Challenges to biodiversity conservation in forest landscapes with fragmented cover and ownerships: Case study of the Nova Forest Alliance

Wildlife Habitat Canada has developed an adaptive management framework as part of its Forest Biodiversity Program for application to forest companies managing relatively contiguous forest cover under one ownership. The principal objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of this management framework in the context of the forest biodiversity conservation challenges of a region with multiple land cover and ownership boundaries such as the Nova Forest Alliance (NFA) area of central Nova Scotia. A geographic information system (GIS) was used to assess landscape configuration, ecosystem diversity, and habitat suitability for the American marten and northern goshawk to determine the extent, spatial distribution, and regional variation of threats to native forest biodiversity in the NFA area. GIS was then used to overlay the NFA's land ownership boundaries over the identified biodiversity challenges to determine how ownership patterns might contribute to socio-political challenges in implementing conservation strategies. The applicability of the adaptive management framework to the NFA was then evaluated in the context of the distribution of biodiversity challenges across ownership. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...