil sands operations can sometimes be difficult to determine. Kay et al. (2019), for example, did not detect enrichment of metal concentrations in Athabasca delta sediment cores dated to pre-industrial times (pre-1920's) compared to present day and benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Peace-Athabasca Delta are in healthy condition and show no sign of cumulative effects from oil sands operations (Culp et al. 2018). The complexity of potential cause-effect relationships between oil sands industrial activity and various ecological responses reinforces the need for fully comprehensive monitoring data, in addition to local and traditional ecological knowledge, in order to better understand the threat posed by oil sands development in the property.

It should also be noted that due to covid-19, on 29 April, 1 May and 20 May 2020, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) issued unilateral amendments to suspend moitoring requirements under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, Water Act, and Public Lands Act. On 23 June 2020, AER accounced that the suspended requirements will resume on 15 July 2020 (AER, 2020). 

In addition to the threats from individual development projects and areas, there is longstanding and increasing concern about the poorly understood cumulative effects of multiple agents of environmental change. Peace and Athabasca river watersheds have experienced a variety of incremental environmental effects from hydropower development, oil sands industrial activity, mineral exploration and extraction, and agriculture. These effects interact with climate change to create a complex network of cumulative impacts at a range of spatial and temporal scales whose effects on the property are difficult to elucidate. Whilst recent monitoring efforts (e.g. Culp et al, 2018; McMaster et al, 2018 ; Herbert, 2019) provide greater understanding of the current status of many of the sites' World Heritage values, a comprehensive assessment of cumulative impacts is not yet available. Therefore ongoing monitoring is required to determine trends in these values in relation to the multiple and interactive threats which cumulatively impact upon them. Recent monitoring efforts (e.g. Culp et al, 2018; Herbert, 2019; Glozier et al., 2018) provide greater understanding of the current status of many of the sites' World Heritage values. Biomonitoring in the PAD and WBNP for aquatic species in particular, requires further attention. Wetland, invertebrates and fish community results are preliminary (Bush et al., 2020; Culp et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2015; MCFN, 2019). However, promising results from Culp et al.'s (2018) assessment concluded that the PAD's wetland benthic community was in a reference condition. Ongoing monitoring is required to determine trends in these values in relation to the multiple and interactive threats which cumulatively impact upon them. 

Causes for migration mortality include collisions with power lines, exposure to toxic tailings ponds, decreasing stopover habitat and even some illegal shooting. The coastal marshes of the Gulf Coast of Texas in and near Aransas National Wildlife Refuge are the only winter range of the flock. This winter range is under increasing stress from multiple pressures (COSEWIC, 2010, CWS et al. 2007) and Pearse et al (2019) document that 'the primary wintering grounds of the [Aransas-Wood Buffalo Population] AWBP are a condensed area where the birds remain for many months each year'; thus, management efforts to increase survival during winter may be more effective than those conducted at summering grounds or more feasible than in the migration corridor. It is clear that such concerns are therefore beyond the direct control of site management, i.e. they can only be addressed by coordinated bi-national management and conservation efforts. Nonetheless, promoting the conservation of the species' key breeding ground inside the site is clearly also key to the ongoing recovery of the population.

The ancient indigenous history of what is today the national park and its surroundings is intricately linked with the landscape and has contributed to shaping it. Assimilation policies and other factors, including access restrictions on harvest through regulation in the national park, have induced important changes to traditional ways of life. Outside of WBNP, installation of seismic lines and service roads, as well as motorized off-road transportation pose threats not only to wildlife movement, but lead to competition of the resources with Indigenous Peoples.

Habitat loss in general through things like changes to fire and precipitation regimes due to climate change effects, drying of wetlands from natural processes or hydrological modifications etc. has the potential to affect a variety of species, from migratory waterfowl, to forest birds – which have been shown to be declining across North America (Rosenburg et al 2019), as well as mammal species in decline such as boreal caribou across the boreal forests of Canada.

Major hydropower development under British Columbia's “Two Rivers Policy” predates the World Heritage inscription. Despite its location far away from the property in another province, this policy has been affecting the property since the late 1960s when the Bennett dam was constructed. To this day, there remain major water governance challenges across jurisdictional boundaries. Jointly, the Bennett and the Peace Canyon dams on the Upper Peace River constructed in the 1960s and 1970s, respectively, capture more than half of the runoff of the entire Peace River, thereby significantly modifying downstream water and sediment deliveries, including as regards the Peace-Athabasca Delta. Major assessments in response to the observable post-dam drying of the delta under the Northern River Basins Study (NRBS) and the Peace-Athabasca Delta Technical Studies (PADTS) found that the entire Peace-Athabasca-Slave system was influenced by both flow regulation and climate change (Prowse et al. 2006, Peters et al. 2010, 2001). The Bennett Dam, in particular, has been implicated in an array of hydrological and ecological impacts to the Peace River and downstream ecosystems in Wood Buffalo National Park. While there are differing opinions regarding the relative importance of flow regulation versus climate change as contributors to ecological changes, important negative effects of flow regulation are well documented and widely accepted and in line with the increasingly advanced scientific understanding of the impacts of flow regulation. Regulation of the Peace River through the construction of hydropower projects along the upper reaches in British Columbia is therefore widely accepted to be a continual and significant threat to the integrity of the delta (UNESCO/IUCN, 2016). First Nations and Métis plausibly associate the changed water regime with increasingly difficult access to the delta and a severe decline of muskrat populations, which are of vital ecological and livelihood importance. The Bennett Dam has also resulted in a significant reduction in sediment load, leading to negative impacts on the Slave River Delta (English et al., 1997). As the precise dynamics between the industrial development impacts and natural dynamics and climate change remain to be fully unravelled and indeed are contested (e.g. Timoney, 2013), better understanding of the effects of dam construction as a foundation for adequate assessment is required in order to establish effective mitigation towards the conservation of the site, especially at a time when additional dams are under construction and/or planned. The report documenting the 2016 reactive monitoring mission contains a useful overview of the discussion.