Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan)
Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, Department of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
DeWolff, Brent
Master of Science - MSc
University of British Columbia
Resource roads are a dominant feature of southern British Columbia (BC), and function within a complex coupled human-environment system. There is presently a problem of how best to manage human motorized access on these roads to limit negative environmental impacts. Access management (AM) strategies are closures to regulate accessibility, and are one method to improve the resilience of vulnerable wilderness areas. This paper conceptualizes and characterizes the use and management of roads in southern BC using complex systems theory, and explores the efficacy of AM. A questionnaire was developed to map the network of preliminary road management stakeholders, and assess how organizations collaborate to manage road use and impacts. Four types of AM strategies in two case study locations were monitored to assess the proportional field effectiveness of gates, signs, temporary closures, and unmarked closures. Stakeholder involvement in AM planning differs based on connectivity to local management entities, affecting education of management rationale and objectives, and hindering AM effectiveness. Informed road users can evaluate their impact prior to road use, where a similar decision may be conducted without due consideration of consequences. Network analyses found the preliminary resource road management network in southern BC is highly fragile and disconnected, a fundamental barrier to education. Field assessments showed that gates, signage, and temporary closures should buffer a wilderness area from approximately 86% of public vehicle traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 84% to 88% when AM strategies are applied in a manner similar to those herein assessed. The study notes that where resource harvesting is ongoing, the distribution of road traffic is estimated to be 39% industry traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 37% to 41%, and 61% public traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 59% to 63%. Network analyses and field evaluation of applied effectiveness illustrate how communication of road closure rationale and on-site stakeholder education, along with appropriate contextual use of physical access infrastructure, can improve the efficacy of AM strategies. Recommendations are discussed for how to best consider future resource road management, with specific discussion on how to efficiently implement effective AM strategies.
RESOURCE ROAD MANAGEMENT COMPLEXITY AND EFFICACY ASSESSMENT IN ACCESS MANAGEMENT: TOWARD IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE ACCESS MANAGEMENT FOR SOUTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA by Brent DeWolff B.A., The University of British Columbia Okanagan, 2014 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Environmental Sciences) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) April 2016 © Brent DeWolff, 2016 ii Examination Committee The undersigned certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: RESOURCE ROAD MANAGEMENT COMPLEXITY AND EFFICACY ASSESSMENT IN ACCESS MANAGEMENT: TOWARD IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE ACCESS MANAGEMENT FOR SOUTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA Submitted by Brent DeWolff in partial fulfillment of the requirements of The degree of Master of Science . Dr. Kevin Hanna, Earth and Environmental Sciences Supervisor, Professor (please print name and faculty/school above the line) Dr. Lael Parrott, Earth and Environmental Sciences Supervisory Committee Member, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Dr. Donna Senese, Community, Culture and Global Studies Supervisory Committee Member, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Dr. Constance Compton, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies University Examiner, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) External Examiner, Professor (please print name and university in the line above) April 19, 2016 (Date submitted to Grad Studies) iii Abstract Resource roads are a dominant feature of southern British Columbia (BC), and function within a complex coupled human-environment system. There is presently a problem of how best to manage human motorized access on these roads to limit negative environmental impacts. Access management (AM) strategies are closures to regulate accessibility, and are one method to improve the resilience of vulnerable wilderness areas. This paper conceptualizes and characterizes the use and management of roads in southern BC using complex systems theory, and explores the efficacy of AM. A questionnaire was developed to map the network of preliminary road management stakeholders, and assess how organizations collaborate to manage road use and impacts. Four types of AM strategies in two case study locations were monitored to assess the proportional field effectiveness of gates, signs, temporary closures, and unmarked closures. Stakeholder involvement in AM planning differs based on connectivity to local management entities, affecting education of management rationale and objectives, and hindering AM effectiveness. Informed road users can evaluate their impact prior to road use, where a similar decision may be conducted without due consideration of consequences. Network analyses found the preliminary resource road management network in southern BC is highly fragile and disconnected, a fundamental barrier to education. Field assessments showed that gates, signage, and temporary closures should buffer a wilderness area from approximately 86% of public vehicle traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 84% to 88% when AM strategies are applied in a manner similar to those herein assessed. The study notes that where resource harvesting is ongoing, the distribution of road traffic is estimated to be 39% industry traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 37% to 41%, and 61% public traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 59% to 63%. Network analyses and field evaluation of applied effectiveness illustrate how communication of road closure rationale and on-site stakeholder education, along with appropriate contextual use of physical access infrastructure, can improve the efficacy of AM strategies. Recommendations are discussed for how to best consider future resource road management, with specific discussion on how to efficiently implement effective AM strategies. iv Preface This research did not require approval from the University of British Columbia Okanagan Research Ethics Board (REB). It explored the structure of a communication network consisting of various organizations and agencies using a questionnaire developed with information that could be reasonably gathered from publically-available information or through a public request for information. Individual names were not recorded and participants were not asked opinion questions. Photographs from wildlife cameras used to record resource road traffic are also exempt from REB review because: (1) cameras were installed in a public area with no reasonable expectation of privacy by those organizations, agencies, and individuals engaged in any activity in that space, and (2) photos were taken from an insufficient distance and resolution from which to identify any one person or license plate number. The researcher consulted with the REB, who reviewed and exempted this research from an REB review based on a section of the TCPS2 – Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans: “In some cases research may involve interaction with individuals who are not themselves the focus of the research in order to obtain information. For example, one may collect information from authorized personnel to release information or data in the ordinary course of their employment about organizations, policies, procedures, professional practices or statistical reports. Such individuals are not considered participants. This is distinct from situations where individuals are considered participants because they are themselves the focus of the research. For example, individuals who are asked for their personal opinions about organizations, or who are observed in their work setting for the purposes of research, are considered participants” (Panel on Research Ethics, 2014). Portions of Section 2.2.2 and discussion of BC’s Cumulative Effects Framework appear in the unpublished work Status of Cumulative Effects Assessment in Canada by DeWolff, Gregg, and Vlasschaert (2014). Portions of Sections 2.1 and Chapter 3 appear in the unpublished manuscript Complexity of Natural Resource Road Management: Characterizing and Analyzing the Management of Southern British Columbia's Resource Roads submitted in partial fulfillment of a graduate course. Discussion of road density analyses are pioneered by Tony Hamilton (BC Ministry of Environment) and Joe Scott (Conservation Northwest), and appear in the working paper GNLCC Science Plan Appendix - Cascadia Partner Forum Conservation Target: Grizzly Bear. v Table of Contents Examination Committee ....................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Preface ................................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... ix Glossary ............................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. xii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Setting and Background ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1.1 British Columbia Wilderness Areas ................................................................................ 1 1.1.2 Wilderness Areas and Resource Roads .......................................................................... 4 1.1.3 Southern BC’s Road-user System ................................................................................... 6 1.2 Research Purpose ................................................................................................................. 8 1.2.1 Rationale ........................................................................................................................ 8 1.2.2 Research Goals ............................................................................................................... 9 1.2.3 Assumptions ................................................................................................................. 10 1.2.4 Research Questions and Hypotheses .......................................................................... 11 Chapter 2: Literature Review .............................................................................................. 14 2.1 System Complexity .............................................................................................................. 14 2.1.1 Complex Systems Theory ............................................................................................. 14 2.1.2 Stakeholder Network Analysis ..................................................................................... 19 2.1.3 Management Implications of Complex Systems.......................................................... 22 2.2 British Columbia’s Resource Roads and the Environment ................................................. 25 2.2.1 Coupled Human-environment System in BC ............................................................... 25 2.2.2 Cumulative Effects Assessment ................................................................................... 26 2.2.3 Resource Road Environmental Impacts ....................................................................... 29 vi 2.3 Road Access Management .................................................................................................. 32 2.3.1 Access Management Strategies ................................................................................... 33 2.3.2 Implementation and Enforcement Difficulties ............................................................ 36 2.3.3 History of Strategic Access Management Planning in BC ............................................ 37 2.3.4 Assessing Effectiveness of Access Management ......................................................... 42 2.3.5 Measuring Road Traffic Volume .................................................................................. 44 Chapter 3: Resource Roads and Access Management as a Complex System ......................... 47 3.1 Social and Ecological Couplings of Southern BC ................................................................. 47 3.2 Conceptualizing the Road-user System in Southern BC ..................................................... 48 Chapter 4: Methods - Efficacy of Access Management Strategies ........................................ 55 4.1 Management Network Composition .................................................................................. 55 4.1.1 Stakeholder Questionnaire .......................................................................................... 55 4.1.2 Network Assembly ....................................................................................................... 58 4.2 Effectiveness of Access Management Strategies ............................................................... 60 4.2.1 Case Study Locations .................................................................................................... 60 4.2.2 Access Management Implementations ....................................................................... 64 4.2.3 Camera Installation ...................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 5: Results - Efficacy of Access Management Strategies ........................................... 75 5.1 Stakeholder Organizational Behavior Analyses .................................................................. 75 5.1.1 Geospatial Relationships .............................................................................................. 75 5.1.2 Network Analysis ......................................................................................................... 77 5.1.3 Hypothesis Testing for Network Connectivity ............................................................. 82 5.1.4 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 83 5.2 Effectiveness of Access Management Strategies ............................................................... 87 5.2.1 Kettle/Granby Study Area Sample Sites ...................................................................... 93 5.2.2 Kootenay/Wigwam Study Area Sample Sites .............................................................. 99 5.2.3 Hypothesis Testing for AM Effectiveness .................................................................. 104 5.2.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 110 Chapter 6: Conclusion – Toward Effective Access Management .......................................... 117 vii 6.1 Research Outcomes .......................................................................................................... 118 6.1.1 Stakeholder Network Communication ...................................................................... 118 6.1.2 Field Effectiveness of Access Management ............................................................... 119 6.1.3 Summary Remarks ..................................................................................................... 121 6.2 Discussion and Recommendation – Efficacy of Road Access Strategies in BC ................. 122 6.2.1 Complexity Theory to Guide Road Management ...................................................... 123 6.2.2 Planning and Implementing Access Management Strategies ................................... 127 6.2.3 Meaningful Wildlife and Habitat Management ......................................................... 129 6.3 Key Recommendations and Future Research for Effective Access Management ............ 132 References ........................................................................................................................ 136 Appendices ....................................................................................................................... 144 Appendix A: Bushnell Trophy Camera HD .............................................................................. 144 Appendix B: Stakeholder Questionnaire ................................................................................ 146 Appendix C: Summary Data for Road-user System Management Network ........................... 149 Appendix D: Summary Data for AM Effectiveness Analyses .................................................. 151 viii List of Tables Table 2.1. Resource road access management strategies ........................................................... 35 Table 2.2. Southern BC AMAs ...................................................................................................... 42 Table 4.1. Coding for network communication frequency and topic .......................................... 60 Table 4.2. Tally of various types of employed AM strategies ...................................................... 64 Table 4.3. Summary count of installed wildlife cameras by geographic region .......................... 70 Table 5.1. Summary statistics for coding in-camera, wildlife, and false-positive images ........... 89 Table 5.2. Study duration encounter statistics for all sample sites ............................................. 91 Table 5.3. Assessed effectiveness of implemented AM strategies ........................................... 106 Table 5.4. Seasonal effectiveness of AM strategies................................................................... 108 Table 5.5. Chi-square test statistics for frequency of road traffic type ..................................... 110 ix List of Figures Figure 1.1. Rudimentary land classification for southern BC ........................................................ 2 Figure 1.2. Road density in southern BC ........................................................................................ 5 Figure 1.3. Guiding questions to explore efficacy of AM ............................................................. 13 Figure 1.4. Operational hypotheses ............................................................................................. 13 Figure 3.1. Upper-level conceptualization of southern BC's road-user system .......................... 49 Figure 3.2. Road-user system panarchy depicting emergent interactions .................................. 51 Figure 4.1. Summary of resource road stakeholders in British Columbia ................................... 57 Figure 4.2. Geographic context of both case study access management areas .......................... 63 Figure 4.3. Camera installations in the Kettle/Granby AMA case study location ....................... 66 Figure 4.4. Camera installations in the Kootenay/Wigwam AMA case study location ............... 67 Figure 4.5. Typical installation of a Bushnell Trophy Camera HD ................................................ 68 Figure 4.6. Default view of cameras in the Granby/Kettle .......................................................... 71 Figure 4.7. Default view of cameras in the Kootenay/Wigwam .................................................. 73 Figure 5.1. Random distribution of nodes ................................................................................... 76 Figure 5.2. Geospatial connectivity in the southern BC road management network ................. 77 Figure 5.3. Yifan Hu algorithm applied to the road-user system management network ............ 78 Figure 5.4. Degree distribution of network nodes ....................................................................... 79 Figure 5.5. Rank symbolism for betweenness centrality ............................................................. 81 Figure 5.6. Eccentricity symbolism for ranking outlying nodes in the network .......................... 82 Figure 5.7. Numerical results for initial coding of all recorded images ....................................... 88 Figure 5.8. Example of paired encounter photos used to evaluate AM effectiveness ............... 93 Figure 5.9. Arrow Neck FSR sample site ...................................................................................... 94 Figure 5.10. Arthurs Road sample site ......................................................................................... 95 Figure 5.11. Grano FSR sample site ............................................................................................. 96 Figure 5.12. Young Main FSR sample site .................................................................................... 98 Figure 5.13. Drinkwater FSR sample site ..................................................................................... 99 Figure 5.14. Mt. Broadwood sample site ................................................................................... 101 Figure 5.15. Rabbit FSR sample site ........................................................................................... 102 x Figure 5.16. Wigwam Main FSR sample site .............................................................................. 104 Figure 5.17. Obscurity of AM signage as viewed from resource road ....................................... 112 Figure 5.18. Preferable camera installation for reducing susceptibility to theft....................... 114 Figure 5.19. Field example of a martin trap ............................................................................... 115 Figure 6.1. Complexity approach to meaningful wildlife and habitat management ................. 132 xi Glossary AM Access Management AMA Access Management Area BC British Columbia BCTS British Columbia Timber Sales CEA Cumulative Effects Assessment EA Environmental Assessment FLNRO Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations FPR Forest Practices Board FSR Forest Service Road (also resource road) MoE Ministry of Environment ORV Off-road Vehicle Adaptive capacity Ability to respond to future changes in both human and environmental components; positively related to increased system complexity Betweenness centrality Refers to how well a node is strategically connected, and thus able to influence the type and flow of information to other agents Eccentricity A measure of the frequency and magnitude of isolated nodes in a network Edge Communication links between entities comprising a network Node Distinct entities or agents of a network Panarchy References a system’s nested hierarchal relationships of growth and restructuring of information flow across space and time Resilience Refers to how much external disturbance can be withstood before a system changes its fundamental structure Robustness A measure of how well a system continues to function when exposed to abnormal or stressful conditions xii Acknowledgements I wish to thank Kevin Hanna (PhD) who was instrumental in development and completion of this research. He was always available to respond to seemingly unending questions, and funding he provided through the Centre for Environmental Assessment Research at UBCO was invaluable in implementing this research program. Donna Senese’s (PhD) continued pressure to continue into graduate studies was the precursor to this research. Finally, Lael Parrott (PhD) inspired an invaluable holistic perspective for natural resource management. Additionally, Alan Peatt with the Okanagan Nation Alliance, in cooperation with Conservation Northwest, was able to generously donate six wildlife cameras for installation in the Kettle/Granby study area. I hope this research can inform future resource and wildlife and habitat management initiatives piloted by these two organizations. xiii Dedication This work is dedicated to enjoyment of our province’s magnificent recreational areas and opportunities. Edward Abbey’s interpretation of wilderness and civilization are befitting to this research: “A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.” “If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.” -- Edward Abbey 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Setting and Background 1.1.1 British Columbia Wilderness Areas The situational context of British Columbia's (BC) wilderness areas is unique. These areas comprise essential refuge for many unique species of flora and fauna, while contributing a diverse range of economic and public recreation attractants. Vast areas of the province are unprotected yet largely integral wilderness areas in the form of crown land, which represents approximately eighty percent of the province (Ministry of Forests Mines and Lands, 2010). Figure 1.1 illustrates the fourteen percent of the province secured as protected wilderness areas: provincial parks, conservatories, ecological reserves, and other such instances. Crown land areas remain open to use-for-benefit, while land-use planning will continue to protect and conserve designated areas of natural, ecological, and social significance (BC Parks, 2014). Even so, many wilderness areas in BC are threatened by the unrelenting pressures of emerging and extensive natural resource development, subsequent recreational use, and climate change (Laurance et al., 2014; Leroux & Kerr, 2013; Northrup et al., 2012). 2 Figure 1.1. Rudimentary land classification for southern BC derived from a spectral inventory of recreational opportunities in the province. Publically-accessible wilderness areas are those not considered urban areas or rural private land, and land not tenured by the Crown for recreation is primarily roaded. 3 There is strong consensus among environmental, biological, and climatic scientists that human development must not stress biophysical and climatic systems beyond safe operating thresholds lest these systems be unable to return to an ideal state unconducive to long-term social, cultural, and economic development (Rockström et al., 2009). However, vulnerability assessments for many of BC's wilderness areas suggest natural tipping points may have already been exceeded (Morgan & Daust, 2013). Sustained human use of sensitive or already stressed environmental components may lead to further degradation of wilderness areas’ resiliency and sustainability (Harris, 2009). The most important contextual message is that a patch network of protected areas fragmented by human developed and vulnerable to continued climate change cannot, in isolation, maintain the ecological integrity of these spaces. The landscape level matrix of crown land—the vast expanse of wilderness between parks and reserves—provides critical support for protected areas by partially buffering human impacts (Wiens, 2006). Monitoring how the matrix is functioning is important to understanding the impact of resource development on the province's wilderness areas (Fonseca et al., 2005; Franklin & Lindenmayer, 2009; Wiens, 2006). The negative implications of extraneous human-induced change must be limited to best safeguard wilderness areas and ensure sustainable system parameters. Further, coordinated societal strategies should be developed to plan for adaptation needs associated with the impacts of changing climate conditions, increased road use due to a growing population, and socioeconomic stressors such as fluctuating natural resource valuation (Haeussler & Hamilton, 2012; Morgan & Daust, 2013). While the logical impacts of natural resource development are often acknowledged, their cumulative impact from past and anticipated landscape change is not well understood as a function of social and economic use precedents (Bellard, Bertelsmeier, Leadley, Thuiller, & Courchamp, 2012; Haeussler & Hamilton, 2012). Such precedents are not definitive but typically govern a large portion of that impact, affecting the resilience of all wilderness areas to persist in light of continued climate change. This is a significant knowledge gap suited to a multidisciplinary, integrated human-environmental approach to examination of sustainable natural resource management for wilderness areas. 4 1.1.2 Wilderness Areas and Resource Roads In BC, resource roads (including forest service roads, FSR) are all forms of primitive linear infrastructure other than those maintained by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (e.g. highways). They facilitate backcountry access for industrial forestry, energy, and mineral development, commercial endeavours such as ranching and guide outfitting, and public recreation such as off-road vehicle use. Resource roads are typically comprised of no more than two traffic lanes of a non-paved aggregate surface. It is estimated BC has more than 800,000 kilometers of roads (Ministry of Forests Mines and Lands, 2010), of which a conservative estimate details approximately 620,000 kilometers as resource roads—fully half are not actively maintained (Forest Practices Board [FPB], 2015). They provide access to a proportional ninety-four percent of the province designated as public-use wilderness areas (Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations [FLNRO], 2010). This road network is depicted in Figure 1.2. It is expanding by approximately 10,000 kilometers every year primarily due to the continued expansion of the forest industry, but also the mineral and energy sectors, despite ongoing road abandonment, deactivation, and decommissioning (CMI, 2014; FRB, 2015). Public usage will also continue to increase as access to a diverse range of socio-economic attractants evolves. 5 Figure 1.2. Road density in southern BC. See FRB (2015, p. 38-44) for a more detailed presentation of contemporary resource road densities in BC. 6 As detailed by Daigle (2010) in an exhaustive literature review, the management of road impacts on wilderness areas in BC has become increasingly complex because roads represent both an asset and an ailment to various stakeholders (see also CMI, 2014; FPB, 2015). Roads facilitate social and economic benefits, but conversely introduce environmental detriments (Daigle, 2010; Hunt & Hupf, 2014). The sustainability of southern BC's wilderness areas are coupled to the physical composition and connectivity of resource roads, the type of use, the ecological components affected, and the users who have a vested interest or are impacted by management decisions. This is a particularly acute issue in BC emphasized by sustained natural resource development, recent provincial road and vehicle use legislation (FLNRO, 2014d; Natural Resource Road Act, 2014), user conflicts (FPB, 2012), and sustained provincial road management efforts (CMI, 2012, 2014; FPB, 2014). 1.1.3 Southern BC’s Road-user System Southern BC's roads exemplify a case whereby social and ecological benefits are satisfied by the same collective system, but can often contest each other. Therefore, road management is most appropriately conducted in light of contemporary complex coupled human-environment systems theory because both social and ecological implications arise from many road management decisions. ‘Complexity’ approaches to resource management acknowledge and incorporate this coupled reality into management paradigms. Conceptualizing the complexity and developing a portrait of the network of organizations involved with ecological and social aspects of roads is a precursor to quantifying the cumulative spatiotemporal impact of road use. The physical existence, administration, and multiple human uses of the extensive road network represents that cumulative impact on a myriad of resource values (Krzyzanowski & Almuedo, 2010). Provincial road planning legislation presently does not require consideration of these impacts on wilderness areas (Forest and Range Practices Act, 2004; FPB, 2015), though fragmented efforts to do so are presently underway recognizing the notable benefits of acknowledging and monitoring cumulative effects on the environment (FLNRO, 2014a; see also 7 FPB, 2011; Harriman & Noble, 2008; Hegmann & Yarranton, 2011; Noble, 2010). Understanding the cumulative impact of roads facilitates development of management strategies to mitigate that impact on the landscape and thus reduce extraneous human-induced environmental change. Road users are considered system stakeholders when they have an effect on the ecological components as well as the social institutions governing user behaviour and management of the system (Kininmonth, Bergsten, & Bodin, 2015; Mills et al., 2014). The relationship of stakeholders' road use and all affected environmental components as a whole is referred to herein as the road-user system.1 The term encompasses stakeholders’ use-for-benefit of roads and the resources made accessible by them, and the associated ecological implications of that access. For example, roads provide access to valuable timber supplies in core grizzly bear habitat, but are linked to reductions in habitat size, denning potential, and population fragmentation;2 another example is snowmobile recreation in high alpine areas displacing mountain Cariboo (see Seip, Johnson, & Watts, 2007). Road access management (AM) strategies to regulate traffic volume are one method to protect wilderness areas and their connectivity from the diverse range of threats associated with the road-user system. These may be most effectively implemented to bolster ecological integrity and resilience in these areas if developed in light of the complexity of road management and associated cumulative impacts (FPB, 2005; Robinson, Duinker, & Beazley, 2010). However, the complexity of road management and the effectiveness of present AM strategies is not well understood as a function of the unique network of road management stakeholders and the physical contexts of southern BC. For example, road deactivation to protect natural resources or wildlife habitat may also limit public accessibility, and thus acceptability of that closure. Therefore, understanding which stakeholders are affected to 1 The "road-user system" is distinct from terms denoting the road and stakeholder/management networks, which refer to, respectively, the physical collection of linear infrastructure and the communication structure of stakeholders. 2 See Boulanger & Stenhouse, 2014; Pigeon, Nielsen, Stenhouse, & Côté, 2014; Proctor et al., 2008; Roever et al., 2010 for detailed discussion of road impacts on grizzly bears. 8 facilitate education is as important as exploring the physical effectiveness of a given management intervention. This lack of ‘complex’ thinking and stakeholder clarity is a significant research gap hindering the assessment of the effectiveness of various AM strategies for southern BC. 1.2 Research Purpose 1.2.1 Rationale Access management strategies can remove a large portion of the human stressor on the road-user system, but their implementation is complicated. The development and installation of such strategies occurs within an evolving politicized socioeconomic arena—robust and inclusionary resource management frameworks are a necessity. The lack of understanding how road-user system stakeholders communicate, the variability of how geographic and socioeconomic parameters constrain and influence road access planning, and the applied effectiveness of various AM strategies is the central provocation of this research. First, examination of the communication and information sharing structure of road management in southern BC will improve road administration by highlighting areas in the network deficient or devoid of cross-scale and between-community interaction. These deficiencies can be targeted for efforts to strengthen or encourage new relationships (i.e. involve absent parties) in the network. This will facilitate implementation of effective AM strategies because their development is well communicated to and involves appropriate stakeholders, thus encouraging a sustainable balance of the positive and negative aspects of roads. Second, AM strategies are often considered on a by-project basis, subject to unique location-dependent variables. As such, the physical effectiveness of various strategies differs based on the situational (i.e. geographic) and stakeholder context (i.e. socioeconomic and cultural constraints). In a discussion of AM effectiveness, Hunt and Hupf (2014) propose future research to validate their findings on the proportional effectiveness of various AM strategies, explore the compliance of different types of users, and report on public attitudes toward AM 9 strategies. Understanding the physical effectiveness of various strategies in unique geographic and social contexts is thus identified as an important component to implementing effective AM. Therefore, AM decision-support recommendations that incorporate findings from both communication structure analyses and physical effectiveness of strategies are useful to natural resource managers. They will guide implementation of future strategies to improve wilderness area integrity and connectivity in a productive and stakeholder-inclusive manner, facilitating synergistic road access strategies that are both efficient to implement and effective at regulating access. Such recommendations are not yet defined in BC. 1.2.2 Research Goals This research focuses on AM strategies as a regulatory mechanism to achieve better-protected BC wilderness areas within a context of emerging cumulative effects assessment (CEA) and conflicting environmental, social, and economic precedents. It will utilize a mixed method triangulation paradigm with qualitative and quantitative methods and analysis techniques (see Guion, Diehl, & Mcdonald, 2011; Hussein, 2009). The mixed method design was chosen to best understand the ecological, geographic, social, and economic precedents and contexts affecting the efficacy of AM strategies because it integrates multiple perspectives into a single study. As described by (Yin, 2009, p. 62-63), this integrated approach allows mixed methods to collect complementary data and conduct counterpart analyses, leading to a richer array of evidence upon which to draw conclusions about this research’s questions. This research assesses the efficacy of AM by probing the physical effectiveness, and stakeholder inclusion in development and administration, of strategies utilizing signage and structures (i.e. lockable gates and posted signs) in two case-study watersheds. A multi-sector stakeholder questionnaire qualitatively informs exploratory trends on how information is disseminated throughout the road management network in southern BC. Case study examples of AM implementations explore the effectiveness of existing road access strategies at regulating motorized traffic with quantitative analyses of road users’ behavioral reactions to road closures. Together, these components inform procedures to develop, communicate, and install future AM strategies which may be most effectively implemented in a conciliatory yet 10 acceptable manner for a diversified range of contending stakeholders in various geographic regions of southern BC. The data sample of the road management network relies on purposive sampling; that is, it is a non-probability sample and thus not statistically representative of the larger population of stakeholders in the road-user system. It was chosen on the basis of providing representation of enough types of stakeholders in the questionnaire to depict cross-scale and cross-network-community communication trends. Case studies of implementations of AM are, however, representative of the larger population of strategies within each case study watershed. The sample size was chosen as it provides an adequate (i.e. near census) number of different AM strategies in two distinct locations from which comparison of the effectiveness of each type of AM strategy is possible. 1.2.3 Assumptions As alluded to by Northrup et al. (2012), increasing road density can manifest as an incremental rise in the volume of vehicular use in any geographic area. Others suggest management of road access is inextricably linked to conserving threatened forest landscapes, and wildlife populations and their habitat (Proctor, Servheen, Kasworm, & Radandt, 2008; Roever, Boyce, & Stenhouse, 2010; Summerfield, Johnson, & Roberts, 2004). Accordingly, this research presumes that BC wilderness areas may become progressively stressed because of unabated natural resource development and the increased road densities and vehicle use that follow—a stressor further inflamed by persistent environmental climate change. This postulate contends that increased road density negatively impacts the natural environment in a cumulative fashion by facilitating superfluous access and thus increased traffic volume in locations not already subject to these pressures. Continued maintenance of existing roads and the construction of new roads will perpetuate this adverse impact. Administrative strategies such as regulating access are an essential tool for resource managers to protect wilderness areas. This protection is afforded by reducing the negative road impacts through moderation or elimination of motorized access within the landscape matrix of crown land. 11 Further, it is assumed the rudimentary premise of AM is limiting road access in a productive and effective fashion—that is, minimizing the total kilometers of closed roads while maximizing the net benefit. This work asserts there is a passive disregard of the coupled human-environment relationship between the cumulative environmental impact of road density and continued human presence on those roads for economic and recreational purposes. The disregard of this coupled relationship may be a contributor to the lack of research documenting the efficacy of access strategies for a broad range of situational contexts unique to southern BC. Access management strategies affect both the natural environment and human stakeholders, so it is assumed the ramifications both variables exert on the decision-making process must be considered to select for effective AM strategies that achieve productive wilderness area protection. This researcher expects that understanding how information is communicated to stakeholders, as well as weighing the relevant social and economic precedents against desired wilderness area protection and management goals that govern physical effectiveness, are both fundamental concepts to the efficacy of AM. These postulates recognize that evidence-based decision-support recommendations, originating from a CEA and complex systems paradigm, will be useful in guiding implementation of effective AM strategies. This work speculates that such recommendations for future AM strategies in southern BC will help by improving social acceptance of, and by providing a consistent protocol for assessing, regulatory options in light of environmental change and socioeconomic precedents (Gratson & Whitman, 2000; Hunt, Lemelin, & Saunders, 2009). 1.2.4 Research Questions and Hypotheses This research explores the efficacy of AM strategies as they are presently applied in southern BC and whether their effectiveness can be improved with strengthened stakeholder communication. To do so, it considers multiple stakeholder interests to explore whether these strategies are well communicated, in turn functioning to effectively regulate road users’ vehicles past a road closure point. Accordingly, several supplemental guiding notes are recognized, and function to focus this research and formulate a logical progression of reasoning 12 concerning why the issue of AM is unique to southern BC and what variables must be considered when assessing the efficacy of various strategies. These guiding acknowledgements are as follows:  Appropriate case study examples of contextually-specific AM implementations would be useful to document effectiveness by monitoring acceptance rates and stakeholder awareness for currently applied AM strategies.  Multi-sector stakeholder questionnaires would rudimentarily highlight the communication structure of road administration and AM in BC.  Simplistic decision-support recommendations would prove beneficial to resource managers for systematically assessing expected effectiveness of the unique context of AM planning discussed on a by-project basis.  Effective AM strategies might have to acknowledge the “wicked” nature of this problem—the ever-changing circumstances of managing access results in environmental-social-economic conciliatory complexities that are not always acceptable for all stakeholders. In light of these explorative guiding acknowledgements, this work uses a literature review, analysis of a multi-sector stakeholder questionnaire, and field assessments to focus on ascertaining (1) the stakeholder communication network concerning AM strategies in various contexts, and (2) the effectiveness of AM strategies at reducing traffic volume over closed roads. Guiding questions to frame this work are described in Figure 1.3, and hypotheses developed from these questions and reported findings in the literature are detailed in Figure 1.4. 13 Figure 1.3. Guiding questions to explore efficacy of AM. Figure 1.4. Operational hypotheses. Those denoted H1 are associated with evaluating the effectiveness of AM strategies, and H2 are associated with management network analyses. 1) What AM strategies are presently employed throughout southern BC and how do they help protect select wilderness areas? 2) Do road management administrators communicate and collaborate with key stakeholders during the development, implementation, and enforcement of AM strategies? 3) What is the effectiveness of various types of AM infrastructure at regulating traffic volume, and does measured effectiveness differ significantly by geographic region and user group? H1A: Access management strategies will be effective in buffering wilderness areas from more than 78% of public motorized vehicle traffic as found by Hunt and Hupf (2014). H1B: Seasonality will govern the effectiveness of access management strategies because of changes in road users’ demographic composition. H1C: The effectiveness of AM strategies will vary between the two case study locations because of stakeholder compositional differences. H2A: Stakeholders’ involvement in AM planning will differ based on their connectivity to administrative bodies within the management network. H2B: Behavioral response governing the physical effectiveness of strategies will be proportional to how well informed (e.g. actively or passively through the road-user system network) the user is of the road closure's rationale and its defined objectives (e.g. wilderness protection, social or economic value). 14 Chapter 2: Literature Review Publishing in mainstream media, Chung (2014) summarized research suggesting Canada leads forest fragmentation due to access roads that result from extensive resource development in BC and Alberta. Chung succinctly summarizes two fundamental requisites to reducing the impact of resource roads on pristine wilderness areas. First, establishing more protected areas devoid of roads reduces negative impacts through elimination. Second, employing measures to mitigate road impacts in areas not presently subject to significantly adverse impacts bolsters their resilience to undesirable change. The notion of AM contributes to the latter. However, the conceptualization of regulating access over roads is by no means a contemporary revelation in the literature, and has long been considered an important tool for resource managers in BC to selectively regulate access to wilderness areas. However, implementation of AM occurs in a dynamic coupled human-environment context, with evolving management goals, stakeholders, and ecological attributes—present management does not wholly recognize these constraints and parameters. This literature review summarizes academic, government, and public-forum documents discussing the complexities of implementing AM strategies for expansive and inter-connected resource road networks. It outlines complex systems theory and network analysis as a means to approach, conceptualize, and incorporate the coupled human-environment reality into road management. Contemporary theory, research, and evidence for the field (i.e. physical) and perceived (i.e. social construct) efficacy of AM strategies is detailed. The review focuses on themes relevant to AM: communication dynamics in management, road impacts, CEA, types and history of AM strategies, and methods to measure traffic volume. 2.1 System Complexity 2.1.1 Complex Systems Theory The interaction between the environment and human engineered systems is truly complex—in the sense that its heterogeneity involves adaptive entities interacting within a context-specific, scale dependent, spatially and temporally extensive, dynamic, and 15 unpredictable social-environmental landscape (Harris, 2009; Ostrom, 2009; Parrott & Lange, 2013). This is referred to as a system. Complexity theory strives to understand the variability, functionality, and interactivity of entities operating within delineated boundaries by recognizing and studying the system as a whole before discussing the parts and their interrelationships (Moore, 2012; Parrott & Lange, 2013). A comprehensive understanding of the system can ultimately reduce natural degradation and ensure the adaptive capacity of reliant human systems by promoting increased system resilience to facilitate adequate responses to unanticipated drivers of state change (Folke et al., 2010). As Liu et al. (2007) explains, exploring the complexities of a system can precede novel discoveries and is fundamental to establishing effective and sustainable socioeconomic and ecological management policies because it can often bring together social scientists and ecologists. Together, these agents can develop policies supportive of the links and feedback loops existent between social and environmental components, acknowledging the reciprocal effects of both systems upon larger-level processes of human presence which are dynamically changing natural systems in unprecedented ways. A system is fundamentally defined by the interactions of these entities with the environment (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). As such, system complexity can be characterized by exploring the hierarchal structure of diversified and dynamic coupled interactions between components throughout the system. The condition of system component properties such as self-organization, emergent trends, memory effects, and adaptive capacity facilitate that characterization (Harris, 2009; Parrott & Lange, 2013). Interdependent human-environment systems are coupled across space and time in feedback loops that affect one another. These interactions comprise the system's inherent complexity (Folke et al., 2010; Parrott & Lange, 2013). Large-scale system properties can emerge from localized interactions of humans and the environment, and in turn can influence the functionality of local systems (Liu et al., 2007; Parrott & Meyer, 2012). The same is true for small-scale interactions influencing larger-scale processes. Spatial couplings range from local to global, and often transgress geopolitical and ecological boundaries. Local, small-scale processes (e.g. biodiversity, deforestation, resource harvesting) are responsive to global-scale organization (e.g. climate change patterns and economic market fluctuations), and large-scale 16 processes are in part governed by the cumulative effect of localized processes (Liu et al., 2007). In actuality, global human-environment interactions represent one large interconnected, non-linear system (Harris, 2009). In the same manner, temporal couplings are highlighted by an ever-increasing human population reliant on the same natural environment, and continually striving to homogenize the landscape to improve productivity. Cultural implications permeate and can often dictate natural resource management. Therefore, it is important to understand that daily cultural interactions between society and the environment are just as important as those which occur over decades or longer (see Liu et al., 2007). Holling (2001) metaphorically describes these evolving nested hierarchal relationships of growth and restructuring of information flow over space and time as the panarchy. More recently, Gotts (2007) views the panarchy as comprised of multiple correlative, co-evolving cyclical relationships between dynamic variables across varying spatiotemporal scales. These cycles exhibit regulatory thresholds, which if surpassed result in a restructuring of the system’s functionality and its cross-scale feedback characteristics (Gotts, 2007). Similarly, Harris (2009) suggests moving away from a paradigm of scientific control of the environment toward one balancing the coupled nature of environmental assets and stakeholder values interacting through space and time, aptly reflecting Holling’s (2001) metaphorical panarchy. The persistence and resilience of the panarchy can thus be related to a system’s sustainability. The panarchy functions to insulate itself against collapse with cross-scale resilience via development and restructuring of functionality in response to external conditions, while also providing opportunities for change within regulatory thresholds across multiple scales. Thus, open communication between social and ecological system entities operating at various scales is paramount (Kininmonth et al., 2015). However, human-environment systems are spatially and temporally heterogeneous and composed of multiple agents (Harris, 2009; Messier et al., 2015)—homogenizing paradigms of averaging predictions and precision must now be abandoned in natural resource management. Systems self-organize along critical processes, leading to the emergence and maintenance of unique, dynamic, and mutually-desirable system properties (Holling, 2001; Parrott & Meyer, 17 2012). Reduction of negative human impact is positively associated with promoting and achieving self-organized systems (Messier et al., 2015). Conversely, centralized management reduces self-organization of ecological systems, and leads to misguided and focused human actions (e.g. forest clearing, biodiversity loss, and excessive nutrient loading) that are problematic and promote hysteresis effects within the system (Harris, 2009; Messier et al., 2015). Memory represents those hysteresis effects, where past events influence the composition of the system over space and time (Parrott & Lange, 2013). Continued degradation of ecological systems can result in an undesirable system-wide state change, where humans become increasingly vulnerable to the legacy effects of past cumulative impacts, unpredictable time lags of system responses to stressors, and shifts in temporal and spatial scales (Liu et al., 2007). A lack of monitoring and research designed to quantify the effects of system change in response to historical conditions can exacerbate the negative implications and result in an escalation of indirect effects to humans—adaptability is key (Liu et al., 2007). Decisively, adaptability is more important than predictability (Messier et al., 2015). The higher the complexity of the system the greater its adaptive capacity to respond to future changes in both human and environmental components (Parrott & Lange, 2013). Understanding the panarchy can identify points of strength or vulnerability where positive system change may be leveraged to promote adaptability, therefore maintaining the critical processes that facilitate ideal system self-organization and thus continue to provide mutual benefits to all entities (Holling, 2001). For example, drivers of change in a coupled human-environment system can be leverage points to shift maladaptive system trajectories, and can include local and global management policies, climate change implications, and human use regimes (Liu et al., 2007). However, Hadgraft and Bender (2012, p. 227) acknowledge complex systems inherently contain instances of wicked problems. This is a phenomena whereby system uncertainty and competing stakeholder valuation criteria interact to influence management responses which have significant consequences for all components involved (i.e. stakeholders and environmental elements). Small-scale dynamics and large-scale processes constrain options when managing 18 from the middle ground—individual agents' actions can have far-reaching upward and downward implications within a system (Harris, 2009). Typically, system management simply will not satisfy all components’ equally. This can affect the system’s robustness and resilience. Robustness is a measure of how well a system continues to function when exposed to abnormal human use or stressful environmental conditions. Correspondingly, system resilience refers to how much external disturbance can be withstood before the system changes its fundamental structure (Parrott & Lange, 2013). Both are associated with adaptability and sustainability, but it must be recognized that resilience can maintain a system's undesirable state just as readily as a socially preferential or ecologically ideal state. As such, managing for resilience is not always desirable, but increasing complexity can equate to redundancies and avenues along which positive system adaptation may take place. Ecological attributes that contribute to increase complexity and thus bolster wilderness area resilience include augmented forest biodiversity, valuation of several goods and services opposed to single-commodities, and interconnected processes of multiple species that persist in dynamic habitat patches, perpetuating the connectivity of species throughout the landscape (Kininmonth et al., 2015; Messier et al., 2015). Ecological component redundancies are useful to develop resilient complex systems. Social attributes contributing to increased complexity are closely related to ecological objectives. Ostrom's (2009) framework for approaching, classifying, and developing ethical standards of use for coupled systems allows social and ecological scientific knowledge to partner and synthesize to bolster system adaptability. Governance structures linked to significant social and ecological factors of importance are thus preferable (Kininmonth et al., 2015). Recognizing the uncertainty in resource-based socioeconomic structures, fostering paradigms of diversification of ecosystem services demand over larger spatial and temporal scales, and involvement and communication between stakeholders and managers is important (Messier et al., 2015; Mills et al., 2014; Ostrom, 2009). Recent advances in complexity and network theory demonstrate useful techniques for understanding entities of complex systems. Analysis of the network of coupled human-environment stakeholder interactions is integral to these theoretical advances. 19 2.1.2 Stakeholder Network Analysis The literature discusses two types of networks prevalent in complexity theory: coupled human-environment connections, where human actors are affected by ecological outcomes; and social networks, decidedly referencing human relationships within the human-environment system itself (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). This paper focuses on social networks as simplified representations of collaborative arrangements of stakeholders, concerned with achieving common or unique objectives, who interact and share information between larger decision-making bodies and local human-environment components. In the context of resource management, social networks typically function to connect institutional management structures tasked with resource and conservation planning to stakeholders who utilize the system's resources or are impacted by management outcomes (Mills et al., 2014). It has been demonstrated that when local users are actively involved in the management network, governance effectiveness, biodiversity conservation, and local livelihoods are strengthened (see Messier et al., 2015; Persha, Agrawal, & Chhatre, 2011). Comprehensive network representations are well suited to conceptualizing the complex relationships of interacting entities within a system (Parrott & Meyer, 2012). The effectiveness of relationships can be analyzed utilizing exploratory techniques of network analysis. These techniques integrate, measure, and characterize the contextually unique flow of spatiotemporal information as processed through interactions between adaptive stakeholders responding to large-scale social and economic processes within unique environmental constraints (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012; Kininmonth et al., 2015). Primarily, they can identify the degree to which entities are involved with management decisions and the function each serves within the network. These analysis techniques can help understand the composition and performance of the network, identify appropriate management objectives and constraints, and highlight influential stakeholders (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012; Mills et al., 2014). Describing the network utilizes distinct nomenclature (Cherven, 2013; Gonzales & Parrott, 2012; Mills et al., 2014). A node refers to a stakeholder in the network, a unique entity that can be quantitatively weighted to signify relative importance in the network. Connectivity 20 is typically expressed in degrees to denote the amount of linkages or edges that represent the functional relationships one node has to others in the network (Cherven, 2013). For example, if a node has four links to others in the network, then it can be stated it has four degrees. Edges are either directed or undirected to illustrate symmetrical or asymmetrical connectivity, and can be weighted to indicate intensity or strength of relationships. Nodes can be grouped into network communities, where nodes directly connected to each other are considered neighbors (Cherven, 2013). Large-scale nodes provide input on environmental functioning and human use, while small-scale nodes provide expertise on the local context. Nodes with a larger magnitude connectivity should be involved in the decision-making process because of their ability to span across spatial, temporal, and organizational scales (Mills et al., 2014). However, an excess of connectivity may hinder resolution of management issues due to conflicting information—here, intermediary nodes may function as information control to pass or prevent flow to other nodes to streamline communication (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). Correspondingly, betweenness centrality refers to how well a node is strategically connected to others and able to control or influence the type and flow of information (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012; Janssen et al., 2006; Mills et al., 2014). Nodes with high “betweenness” function to decrease network distance as they connect two nodes who are themselves disconnected from one another (Prell, Hubacek, & Reed, 2009). If nodes with high betweenness centrality are circumvented many other stakeholders will subsequently be overlooked. Consequently, these nodes are points of vulnerability and compromise network robustness. As such, redundancy in the network is used to designate the supplementary linkages that allow it to better accommodate the removal of targeted stakeholders and continue to operate in a similar capacity (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). Network robustness can be bolstered by fostering the efficient progression of information throughout (e.g. maintaining multiple links through which information may pass), but also by having a realistic degree of redundancy (i.e. least amount of links necessary between two separated nodes) to prevent rampant perturbation throughout (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). However, networks are a simplification of reality; therefore, the complexity of network structure (e.g. peripheral boundaries, inclusion or exclusion of nodes and linkages, aggregation 21 of entities, and spatiotemporal scales) and node characteristics is typically reduced (Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). There are also associated bias with information collection of specific nodes that remain only within their community. Even so, understanding the structure and patterns of relationships in the network is important for effective governance because it considers spatiotemporal human-environment interactions, and how the cumulative impact of those interactions may lead to system degradation or state changes due to mismanagement (Harris, 2009). However, human actions are inherently unpredictable—predictive models showing human-environment interaction are only as strong as the knowledge used to develop baseline component behaviors. The structure of the network may be centralized with select stakeholders exerting influence over many others, or decentralized with evenly dispersed stakeholders (Mills et al., 2014). The former is well suited to communication, coordination, and integration of knowledge from large to smaller scale. The latter is ideal for integrating the expertise of many smaller organizations or individuals, contributing within the context of specific spatial or temporal boundaries, with larger-scale nodes. Polycentric networks of multi-scale, multi-layered nodes are considered the middle ground by increasing the exploration of diverse local objectives and how they relate to coupled system responses managed at larger scales (Mills et al., 2014). Increased connectivity between governance organizations at multiple scales and broadening the stakeholder base in decision-making processes can improve overall system management over various scales (Kininmonth et al., 2015; Messier et al., 2015). Kininmonth et al. (2015) found nodes that function in a coordinating or intermediary capacity encourage cross-scale interactions and tend to help establish connections amongst all contacts with whom they communicate. In other words, they reduce network distance between nodes or its eccentricity, which refers to the frequency and magnitude of isolated nodes in the network. Ostrom (2009) acknowledges accurate quantification of stakeholder perceptions in a social network is difficult. For example, it may be beneficial to know whether users ignore management interventions because they feel their actions are negligible, or simply because the intervention's intent was not well communicated due to a lack of network connectivity. However, analyzing these two contrasting perceptions necessitates each node’s perspective be 22 accurately understood. Despite this operational limitation, network analysis can help understand side effects associated with stakeholders' actions because of the coupled nature of human-environment systems (Kininmonth et al., 2015). For example, environmental degradation can spread or be displaced through ecological links in the system, thus affecting multiple network nodes due to changes in environmental management policy. Lastly, assembling and analyzing a social network is costly and time-consuming (Mills et al., 2014). The onerous nature of assembling the network may be partially alleviated by management paradigms that continually update the roster of system stakeholders and their connectivity. Fortunately, several specific metrics have emerged to analyze a social network once it is adequately represented: redundancy, connectivity, centrality, and information flow can be quantified (see Gonzales & Parrott, 2012). Using these metrics to explore the structure of a network can identify some of the stakeholders' perspectives and provide a basis from which to develop or strengthen links to incorporate the expertise of stakeholders (e.g. additional, overlooked, or non-communicating). Together, complexity and network theory can be integrated within natural resource management paradigms to achieve adaptive and sustainable management of coupled human-environment systems. 2.1.3 Management Implications of Complex Systems Landscape use is driven by the human-environment system's associated social, cultural, economic, and ecological constraints (Messier et al., 2015; Parrott & Meyer, 2012). To realize sustainable environmental use, management decisions must acknowledge and account for the complexity of the system, including cross-scale interactions and uncertainties, emergent properties, reciprocal relationships, and resiliency (Holling, 2001; Liu et al., 2007; Parrott & Lange, 2013). Systems with smaller spatial and temporal scales, and with components fixed in space are inherently easier to manage, as are those with a greater degree of temporal predictability because stakeholders realize the benefits associated with long-term system adaptability (Ostrom, 2009). Management should be dynamic, prescriptive, and responsive to external drivers of change to maintain the interactive capacity between human and environmental components and achieve long-term sustainability (Holling, 2001; Ostrom, 2009). 23 However, it is these same properties that make it difficult to associate policy and management goals with desired ecological outcomes, hindering the efficacy of institutional structures (Harris, 2009). Exploring which human and ecosystem components are robust to change, and how human use regimes can be altered to improve system resiliency and functionality is paramount. This involves identifying and mediating the weak links in both the environmental response to resource use and the institutional policies governing human use in an adaptive management paradigm. As described by Folke et al. (2010), adaptability differs from resilience because it allows innovation and continued transformation from the old to the new. Therefore, adaptive management can support sustainable use of natural resources while maintaining desirable ecological structures. Managing for sustainability involves conservation of the self-organized panarchy by acknowledging how these relationships change when stressed or approaching critical thresholds. Unfortunately, small-scale hotspots of stress and “unknown unknowns” that precipitate change within the system are often obscured or ignored due to a lack of holistic system evaluation, technological or institutional limitations, or analytical inexperience (Harris, 2009). Understandably, human behavior is complex and chaotic, and at times very difficult to influence. In many cases though, policy-makers have the ability to partially manage human components (e.g. management and regulation of use) via social and cultural influence to achieve a desired environmental state. It is clearly more difficult to “control” the natural environment with passive, uncommitted, and uninfluential management actions. Emergent environmental patterns (e.g. species migration northward in response to climate warming, or forest biomass depletion due to over-harvesting) in the system can be difficult to predict but often dictate human actions (Parrott & Meyer, 2012). As such, large-scale social and economic drivers of change should guide local environmental policies involving all stakeholders because adaptive management can outperform single-component optimization approaches by accounting for the scale-dependent stochasticity of use within the system (Holling, 2001). Changes in human use paradigms result in tradeoffs across small-scale human-environment relationships and large-scale institutional arrangements. The key is to design 24 these to improve the adaptive capacity of the natural environment. Knapp et al. (2014) found that engaging and incorporating a diverse range of stakeholders vastly improves the accuracy of managers' long-term baseline knowledge. Local knowledge is often comprised of novel observations and contrasts markedly with scientific perspectives; therefore, it lends itself well to informing context-specific resilient and sustainable resource management. There are several management techniques to improve adaptive properties of complex systems. Bolstering system connectivity and promoting self-organization at larger geographic scales increases resilience (Kininmonth et al., 2015; Messier et al., 2015). Ideally, management processes should engage all stakeholders in the network and establish common goals for resource development toward which future collaboration and action can contribute (Kininmonth et al., 2015; Knapp et al., 2014; Parrott & Meyer, 2012). Stakeholder engagement ensures management is aligned with local needs, thus acknowledging socioeconomic uncertainties associated with the increased number of human-environment feedback linkages (Messier et al., 2015). Uncertainty in the system can be addressed with multi-scale spatiotemporal monitoring programs to identify emergent properties and feedback processes in response to cross-scale disturbances (Parrott & Meyer, 2012). Planning for uncertainty (e.g. natural disturbances and market collapses) may utilize techniques improving resilience: buffer margins and flexible administrative mechanisms tuned to the system (Liu et al., 2007; Messier et al., 2015). It is important to guard against management for specific resilience toward a narrow range of stressors. This focused resilience is linked to a myriad of human and ecological vulnerabilities in other parts of the system, thus paradoxically decreasing sustainability (Folke et al., 2010). When managing coupled systems, understanding the multi-scale impact of human-environment interactions, and how these affect processes over space and time is vital (Kininmonth et al., 2015). Harris's (2009) inevitable “unknown unknowns” are least damaging when addressed with robust and adaptive natural resource management frameworks and unifying theories because there is room to maneuver in response to changing system parameters. Proactive bottom-up management best positions the environment to continue providing social benefits (e.g. timber products, climate regulation, water quality, and cultural 25 recreation) throughout future uncertain and variable social, economic, ecological, and climatic conditions (Messier et al., 2015). 2.2 British Columbia’s Resource Roads and the Environment 2.2.1 Coupled Human-environment System in BC British Columbia has undergone and is continuing to undergo noticeable environmental change. Morgan and Daust (2013) and Spittlehouse (2008) describe how these changes are manifesting in BC wilderness areas. A warmer and wetter climate, with increased natural disturbance regimes such as fire and drought, dramatic ecological regime shifts with future habitat representing less than twenty percent of its present area, and wildlife strife, dispersal, and habitat fragmentation is expected. Impacts to biodiversity will be vast, with ecosystem components responding in a nonlinear fashion to a warming environment (Gayton, 2008). Holmes, Nelson, Coops, and Wulder (2013) echo this sentiment by suggesting protected areas in BC will see increased bio-productivity at higher elevations in response to a longer growing season. The Ministry of FLNRO (2013) details how warmer winters have led to biological epidemics (e.g. Mountain Pine Beetle infestation) and growing concerns over water shortages, biodiversity, and the economic and safety implications of increased natural disasters (e.g. flooding, wildfires, landslides). This multi-faceted change is not unique to BC, and has been unequivocally attributed to anthropogenic climate change by a range of scholars (Haeussler & Hamilton, 2012; Holmes et al., 2013; Kittel et al., 2011). Preliminary exploration of frameworks to integrate these changes have already begun to emerge (e.g. Nitschke & Innes, 2008). Roads in BC facilitate social and economic benefits such as commodity extraction, recreation, land management, and resource administration by accessing and thus providing an avenue for social and cultural interaction with provincial wilderness areas. Conversely, roads introduce environmental detriments such as landslides and natural drainage alterations, indiscriminate accessibility to remote areas, increased motorized traffic, human-wildlife conflicts, ecosystem stressors such as fragmentation and pollution, and wildlife pressures such as population isolation and over-hunting (Daigle, 2010; Hunt & Hupf, 2014). 26 Resource use and management based solely on social and economic principles of benefit and ignoring the environmental constraints functions to stress biophysical and climatic systems by not acknowledging the cumulative environmental impact of roads (Rockström et al., 2009). The FRB (2011) echoed this sentiment by expressing the urgent need to assess the adverse cumulative effects of many smaller human-use activities. Baseline environmental information is necessary to assess change over space and time—this must include socially-defined constructs of system component valuation. The environmental assessment (EA) paradigm of CEA is well suited to the task of documenting incremental project-specific effects in the context of varying valuation schemas. 2.2.2 Cumulative Effects Assessment Cumulative effects are the incremental changes to social, economic, and environmental values caused by past, present, and foreseeable spatiotemporal interactions between stressor and transmittal mechanisms in a system (FLNRO, 2014a; Noble, 2010). They were historically considered additive—that is, their aggregate environmental impact could be no greater than the sum of all projects’ impacts (MacDonald, 2000). However, contemporary interpretations now consider cumulative effects to occur in a synergistic manner because the total effect of all their interactions can represent a system state change representative of more than the sum of individual projects’ impacts (Crain, Kroeker, & Halpern, 2008; Noble, 2010). Rees (1995) first spoke of the importance of CEA to understanding the global implications of socioeconomic development activities, and to realize “no net impact to, and loss of, natural capital” resource management (Rees, 1995, p. 306). Rees’ seminal work highlighted the theoretical synergism of EA and complexity science paradigms by demonstrating how systems function at an optimal level in response to external forces (i.e. self-organization). He explained how CEA serves the vital role of establishing resource use limits to maintain optimal system self-organization and resilience, thus minimizing what he describes as “cumulative brittleness” of a system. Today, CEA is indeed a tool with which to evaluate sustainability and realise effective EA if properly applied at the appropriate scale (Duinker & Greig, 2006; Senner, 2011; Therivel & 27 Ross, 2007). Exemplary CEA programs should have broad spatial and temporal extents and be future-orientated, ecosystem based, integrative by considering all sectors’ impacts, adaptive to changing system parameters and valuation schemas, suggestive of alternative scenarios to minimize impact, and encourage stakeholder communication to bolster sustainable development (Harriman & Noble, 2008; Hegmann & Yarranton, 2011; Noble, 2010). However, CEA has little value unless it is employed as an integrated decision-support tool within the overall context of the regional landscape, and the capacity for that landscape to continue providing resources in a sustainable manner (FPB, 2011). Fundamental issues with CEA include: sector-specific application, limited spatiotemporal focus, undefined assessment metrics, subjective definitions and outcomes, inherent difficulties of conclusively determining all projects’ effects, and an administrative focus on expedited project approval (Duinker & Greig, 2006; Harriman & Noble, 2008; Noble, 2010). Perhaps the most overarching obstacle of CEA is its inclusion in the EA process at the project level, where it is unable to account for the totality of other project’s impacts (Duinker & Greig, 2006). Noble (2010) suggested the benefits of a lead agency to oversee CEA. Such an agency would improve the effectiveness of CEA with guiding knowledge, operational frameworks, and dedicated administrative resources—BC has acted upon that recommendation. The BC Ministry of FLNRO (FLNRO) was created in 2011. It is the primary legislative authority in BC tasked with improving cross-sector natural resource management, and developing integrated policies for forest, land, and natural resource access and use (FLNRO, 2013). The agency has piloted an EA decision-support framework to strengthen how cumulative impacts are monitored and incorporated into natural resource management in BC. The province-wide Cumulative Effects Framework (CEF), rooted in CEA theory, addresses change to social, economic, and environmental system parameters at a regional strategic scale, rather than a by-project basis (Duinker & Greig, 2006; see FLNRO, 2014a for a comprehensive discussion of BC's CEF). 28 The CEF acknowledges emerging risks and strives to minimize the negative impacts of resource use by monitoring trends in key system parameters.3 These parameters include forest biodiversity, ecological carrying capacity, water quality, wildlife impacts, roads, and stakeholders’ socioeconomic needs and opportunities. Baseline information for parameters is presently being assembled by leveraging existing monitoring programs to understand current and foreseeable future conditions. The CEF will monitor progress toward achieving sustainable management objectives (i.e. desired outcomes for resource values) in conjunction with a multitude of stakeholders. It promotes an integrated decision-support protocol for assessing the risk and residual impacts of all types of development projects and actions, and mitigation strategies for those having significant adverse impacts (FLNRO, 2014a). The CEF acknowledges the coupled nature of BC’s road-user system by considering both human and ecological components. However, it is unfortunately still focused on expeditious project approvals (Auditor General of BC, 2015). Trials are still underway to: (1) confirm the validity of methodologies for data collection, management, and analysis; (2) refine key system parameters for assessment; (3) assess the effectiveness of the framework in decision support; and (4) develop standards for responsibility and capacity for applicability using the CEF (see FLNRO, 2014a). The Auditor General of BC (OAG) recently examined if BC has established an acceptable protocol for managing cumulative environmental effects. They explored whether FLNRO: (1) has established a clear direction for, and is working to improve, management of cumulative effects; and (2) whether these effects are considered in decision-making processes for resource management (Auditor General of BC, 2015). They found no clear legislation explicitly requiring the Ministry consider such effects when authorizing natural resource use, and that the Ministry coordinates with other government entities to streamline approval of resource development proposals but not to manage the effects of resource development. Further, there is a lack of 3 For reasons of clarity, FLNRO refers to environmental system parameters as “Valued Ecosystem Components”, purposefully broad to facilitate ongoing development and nesting of fine-scale values within the framework. 29 qualified staff able to effectively consider cumulative effects in natural resource use decision-making. The deficiencies found by the OAG are presumably due to the CEF not having been fully implemented in all parts of the province.4 However, the OAG still established inconsistencies in how the CEF will be used to inform, support, and coordinate decision-making across government agencies. For example, FLNRO should use the CEF to coordinate with the Ministry of Environment (MoE) in regulating resource development adjacent to parks and protected areas. The Auditor General recommended government adopt new legislation and policy to guide resource development in light of cumulative effects, and that FLNRO ensure the CEF is successfully implemented across all resource development sectors to manage environmental effects within its decision-making protocols (see Auditor General of BC, 2015, p. 10 for further discussion of recommendations). 2.2.3 Resource Road Environmental Impacts The FPB (2015, p. 8-10) provides the most detailed divisional estimate of the 620,000 kilometers of resource roads. About 240,000 were created by the forest industry under cutting permits, and are likely now deactivated. Approximately 180,000 are haul roads managed by the forest industry. About 60,000 are FSRs managed by either British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS) or FLNRO to varying degrees (i.e. some are rough wilderness roads, and some well-maintained as they access high value recreation sites). Approximately 20,000 are managed by the oil and gas sector, and another 20,000 by other industries (e.g. BC Hydro). The remaining 100,000 kilometers exist in actuality but have no obvious status, and thus no one is responsible for their management (FPB, 2015). Despite its infancy, the cumulative effects of past, present, and potential road impacts are indeed part of BC’s CEF (FLNRO, 2014a). Road impacts are cumulative and diverse, focused around the building of new roads, maintenance of existing road infrastructure, and ultimately 4 Full implementation of BC’s CEF is not expected until 2021. 30 human road use of the road network. Hunt and Hupf (2014) concisely classify these impacts into two fundamental forms: placement and use. The placement of roads physically impact wilderness areas even if no users transit the road. These are considered ecologically-based impacts because road construction alters the natural state of the environment. Forestry operations cause deforestation through the creation of permanent roads that account for a proportional loss of approximately four to six percent of harvestable timber area (FPB, 2015; Ministry of Forests Mines and Lands, 2010). This proportional relationship in land loss is most notable with the forest industry compared to other natural resource sectors because the area impacted (i.e. large timber harvest areas) is greater than, for example, the oil and gas exploration sector (i.e. small well pads). Placement impacts typically surround construction as well as ongoing maintenance simply because the road infrastructure persists through space and time. Perhaps the most notable road impact is that upon water quality due to natural slope drainage pattern alterations and landslides causing siltation (FPB, 2015). Other environmental impacts include ecosystem stressors such as habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation, introduction of invasive species, and wildlife pressures such as population isolation, over-hunting, and increased mobility of predators (Daigle, 2010; Hunt & Hupf, 2014). As industry continues to develop natural resources, the requirement for “new” roads will decrease because operations will be more commonly conducted in areas where roads have already been constructed. That is, old roads closed via natural re-vegetation and maintenance deferral will be re-activated and utilized. This acknowledgement is well illustrated in BC's one percent declining trend in the proportional area lost to roads from forestry operations between 1995 and 2005 (Ministry of Forests Mines and Lands, 2010). In theory, this should in part function to minimize road placement impacts. Use impacts are associated with human presence along road corridors adding to the baseline environmental impact of roads. These are considered socially-based impacts because they derive from human activity, and are the most damaging (Northrup et al., 2012). Human use impacts range from the industrial harvesting of resources, to individual use-for-benefit of roads, and include increased indiscriminate accessibility to remote areas, excessive motorized 31 traffic, and human-wildlife conflicts associated with more users in the backcountry (Daigle, 2010). There has been a steady increase in the use of resource roads, including off-road vehicles and even passenger cars in areas historically subject only to industrial traffic and pickup trucks (FPB, 2015). Open road density is the precursor that facilitates the additive human stressor of increased traffic volume over roads. The ease of accessibility manifests as a significant spatial and temporal stressor because of a comparatively greater amount of area readily accessible to users. The creation of loop roads is particularly problematic as they increase wilderness area accessibility while simultaneously making it difficult to enforce or manage activities in those areas. This is because multiple corridors for ingress and egress consequently require more points of enforcement and thus more enforcement officials (FPB, 2015). Physical road impacts in BC are inspected as part of FLNRO’s Compliance and Enforcement Program. Not every road is evaluated, but rather the risks associated with various natural resource activities are scaled and those with higher social, economic, or environmental risk are prioritized (FLNRO, 2014c). In 2013, approximately eleven percent of these inspections were directly related to roads. Unfortunately, the program only evaluates industrial activities—cumulative effects of human use are theoretically left evaluated by the CEF. Road placement impacts are mitigated under deactivation legislation within BC’s Natural Resource Road Act (Natural Resource Road Act, [NRRA] 2014), and are at best highly contentious in BC (see FLNRO, 2012 for detailed discussion of stakeholder input associated with road deactivation). Regrettably, the NRRA largely ignores cumulative environmental impacts of superfluous road density, rather deferring responsibility for road maintenance and deactivation to private contractors in a bid to keep more roads open for a longer period of time (FLNRO, 2014b). Managing road impacts is accomplished via two means: regulating road density to mitigate placement impacts, and AM to control human accessibility into select wilderness areas. Regulation of creation and deletion of temporary roads built to support resource harvesting, in turn controlling road density, is an entirely in-house mandate of FLNRO. Access 32 management is certainly not as well administered even though it seems it should be a fundamental component of road development authorization.5 2.3 Road Access Management The notion of resource road AM generally considers open roads of an area, and limits motorized access by closing roads into those areas for the purpose of environmental protection. It is acknowledged that non-motorized human pressures (e.g. hiking, mountain biking, horses) will still impose impacts along closed roads—this is primarily of concern with regard to wildlife disturbances (T. Hamilton, pers. comm. 2014). However, these impacts will be functionally constrained within much smaller radii from the point of closure due to inherent distance limitations associated with non-motorized travel. Access management remains one of the most powerful and influential tools that resource managers possess to protect and recover desirable wilderness areas attributes, and can represent significant progress toward defining sustainable resource use regimes in sensitive areas (McLellan et al., 1999; Proctor et al., 2008). In the context of grizzly bear protection, Proctor et al. (2008) suggest that AM can control backcountry mortality and bear displacement associated with road use, and McFarlane, Stumpf-Allen, and Watson (2007) reaffirm how AM can minimize disruption, habitat fragmentation, and frequent human-animal conflicts simply by restricting access to sensitive areas. Recent research by Hunt and Hupf (2014) on the effectiveness of certain types of AM infrastructure highlights the need for further research. They present an appeal to explore the effect of, and compliance with, various types of AM with diverse rationales for instituting the closure on a wide range of user groups and social norms over broad spatial and temporal scales (see Hunt & Hosegood, 2008 and Hunt & Hupf, 2014 for details of recommended future research). 5 It should be noted that some new roads require an EA certification, in which stipulations for managing future access may be required. 33 2.3.1 Access Management Strategies There is a sharp distinction between AM planning and strategies. In the context of resource roads, planning refers to the overall landscape-level development objectives for the road network. Conversely, strategies are the local-scale implementations of specific structures and actions designed to accomplish those development objectives. The FPB (2015) explains how AM planning occurs at either the strategic or operational level. Strategic planning is typically conducted by the government, and involves time-consuming assessment of where roads should and should not be constructed in order to accomplish their primary purpose (e.g. resource or recreational access) in relation to maintaining ecological objectives (e.g. sufficient road-less areas). Strategic AM planning is thus a part of broad-scale land-use decisions. Operational planning simply considers whether a road will be required in the future, and consequently if it should be maintained or decommissioned (i.e. deactivated). Importantly, a decommissioned road is no longer considered a “road”, and the responsibility for maintenance is nullified. If no industrial stakeholders are willing to manage a road, and costs preclude FLNRO or BCTS from taking over road maintenance, the road will be deactivated to a state where it “self-maintains” its structure and causes no adverse environmental effects (FPB, 2015, p. 22). Regardless of the level AM planning, local-scale strategies mitigate the cumulative effect of extensive road networks by relegating specific linear corridors devoid of motorized traffic. These local-scale strategies are the focus of this research. When motorized traffic is limited, non-motorized travel must theoretically ensue past the point of closure. Thus, the most harmful of road impacts—cumulative human use of roads, where traffic volume is more harmful than simply “road density” itself—is reduced to the environment’s benefit (FPB, 2015; T. Hamilton, pers. comm., 2014). Access management strategies are typically implemented to protect wilderness area habitat or species of special concern, as well as providing a diverse range of recreational opportunities such as high-quality recreational hunts in areas dominated by vehicle-based hunting (D. Martin, pers. comm., 2015). Resource managers have two options to identify candidate roads for closure: (1) physically driving the roads to best understand the unique variables of an area and how they 34 relate to environmental and resource management goals, or (2) geospatial methods to narrow potential road segments considered for targeted closures that must then be physically inspected.6 As described in a pilot project between Conservation Northwest and the MoE, physically driving the roads allows resource managers to quantify a road's unique variables in the context of AM (T. Hamilton and J. Scott, pers. comm., 2014). For example, road surface type and condition; accessibility, regulated status, and patterns of use; already implemented AM (socially constructed or naturally occurring); and gathering evidence in support of the proposed closure can be accomplished. However, driving roads is more costly compared to geospatial methods utilizing digital information to highlight potential locations for implementing AM. Access management strategies do not generally consider the main arterial resource roads, but rather are concerned with the multitude of spurs that diverge and consequently propagate traffic volume elsewhere within the road-user system. Road accessibility is thus the key. There are various types of field practices for regulating access as detailed in Table 2.1 (Integrated Land Management Bureau, 2008). Almost all strategies address impacts from human use of roads, while only some address both environmental impacts due to road placement and continued human use (Hunt & Hupf, 2014). 6 Geospatial analyses may include, for example, utilizing digitized road data polylines, traffic density estimations, and digital elevation models to show geographic locations along a road where natural bottlenecks minimize the ability for users to circumvent the AM closure (e.g. narrow canyon; steep embankments flanking the road corridor. 35 Table 2.1. Resource road access management strategies (Integrated Land Management Bureau, 2008, p. 31). Several strategies offer closure solutions with easily defensible rationales. Geotechnical failures such as landslides that destroy road structure and natural regeneration permanently terminate road use in an inevitable, often uncontrollable and rapid fashion. Reducing needless road network expansion is best accomplished by utilizing existing roads to their fullest capacity for resource harvesting, and preventing the construction of new roads that offer little long-term benefit to resource management. For example, helicopters may be used for temporary resource exploration in lieu of building access roads. Identification and removal of temporary harvest roads on cut blocks is of utmost importance at the operational planning level as they are of no future benefit to the road-user system, and pose significant ecological detriments associated with timber regeneration, slope stability, and water basin hydrology, among others  Stakeholder education of AM planning and closure rationale  Information signage positioned at or strategically before a closure  Reduce road construction and avoid road density increases  Optimize road locations and structure (e.g. no loop roads, or roads entering areas identified as being of potentially significant recreation value)  Minimize permanent roads (i.e. deactivate and rehabilitate roads, and promote natural re-vegetation)  Natural barriers (e.g. landslides areas) and bridge removal  “Scarification” of initial length of road bed (i.e. visual deterrent for users)  Legislation (e.g. BC Wildlife Act)  Road impediments (i.e. various forms of barricades such as gates)  Seasonally-open access to discourage use only during consequent times (e.g. spring lambing season)  Unsigned (i.e. users must simply be aware of the closure boundaries) 36 (Chapman, Thompson, Bulmer, & Berch, 2014; FPB, 2015). New roads should be located so as to not access potentially desirable recreation areas if not required, thus preventing public desire for future use (FPB, 2015). Gates and road deactivation have the benefit of selective restriction, where authorized users can enter for resource management, as opposed to permanent road removal where such activities are not as easily performed (FPB, 2012). Deactivation is typically ineffective at discouraging public access because it is little more than cross ditches to direct surface run-off. Gates function best in steep topography as ORV circumvention is difficult. Strategies such as bridge removal and road rehabilitation are more permanent types of AM infrastructure. Gates are generally preferable because industry access requirements are possible while other access is restricted. Certainly, they are easily left open permanently if the closure rationale is later nullified. However, the FPB (2015) and Burley (2014) suggest gates are both inefficient to implement and ineffective due to vandalism. Temporary closure of areas is acceptable because it allows users to explore an area in times where they have the least impact (Pers. comm., 2015). Lastly, education and outreach, either via signage or public consultation, is by far the most desirable form of AM because of negligible costs compared to road removal, as well as its ethical consideration of all road stakeholders. Education is particularly important when installing locked gates (FPB, 2015). 2.3.2 Implementation and Enforcement Difficulties While AM is an important component to natural resource administration and road management, it is not without implementation impediments. Regulatory agencies must continually reconcile competing environmental, economic, and social objectives when managing road access (CMI, 2014, p. 89-93; Daigle, 2010). Reconciling stakeholder clashes often results in compromise for environmental and human components. Presently, BC’s resource roads often remain open-access for a myriad of reasons. Past cursory underestimation of roads’ environmental impact have resulted in “historically open” legacy roads now difficult to close due to stakeholders’ becoming accustomed to use of these roads (Northrup et al., 2012). Sparse regulatory mechanisms for enforcing spur road 37 deactivation has fostered needless road density increases and contributes to the issue of legacy roads (Chapman et al., 2014). Economic constraints associated with restrictive and selective access infrastructure garners support for less-invasive strategies that passively regulate access (FPB, 2012). Lastly, closed areas on public land are simply not always accepted by members of the public and are thus continually challenged (Mihell & Hunt, 2011). It is also acknowledged that effectiveness issues arise with enforcement approaches relying solely on voluntary compliance (FPB, 2015). Conflicts are a distinct issue with AM. These arise when an area is utilized for various types of recreation by groups harboring different valuation schemas (Needham & Rollins, 2009). Two-way conflict is most disconcerting as it involves user resentment between both stakeholders. Avoidance of conflict within an AMA is difficult due to the inherent confined nature of the narrow linear infrastructure and small areas, where users are more likely to interact with each other. For example, in 2012 the FPB mediated a dispute in central BC between a guide outfitter and local loggers, one using the closed area for horse-based guided hunting trips and the other, permitted to drive the roads for work purposes only, hunting after work hours via motor vehicle. The guide outfitter’s presentation of a “remote horse hunt” to clientele was ruined when motorized vehicles operated in the same vicinity. Conflicts such as these highlight the importance of enforcement of recreation type in an area, including authorized motor vehicles (FPB, 2012). Regrettably, enforcement is difficult because of limited human resources operating on the more than 620,000 kilometers of roads (FPB, 2015). As such, it is imperative AM planning include adequate stakeholder consultation processes in the context of southern BC to avoid contesting use of the same area, and best leverage the acceptance of an AM strategy prior to its implementation (FLNRO, 2012). 2.3.3 History of Strategic Access Management Planning in BC Consideration of managing access in BC burgeoned in the 1980s with Coordinated Access Management Planning (CAMP) in response to continued resource road development. It provided an avenue for all forest users to submit advice during AM decision-making processes by considering such variables as land use, road density, geographic location, and wildlife 38 pressures (Daigle, 2010; Rowe, 2011). A benchmark regional AM strategy was developed in 1996 under the Cariboo Chilcotin Land Use Plan. This foundational strategy acknowledged the potential for AM to minimize conflict between industrial, commercial, and recreational users while also minimizing adverse environmental impacts associated with road use (FLNRO, 2005). Positively, this trend of collaborative planning was incorporated into the 1995 Forest Practices Code being developed at the same time. The Code maintained provisions requiring AM planning for all new forest development proposals—this requirement was removed shortly after during the 1997 streamlining of this code (FPB, 2005). Formal AM planning and consideration of strategies to regulate future road access have been absent from BC’s forest practices legislation since 2004 (Forest and Range Practices Act, 2004).7 Shortly after the implementation of today’s Forest and Range Practices Act predecessor, the FPB released a special report in 2005 on the issues and opportunities of AM in BC (FPB, 2005). The report highlighted how BC utilized no management objectives for regulating public access on resource roads, and the subsequent impact on sensitive wilderness areas. Further, the report acknowledged that access restrictions are generally unpopular, most notably when stakeholders were not adequately considered during the decision-making process. The report explained how public road users desired regulatory mechanisms that consider their input when discussing road deactivations—consultation is still of significant concern today (FLNRO, 2012). At the time, the FPB report recommended development of a road-use regulatory framework incorporating stakeholder opinions when discussing plans to create and deactivate roads. It also suggested the development of guidance material on when and how public AM infrastructure should be implemented (FPB, 2005). In the interim, there have been several successful examples of strategic AM planning, the following of which are not exhaustive. The Vanderhoof Land and Resource Plan was implemented in 2008 to provide strategic direction to ensure uninterrupted use of roads by the forest industry, as well as ensuring public recreational access (Integrated Land Management 7 Only recently has new resource road legislation been designed to address issues of access management as previously discussed (Natural Resource Road Act, 2014). 39 Bureau, 2008). The Sea-to-Sky Land and Resource Management Plan is the most recent example of strategic level coordinated AM planning, completed in 2009. It comprehensively manages road access into recreational and sensitive areas and maintains mechanisms for stakeholder input (see Rowe, 2009). It includes several types of seasonal and permanent AM strategies to protect grizzly bear habitat. The local Bulkley Valley community developed operational level recreation access plans in 2013 to address on-going disputes among wilderness area users (see Bulkley Valley Community Resources Board, 2015). It was developed in close cooperation with local stakeholders. Similarly, the South Chilcotin Stewardship Plan was developed in partnership with local First Nations in 2014. It provides management objectives for resource road density, and specific targets for road access to conserve wildlife habitat and biodiversity (FPB, 2015). In 2015, an update to the 2005 FPB report was released, discussing the present context of AM on resource roads in BC (FPB, 2015). It assessed the state of AM in BC, current legislation concerning its application, and policies, procedures, and practices as related to resource roads. Data used in the evaluation included FPB reports, government public documentation and data inventories, published literature on adverse road impacts, and formal interviews with stakeholders such as government, industry, and the public that use resource roads (FPB, 2014). Fieldwork was not a component of the report; thus, the report was not able to summarize the effectiveness of already-implemented AM plans at achieving their management objective. The bulk of the work within the 2015 FPB report was focused on solidifying the total kilometers of so-called “non-status roads” in BC for which the government is responsible but does not acknowledge. It demonstrated that in fact there is very little known about the use and condition of these roads and similarly, on what roads users can actually operate a motor vehicle. This is due primarily to a constant issue of inaccurate documentation of actual roads built, and the inability for government to retain legislation to document newly built and existing roads. In 2005, legislation requiring the forest sector (i.e. private logging companies) report “as built” roads for which they are responsible was inexplicably removed from the Forest Planning and Practices Regulation in 2008 (FPB, 2015). There is also the pervasive issue of road licensees 40 not retaining an accurate report of all roads for which they are responsible for maintenance. As such, accurate representation of the road network’s maintenance status is likely not possible. Lastly, the report explained that access planning initiatives must be based on multi-sector stakeholder participation (M. Eng, pers. comm., Dec 22, 2014). It considered public consultation—at the very least notification of road use changes—vital to the successful implementation of any AM strategy. The report did not evaluate the effectiveness of various types of AM strategies, nor did it gauge stakeholder attitudes toward such strategies as a function of the context in which these strategies are applied. Today, there is still no government agency tasked with road access planning, and no legal requirement for consultation between government and non-industrial user prior to changing the accessibility status of a road (FPB, 2015). Motor vehicle restrictions can be implemented under the Land Act (Section 66), and outright public access closures can be implemented under the Forest and Range Practices Act (Section 58). However, the Wildlife Act (The Act) provides the most comprehensive legislative solution to implementing AMAs and regulating road access on crown land for the purpose of wilderness area protection. The Act maintains these provisions for the purpose of wildlife management and protecting sensitive or high-value wildlife habitat areas (BC Wildlife Act, 2014). Section 109 of the Act specifically facilitates restriction of all public motorized access within an area—these closures are most commonly permanent. Section 108 of the Act also legislates restricted motorized access but only for the purposes of hunting and trapping (BC Wildlife Act, 2014). Additionally, Section 29 of the BC Parks Act limits motorized access in BC parks, ecological reserves, and protected areas (BC Parks Act, 2015). It functions as a regulatory mechanism similar to the Wildlife Act. Various exemptions for resource managers and industry operations are provisioned under the Wildlife Act to allow access on a by-permit basis. With regard to public AM, Section 109 closures are more extensive as they apply to all users, not just a recreational segment of road users. Closures under the Wildlife Act and Parks Act are both demarcated by management regions in the bi-annual publication BC Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis with 41 descriptive text and small maps.8 Wilderness area users may consult this free resource for information regarding road and area closures in a specific region. A selection of comprehensive maps is also published by Backroad Mapbooks, which include AMAs for much of BC.9 The geospatial information is derived from data provided in cooperation with FLNRO’s BC Recreation Sites and Trails department (FLNRO, 2015; Backroad Mapbooks, pers. comm., 2015). Table 2.2 summarizes the documented vehicle restricted areas in southern BC (FLNRO, 2014e, 2014f). There are fifty distinct AM closures, forty-two of which are regulated under the Wildlife Act and eight under the Parks Act. 8 See www.env.gov.bc.ca/fw/wildlife/hunting/regulations/ for detailed information about BC Hunting and Trapping regulations. 9 See www.backroadmapbooks.com/ for more information. 42 Table 2.2. Southern BC AMAs within Wildlife Management Regions 4 (Kootenay) and 8 (Okanagan), sub-grouped by Wildlife Management Unit (MU). All AMAs are regulated under the Wildlife Act Section 109, except those in Region 8 denoted with “29” regulated under Section 29 of the Parks Act. Vehicle Closure Geographic Reference n Wildlife Management Region 4 MU 1 - 3: McDougall Wildlife Sanctuary, Upper Flathead, East Flathead; Wigwam Flats, Mt. Broadwood, Galton Range, Upper Wigwam River drainage; Linklater Creek 8 MU 7, 18: Corn Creek Watershed; Marsden Face 2 MU 20 - 26: Wycliffe Conservation area, Baribeau Creek Watershed, Cherry Creek; Premier Ridge; Bayes Lake, Powerplant, Pickering Hills, Sheep Mtn; Barnes Lake, Chauncey-Todhunter, Grave Prairie, Corbin Creek, Weigert Creek, Upper Elk Valley, Alexander Creek; Mutton Creek Watershed; Stoddart Creek, Columbia Lake; Hoodoo Conservation, Goldie Creek, Dutch Creek 21 MU 30, 34: Duncan-Lardeau; Holt Creek, Lang Creek 3 Wildlife Management Region 8 MU 1 - 4: Osoyoos Oxbows, Underdown Creek; South Okanagan Grasslands Protected Area, White Lake Protected Area (29); Crater Mountain, Placer Mountain 6 MU 8 - 10: Garnet Valley; Skaha Lake - east; Myra-Bellevue Protected Area, Graystokes Provincial Park (29) 4 MU 14, 15: Granby area, Galloping Hills; Gilpin Protected Area, Boothman's Oxbows Provincial Park (29) 4 MU 24, 25: Kingfisher Creek Ecological Reserve, Enderby Cliffs (29) 2 2.3.4 Assessing Effectiveness of Access Management Assessment of the effectiveness of various AM strategies is sparse in the literature. It is typically conducted from a quantitative perspective using techniques of statistical inference to establish relationships, as well as predictive models to estimate traffic (e.g. Ciuti et al., 2012). It 43 must be emphasized here that a contextually-specific dependency remains a fundamental determinant of an AM strategy's acceptability and thus effectiveness. That is to say, implementing AM strategies is a function of stakeholder dependency and desirability for access versus management goals for that area. McFarlane et al. (2007) found that being a road user and having knowledge of the closure rationale positively influenced acceptability of implementing any AM strategy. Therefore, stakeholder goals must be acknowledged and cooperation fostered to support effective AM strategies. Deficient stakeholder cooperation can manifest as a mish-mash of ineffective and difficult to enforce AM strategies (FPB, 2015). These may result in select stakeholder acceptance, but broadly fail to achieve desired wilderness protection goals in a conciliatory manner acceptable to multiple stakeholders. Effectiveness is typically expressed as the proportional number of users who travel past the closure via motor vehicle compared to all users who encountered the closure. The seminal work of present AM assessment is Hunt and Hupf's (2014) discussion of the effectiveness of different types of road closures in Ontario. They concluded AM strategies significantly reduce traffic volume by as much as seventy-eight percent. Further, it was found that road surface quality made no difference in the effectiveness of AM, but that seasonally-closed roads were more effective than permanent road closures, and that combined deactivation/closure was more effective at traffic reduction than a year-round closure alone. Typically, road rehabilitation is very effective at reducing motorized traffic as there is no longer a hard surface upon which to travel. Similarly, Northrup et al. (2012) noted gates were very effective in reducing traffic volume beyond a closure point for areas of southwest Alberta. In central BC, the FPB (2012) reported approximately ninety percent of road traffic was mitigated using a temporary wooden barrier and signage, but on the whole suggest signage is ineffective due to low voluntary compliance (FPB, 2015). Highly restrictive strategies are considered the least desirable strategy by public stakeholders. Mihell and Hunt (2011) rated participants’ response to various levels of road access enforcement. On the whole, they found seasonally-temporary closures were more accepted by the public than permanent closures, as temporary strategies struck a balance 44 between groups entirely opposed to road closures, and those willing to accept some degree of regulated accessibility. Determining the effectiveness of various types of AM strategies also requires quantification of road traffic dynamics. Measuring traffic volume passed a point of closure is the contemporary method to determine operational effectiveness of a strategy (Hunt & Hosegood, 2008; Hunt & Hupf, 2014). 2.3.5 Measuring Road Traffic Volume There are two primary methods with which to record cumulative traffic volume past an AM implementation point: electronic cumulative counters and automated wildlife cameras. Electronic counters primarily comprise of two varieties: (1) an inductive loop to detect localized magnetic disturbances, and (2) road tubes that detect changes in air pressure inside of a tube (Leduc, 2008). (1) As described by Diamond Traffic Products (2014), inductive loops are presence detectors that utilize electrical wire loops, placed on or embedded within the road surface, to measure changes to a magnetic field induced by a passing vehicle. A cumulative tally is maintained each time the magnetic field is disturbed. These devices are considered the most reliable because they accurately measure speed and vehicle length, are not affected by weather, and can be buried to avoid detection. Their biggest shortcomings are expensive installation and maintenance costs, and a short lifespan typically due to deteriorative effects from heavy traffic and rough roads (Leduc, 2008). A subset of devices utilizing inductive loops are passive magnetic recorders fixed within or beside the road surface (TRAFx, 2015). These are robust and adaptable devices capable of easy burial to deter theft; however, high implementation costs and an inability to record vehicle type are their primary detriments. Further, as described by Leduc (2008) these devices have difficulty differentiating between closely spaced vehicles. Hunt and Hupf (2014) describe the devices as having a vehicle miss rate of approximately six percent and subject to double-counting errors of some large-sized vehicles (i.e. logging trucks). (2) Road tubes are laid over the road surface and count traffic by detecting air pulses created as vehicle tires strike a hollow tube, thus increasing the pressure inside the tube. A 45 tally is maintained of pressure spikes. These devices also have the ability to record cumulative traffic count and speed, but are more simplistic and thus economical (Diamond Traffic Products, 2014). However, their detriments include being subject to weather and inefficient tallies associated with low-speed traffic progression (Leduc, 2008). Unfortunately, both inductive loops and road tubes are largely unsuited to resource road applications because of prohibitive costs, an inability to accurately record slow-speed traffic, accuracy errors associated with unpredictable weather, and road surface types unsuited to hollow tubes and embedded sensitive electronic wires. Alternatively, wildlife cameras can be used to measure traffic volume. Automated infrared cameras are an accurate, cost effective solution that have the notable benefit of visual identification of traffic type, along with a time stamp (Clevenger, Dorsey, Barrueto, & Ford, 2013). Their most significant drawback is susceptibility to theft. They are also limited by available battery life and memory storage capacity; however, these limitations are related to road traffic density, and thus required camera service intervals can be predicted and planned. While the deployment of wildlife cameras is not as prevalent as other conventional methods of monitoring traffic (i.e. road tubes dominate in municipal settings), they are the primary tool utilized in remote wilderness areas. Padilla (2013) and Ciuti et al. (2012) demonstrated the effective use of wildlife cameras in monitoring traffic along various road types and times of year. The FPB (2012) used a camera to monitor success of installing a temporary barrier to prevent hunters’ motorized access. Northrup et al. (2012) implemented a comprehensive traffic study using cameras. They deployed forty-six electronic traffic counters (Diamond Traffic Products) and twenty-one remotely activated trail cameras (RECONYX) in southwest Alberta. The aggregate sample traffic count from both sources (N = 67) was used to record traffic volume and establish a reliable predictor of traffic patterns that could be used to help understand large carnivore responses to roads. The prevalence of wildlife cameras to monitor traffic in the environmental and natural resource management literature suggests they are the preferred method. Research hereinafter bolsters the current status of knowledge on the proportional effectiveness of selected AM strategies as they are applied in unique socio-cultural and 46 geographic contexts in southern BC. It shows the comparative effectiveness of strategies that are well communicated to and involve local stakeholders in implementation, or those that merely rely on physical infrastructure (i.e. gates or signs capitalizing on geographic situation) to accomplish a road closure. It highlights road management recommendations to improve the efficacy of AM strategies that are applied in a similar context to that of southern BC. 47 Chapter 3: Resource Roads and Access Management as a Complex System This section applies complex systems theory as discussed in Section 2.1 to conceptualize the complexity of road administration in BC that acknowledges and incorporates both human and ecological components into the decision-making and management processes. Conceptualizing the system is a precursor to assessing AM effectiveness within a specific social-environmental context. In light of this conceptualization, recommendations to guide future road management of this coupled human-environment system are discussed in Section 6.2. 3.1 Social and Ecological Couplings of Southern BC Southern BC's road-user system is comprised of a dynamic network of users and ecological components: physical road structure, human use regimes, and environmental components differ markedly over space and time. Stakeholders are diverse with varying valuation schemas for the natural environment, and engage in a myriad of industrial, commercial, and private activities. These are spatially dispersed throughout the province as defined by the evolving economies of population centers and resource availability in response to external drivers (e.g. climatic determinants and fluctuating resource demand). Similarly, temporal changes include the annual fluctuations in road user density and inter-annual shifts in usage patterns as defined by socioeconomic variables (e.g. market demand for forest products; tourist demand for valued ecosystem components; changes to provincial hunting regulations). In turn, the ecological complexity of the system is vast. The physical road network is an ever-devolving progression of new to old roads. While new roads are continually developed, natural re-vegetation and erosional processes reclaim old roads. Comprising the matrix between roads is the inherently complex wilderness area system that roads penetrate and influence (Coffin, 2007). It is a continually-evolving, dynamic and unpredictable system itself, composed of still deeper levels of systems upon systems. It is impossible to not recognize couplings in this system—roads provide the physical connectivity. Every human component has an associated effect on the ecological components, 48 which in turn hold social value thus impacting human components. The scale of the road-user system necessitates consideration of its cross-scale functioning. 3.2 Conceptualizing the Road-user System in Southern BC Functioning of the road-user system in southern BC is defined by human interaction with the natural environment. For example, small-scale interactions include the sustained use of roads for benefit such as timber supply, resource administration such as water quality maintenance, and recreation such as commercial-based tourism and personal pleasure. Medium-scale interactions include decision-making processes concerning which road-accessible ecological components should be protected via regional scale road access planning, or what wildlife is available for recreational harvest. Large-scale interactions in the system include the impacts associated with anthropogenic climate change and human governance structures affecting the temporal and spatial availability of resources provided by the system at smaller scales. These interactions are conceptualized in Figure 3.1 (adapted from Ostrom, 2009). 49 Figure 3.1. Upper-level conceptualization of southern BC's road-user system coupled interactions. This representation is not exhaustive of system relationships. Socioeconomic constraints include social, cultural and economic factors. As shown, there are two distinct components to the human system: the governance regime (e.g. monitoring, assessment, planning, and enforcement) and stakeholders. Likewise, environmental components are defined by the physical road infrastructure and accessible ecological resources (e.g. forest products, recreation destinations, wildlife). Interaction with the heterogeneous components of the human-environment road-user system defines the core link between human users and the environment. That interaction determines a range of outcomes, which in turn feedback and should guide the development of human management and ecological functioning. Encompassing constraints frame the system's context, and include the variables associated with dynamic ecological processes and socioeconomic conditions at varying scales. 50 The self-organized panarchy and emergent trends existent between the various system entities are described in Figure 3.2 (after Parrott & Lange, 2013). Processes represent sub-systems operating within the larger road-user system. Stakeholders engage with the system over differing spatiotemporal scales as defined by the operational context of sub-systems. For example, timber harvesting is typically conducted at the local scale, but annual allowable harvest yields are planned at both the local and provincial scale. The self-organized cycles are maintained by system properties at both the local and global scale. For example, recreational use will tend to cluster in destination areas easily accessible by roads, and resource harvesting will typically operate near valuable natural resources. Likewise, ecosystem components will respond to targeted stakeholder pressure. Such responses may include wildlife dispersal due to vehicle traffic and industrial noise, ecosystem changes and increased vulnerability arising from homogenous reforestation programs, and water quality fluctuations associated with roads intersecting natural slope drainage patterns and increasing soil erosion. This complex self-organization and feedback occurs over increasing spatial and temporal scales of the panarchy. 51 Figure 3.2. Road-user system panarchy depicting emergent interactions over space and time. Ecological and human processes interact between and at all scales. Emergent patterns within the system may be governed by environmental, social, or economic characteristics of resource development and use in southern BC. However, emergent responses in the road-user system are not necessarily proportional to the degree of external influence, a non-linear property of all complex systems’ functionality (Parrott & Lange, 2013). For example, traffic density on roads may not be related to road density but rather distance to a population center determining frequency of use, or simply the road surface condition governing public desirability. Ecological components such as large wildlife can react to stress associated with human road use, but be resilient to roads with little traffic (see Ciuti et al., 2012; Northrup et al., 2012). This property may be evident until a state change causes these components to react in unprecedented ways to increasing road density. There may also be threshold-type responses by various species dependent on their tolerance to increasing road and traffic density. 52 Typically, emergent patterns will manifest at higher levels in the road-user system (Parrott & Lange, 2013). For example, road users will not disappear—on the contrary, their numbers will continue to increase proportional to a larger human population. Strategies managing road accessibility have the emergent property of displacing stakeholders to other areas. That displacement may emerge as ecological degradation elsewhere in the system on a different spatial or temporal scale. This is a function dependent on the communication structure between managers and local users, the type of stakeholder use within the network, and present environmental components governing circumstances for road closures (Liu et al., 2007). Displacement of users to elsewhere in the road-user system is an example of a wicked problem. Understanding network structure (e.g. stakeholder’s collaborative capacity for problem-solving) can tame the social uncertainty and derivate complications associated with wicked problems by facilitating adaptive managerial responses made with available tools and cognizant of diverse stakeholder interests and residual environmental effects (Weber & Khademian, 2008). This achieves the most acceptable compromising solution for the greatest number of human and environmental system components. However, there are still significant consequences for all stakeholders because wicked problems do not have ‘a’ solution (Hadgraft & Bender, 2012). Therefore, the key priority preceding road deactivation in southern BC should be to identify which roads stakeholders may be displaced to and whether the small-scale social and environmental consequences associated with that displacement are contextually acceptable and ultimately preferable. The network of stakeholders can also function to influence large-scale governance techniques within the road-user panarchy. For example, such governance is demonstrated in provincial legislation designating areas closed to motor vehicles for hunting (BC Wildlife Act, 2014), as well as regional AM plans designed to audit public road usage and the subsequent wildlife impacts (Ministry of Environment, 2012). The governance and use of roads can induce hysteresis ecological effects, in part determining future system states. Future system states are linked to memory effects of roads, which often last centuries and are an important property of the landscape. These effects are derived from legacy spur 53 roads and temporary access structures kept open after completion of resource harvesting and not subject to natural (i.e. overgrown) or managed deactivation and thus the benefits that ensue (e.g. habitat regeneration). Additionally, cultural contributions to roads’ memory effects include collective valuation and heritage value common to a group of road users, and sustains their use of the system over time. Continued human use of roads due to historical popularity functions to sustain roads’ effects so long as the corridor remains navigable. There are varying management efforts to maintain roads in a condition suitable for supporting post resource-harvest recreation (i.e. public use; see Kahr, 2009). As such, memory effects may be subject to change with sustained or increased use and new system properties can emerge. In turn, ecological components must contend with unrelenting and dynamic human stressors representative of both past and present system properties. Humans must appreciate ecological change in the system associated with memory effects. Together, the system's memory effects can influence resiliency. The resiliency of the road-user system is important so as to maintain adequate stakeholder benefits (e.g. natural resource harvesting and eco-based tourism) while ensuring ecological sustainability (e.g. biodiversity). Tipping points in the road-user system such as severe road density, destructive abuse of ecosystem components such as over-harvesting, and climate-induced biophysical structural changes are characteristic of complex systems. Therefore, system robustness must be acknowledged. For example, road density metrics are being developed for southern BC (DeWolff et al., unpublished, 2015) to help categorize the ecological response to various lengths of road per square kilometer. This work acknowledges the result of human impact generating a (often negative) response by environmental components. Importantly, resilience of a maladaptive system is not always desirable as it is resistant to transformation toward a more preferable state (Parrott & Lange, 2013). For example, the robustness of the road-user system to changes in stakeholder valuation and the importance of resource harvesting impacts may prevent lower level ecological components from self-organizing in response to chaotic socioeconomic trends governing resource use. This lack of self-organization may be the result of stressful inputs and fragmentary reactions associated 54 with high traffic volumes of unpredictable recurring resource harvesting activities. This will reduce the resiliency and thus adaptability of the road-user system. Therefore, understanding the type of road use and cumulative impact on all ecosystem components should be a management priority for southern BC (Ciuti et al., 2012; Krzyzanowski & Almuedo, 2010). Ideally, road management must determine at what human-use threshold ecological components can sustainably function or adapt depending on unique conditions and types of human use. In turn, human use within the road-user system can be adjusted to reflect preferred reductions over spatial and temporal scales in response to areas that are near to or have exceeded resiliency thresholds. 55 Chapter 4: Methods - Efficacy of Access Management Strategies The following sections describe the mixed methodological approach used to: (1) explore and characterize the structure of the communication network of road management in southern BC, and (2) examine the effectiveness of various AM strategies by considering field samples of applied implementations in southern BC. 4.1 Management Network Composition Understanding the structure of communication within a management network is a prerequisite to assessing the efficacy of AM strategies because the physical implementation of these strategies generates differing stakeholder reactions. Those reactions are in part governed by the extent to which users are aware of the road closure rationale and how well each is involved in the planning and administration of AMAs. This section is a qualitative, exploratory component of this research’s mixed method design. It describes methods for the assembly and characterization of information sharing trends amongst a preliminary network of stakeholders in southern BC's road-user system. 4.1.1 Stakeholder Questionnaire A multi-sector semi-structured questionnaire with close-ended questions is used to gather organizational information on the communication structure of the network. This enables network mapping from an initial selection of organizations and agencies working on or involved with road management and/or use in southern BC. Due to time and resource availability, it was impractical to manually examine all public documents to understand which stakeholders were engaged in road management. A purposive, non-probability sample was used, where a publically-charged individual in various sectors (i.e. industrial, commercial, private, and public) was identified by the researcher as a contact from which to begin mapping the network. These contacts were purposefully gleaned from publically-available information (e.g. academic journal authors, government research from the BC Forest Practices Board, conference proceedings from the Columbia Mountains Institute of Applied Ecology, and 56 resource management initiatives such as the Cascadia Partner Forum and Okanagan Nation Alliance) and those known to the researcher as being involved in some capacity with road management in southern BC. This was intended to streamline the process of assembling and populating an initial representation of the network structure. However, it is recognized these initial contacts are not statistically representative of each sector’s involvement in the network, but rather provide a basis upon which development of the network mapping may continue. The semi-structured questionnaire (detailed in Appendix B) was developed and delivered electronically in mid-2015 to the initial contacts. It was a form-fillable Portable Document Format file and asked no opinion or attitude-related questions (i.e. it queried only publically-available information). The focus of the questionnaire was to understand how organizations were connected, the general topic of discussion, and quantifiable dynamics of that communicative behavior (e.g. directionality of information flow and frequency of contact). The available communication topics included in the questionnaire (n = 9) were developed from academic literature and from the researcher's knowledge concerning important aspects governing the communication network of road management. The questions are sequential, first asking with what agencies or organizations the contact communicated on a regular basis, and later questions concerning frequency, directionality of information flow, and general topic of that communication. The questionnaire was delivered electronically to stakeholders summarized in Figure 4.1 via email, with subsequent follow-up phone conversations conducted if required and a telephone number available. Not all stakeholders responded to requests for involvement in this research. The response rate among government organizations was nearly ninety percent—the response rate was poorest amongst third-level local private organizations at approximately twenty percent. If unable to establish voice contact with an organization, a message was left and a subsequent email sent requesting their participation if available. Beyond this, no further attempt to understand how the organization was connected to others in the network was pursued. However, the contact was represented as a node in the network as inferred from the researcher’s knowledge of typical road-use regimes in southern BC. 57 Figure 4.1. Summary of resource road stakeholders in British Columbia. Temporal boundaries of the network were defined by sampling limitations imposed on the scope of the questionnaire, capturing interaction within the network over 2014 and 2015. Historical contacts, while important to document legacy effects of management regimes, were assumed largely uninfluential in the present governance of resource roads, aside from legacy effects contributing to governance regimes, resource valuation, and stakeholder use (not an exhaustive list), because they are not actively involved in road management planning. Without such limitations the temporal, spatial, and contact density would be exceedingly large considering the broad cumulative effects of roads over space and time. The questionnaire provided space for participants to record up to five links with who they felt comprised important contacts in their network. Additionally, space was provided for them to record additional links in excess of five if so required, to provide for a “snow-balling” effect on the sample. While seemingly a potential source for bias in mapping the network, where organizations may report only their top five connections with whom they interact, the limit was exceeded in only one case—subsequent discussion with the participant highlighted the available option of submitting more than five connections. The limited space made available for listing connections was a structural limitation of the questionnaire, and a compromise to maintain an intuitive format for the questionnaire. Presentation of the questionnaire was stopped if contacts indicated they had no influence over road management (i.e. directionality of information flow was “receive only”). For example, BCTS Business Area  Government agencies: BC Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations  Industrial resource management: BC Timber Sales and large forest companies  Commercial: BC Trapper's Association, Guide Outfitters Association, Fishing Resorts and Outfitters Association  Public and private organizations: BC Wildlife Federation, Quad Riders Association, locale conservation initiatives 58 offices and individual public organizations only received information regarding road management. 4.1.2 Network Assembly The open-sourced graphing software Gephi (Gephi, 2015) has been successfully used for mapping and exploring interactions within networks (e.g. see Barberán, Bates, Casamayor, & Fierer, 2012; Bruns, 2012). It is a comparatively new tool for analyses in the resource management discipline compared to, for example, UCINET (Prell et al., 2009) and MARXAN (Mills et al., 2014). However, it is one of the leading tools for network graphing and data visualization (Cherven, 2013). It was chosen as the platform to analyze the structure of the road management network in BC because its dynamic graphical user interface streamlines data assembly, and its efficient rendering of smaller networks expedites network visualization (Combe, Largeron, Egyed-Zsigmond, & Géry, 2010). Gephi does have limitations associated with rendering large networks with n = >200,000 nodes. Further, while not a functional limitation, its current inability to generate legends for network visualizations, which are imperative for accurate interpretation of networks, is unfortunate. Implementation of such a feature is currently underway. Nevertheless, Gephi is a suitable tool for this research because visualization of network connectivity is prioritized, the total number of nodes will be not exceed n = 100, and the lack of legends can be mitigated with text descriptions. Gephi version 0.8.210 was used to assemble, explore and visualize, and statistically analyze the network structure using information gathered in the questionnaire. Organizations identified by questionnaire respondents were recorded as discrete nodes, each with unique identification credentials and grouped according to social sector: government, commercial, public, and private. A geographic coordinate (latitude and longitude) was assigned to define their location in BC. A single node was used to represent individual road users and another to represent independently-owned forest/woodlot tenures (i.e. commercial logging companies). Both of these stakeholder groups comprise a significant portion of road use and 10 Proper program functioning required Gephi use Java Runtime Environment Build 7.79. 59 thus were predicted to be well connected to management nodes because of their need for commercial and recreational information to sustain their form of road use. Management nodes have access to such information. However, they were not surveyed because temporal and network density limitations precluded recording every small-scale network node. The single node was sufficient to illustrate the status of these stakeholders’ connectivity to the larger network. Ecological nodes were not considered in the network as all stakeholders were considered fundamentally linked to the environment through their use and/or management of roads in alignment with complex systems theory. Network connections required more detailed classification. Edges were specified as “directed incoming” when a node received information or “directed outgoing” when they provided or requested information to depict asymmetrical relationships, or “undirected” for symmetrical information flow between nodes. When coding directed edges, it was important to establish relationships in a manner that organizations receiving information were always the target node, and those providing information the source node. This preserved directionality within the network. Communication frequency was illustrated by weighting edges using the classification scheme shown, along with classification of communication topics, in Table 4.1. Results pertaining to the analysis of the road-user system management network appear in Section 5.1. 60 Table 4.1. Coding for network communication frequency and topic. Communication Classification Coding Frequency 1 = infrequent 2 = occasional 3 = routine Topic 1 = engineering 2 = resource management 3 = environmental management 4 = ecosystem administration 5 = access management 6 = public recreation 7 = commercial operations 8 = ranching 9 = land administration 4.2 Effectiveness of Access Management Strategies Fieldwork remains imperative to understanding context-specific applications of various AM strategies. The following section is a quantitative component of this research’s mixed method design, and describes the procedure for monitoring and quantifying the applied effectiveness of unique examples of four types of AM strategies in two distinct case study locations in southern BC. 4.2.1 Case Study Locations Two geographically independent sample locations were chosen to provide near-census coverage of the various types of closures available within the context of each location’s unique road usage regimes. These were utilized to explore the effectiveness of motorized access regulations. A case study approach in two different locations allowed the study to control for 61 geographically-specific contributors to the effectiveness of AM (e.g. user group composition and dynamics) with contrasting experimental design and comparative results (Yin, 2009). Case-study locations were constrained to the watershed scale to achieve the near-census; that is, the various closures studied were within the same or adjacent localized watersheds. The decision to use a near-census watershed scale strategy versus a statistically-representative sample was pursued based on the following acknowledgements. Similar methodological strategies have been successfully employed in past studies (see Hunt & Hosegood, 2008 versus Hunt & Hupf, 2014), limited monetary resources were available to acquire and install cameras at a representative sample of sites dispersed throughout vast areas of southern BC, and temporal limitations associated with installation and servicing of cameras and data analyses limited the number of study sites feasibly evaluated by a single researcher. This research was only concerned with public land AMAs that apply to all road users, so Parks Act closures were not considered. Of the remaining n = 42 southern BC AMAs described in Table 2.2, the Granby/Kettle AMAs in Region 4 and the Kootenay/Wigwam AMAs in Region 8 were chosen as case study locations. The two locations were selected based on their capacity to provide several instances of different AM strategies and contrasting closure rationales at the watershed scale. In this manner, bias in explanatory variables such as the unique social and environmental context affecting evaluation of a strategy’s effectiveness were controlled by having contrasting social and environmental parameters within the larger road-user system. There was an opportunity for comparison between the two distinct locations with different users and policies on education and communication of the closure’s rationale to users. Additionally, while both study locations contained only Wildlife Act closures, the Granby/Kettle location in fact buffers and thus protects a significant area of Provincial Park. In contrast, the Kootenay/Wigwam location protects public crown land area. The two contrasting study locations, detailed in Figure 4.2, provide a practical perspective on unique approaches to AM in BC. Most notable is the communication strategy to potential road users. Motor vehicle closures in the Kettle/Granby study location are published in the printed medium BC Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis using small maps and very brief descriptions. On the other hand, closures in the Kootenay/Wigwam study location, 62 while also detailed in the hunting regulations, are further explained in an online format with detailed text descriptions, high resolution maps, and a smart phone application to assist users’ education of AMA rationale and boundaries (see Ministry of Environment, 2012). 63 Figure 4.2. Geographic context of both case study access management areas in relation to provincial Wildlife Management Regions 4 and 8. The Granby/Kettle vehicle closed area is the red shaded area flanking Granby Park east of the city of Kelowna, and the Kootenay/Wigwam AMAs are southeast of the city of Cranbrook. 64 4.2.2 Access Management Implementations The two case study AMAs provided ten sample sites (n = 5 in the Granby/Kettle AMA, and n = 5 in the Kootenay/Wigwam AMA) at which evaluation of n = 4 types of AM strategies was conducted. These strategies were: permanent closures employing either gates with signs or only signage, temporary seasonal closures with gates and signs, and unmarked closure boundaries. All were designed to regulate motorized accessibility. The number and type of various closures evaluated in this study are detailed by AMA in Table 4.2. Table 4.2. Tally of various types of employed AM strategies evaluated by case study location. Closure Type Granby/Kettle Closures n Kootenay/Wigwam AMAs n Gate w/ sign *Gated, seasonally temporary Only sign No signage, unmarked 3 - 1 1 2 2 - 1 *Both instances gated closures; only one comprehensively signed. The Granby motor vehicle closure area was created to protect grizzly bears inhabiting the areas adjacent to the east and west boundaries of Granby Provincial Park. It was chosen because it represents a sample of similar types of Section 109 closures throughout the province but also protects provincial park land (BC Wildlife Act, 2014). It highlights how both the Wildlife Act and Parks Act function together to protect wilderness areas regardless of their land-use classification (i.e. crown land versus protected area). Stakeholders include industrial forestry contractors, government and commercial land and resource managers, private animal trappers, and extensive public recreation. Public use activities in this area primarily include camping, hiking, and recreational hunting. Figure 4.3 details the geographic context of each camera installation site within the Kettle/Granby study location. 65 Three southeast Kootenay AM Areas (AMA) were chosen to provide a means to evaluate the effectiveness of these closures closely managed under the Regional District of East Kootenay’s new Access Management Plan (Ministry of Environment, 2012). These AMAs protect valuable ecosystems (e.g. Mt. Broadwood Heritage Conservation Area), habitat (e.g. spread of invasive species via motorized vehicles), and wildlife (e.g. Wigwam River’s pristine bull trout spawning system), and were chosen because together they provided a full range of readily-accessible AM strategies in locations easily monitored for traffic. Stakeholders include industrial forestry and oil and gas contractors, government resource managers, private trap lines, and extensive and diverse public recreation (not an exhaustive list). Public use activities in this area include camping, hiking, sport fishing, recreational hunting, and mountain biking. Figure 4.4 details the geographic context of each camera installation site within the Kootenay/Wigwam study location. 66 Figure 4.3. Camera installations in the Kettle/Granby AMA case study location. 67 Figure 4.4. Camera installations in the Kootenay/Wigwam AMA case study location. 68 4.2.3 Camera Installation Bushnell Trophy Camera HD automated wildlife cameras, as shown in Figure 4.5, were utilized to monitor all road traffic encountering a road closure and thus determine effectiveness of that type of structure. Cameras were utilized in place of other forms of traffic measurement because, in addition to providing arrival and departure information of road users, they record non-motorized forms of recreation (e.g. cycling and walk-in hunting), behavioral reaction to closure (i.e. time spent consulting signage or post-encounter decisions), vehicle type (e.g. pickup truck or ORV), number of occupants in group, and recreation type (i.e. extractive versus interactive). Cameras (n = 11) were installed in late June 2015 and remained in place until late October 2015 to provide the longest possible coverage of road use during popular seasons of use. Visual estimation of user compliance was noted during camera installation and removal. Figure 4.5. Typical installation of a Bushnell Trophy Camera HD. Before installing the wildlife cameras in the field, testing was conducted to establish maximum camera trigger distances and height from ground, suitable programming parameters, and maximum battery life and corresponding number of photos recorded. It was found the 69 camera’s center-of-view must be positioned approximately 1.2 to 1.8 meters above the road surface to capture passing vehicles, ORVs, and pedestrians. A camera distance to target of approximately twenty-two meters ensured reliable shutter triggering—subsequent testing demonstrated that distance can be extended to a maximum of thirty-six meters trigger range during sunny daytime conditions. Final programming parameters are detailed in Appendix A. During roadside testing, one set of batteries (8x Duracell AA LR6 alkaline) recorded 10,454 pictures between May 27th 2015 and June 9th 2015. As such, it was decided cameras would require only one interim service visit during the four month study period because it was unlikely >10,000 photos would be triggered in a two month period. Recognizing the above constraints on camera position, installation of cameras in the field was conducted in a manner that maximized the distance from the road (to reduce likelihood of identification by road users) and still remain within a reliable trigger range of the target area. Distance from the road typically ranged between six and eighteen meters, with the cameras positioned to record vehicle direction as well as response to closure—thus each camera functioned as its own control for total road traffic density.11 Additionally, each camera accounted for users having parked before or in front of the closure and continuing past on foot. Using a combination of placement orientation and time stamps, a single camera was efficiently able to determine type and density of users approaching the closure, those that turned around, and those that continued past the road closure. Installation in the two case study field locations was targeted to coincide with the beginning of increased use of roads in BC due to improved weather conditions. Road usage typically increases markedly as the snowpack melts and temperatures warm thus improving road accessibility and favorable weather conditions. Usage continues into late summer with camping and similar recreational pursuits, and extends well into November with use by hunting and guiding users prior to the arrival of late-autumn snowfall. Where warranted, cameras were bolted in place high up in trees (e.g. 3-4 meters) to minimize visual identification and subsequent theft. Where concerns of theft were minimal, cameras were secured to trees at 11 The Wigwam FSR site was an exception, requiring a separate control camera because of road structuring. 70 ground level with buckled webbing straps. The number of cameras installed is detailed by study location in Table 4.3. Design and placement of an AM strategy and effectiveness at limiting passage of multiple types of motorized vehicles (e.g. passenger vehicle, ORV) was noted for each site during installation and removal of cameras. The Okanagan Nation Alliance provided cameras for the Kettle/Granby study location, and the University of British Columbia supplied cameras for the Kootenay/Wigwam study area. With regard to cameras being considered an invasion of privacy, the researcher establishes two declarations. (1) All cameras were installed in a public area (crown land) with no reasonable expectation of privacy by those organizations, agencies, and individuals engaged in any sort of activity in that space. (2) The photos used in this study were taken from an insufficient distance and resolution from which to identify any one person or license plate. Table 4.3. Summary count of installed wildlife cameras by geographic region. Total Cameras Kettle/Granby Closure Kootenay/Wigwam AMAs n = 5 — Arrow Neck, Arthurs, Johnston Creek, Grano, and Young n = 6 — Mt. Broadwood, Drinkwater, McGuire, Rabbit, and Wigwam* *Two were used at the Wigwam site, one of which used as a control for total traffic density Cameras in the Granby motor vehicle closed area were installed on June 18-19th 2015. A total of five different AM locations were targeted: one gate (Young Main FSR), sign (Arrow Neck FSR), and unmarked (Johnston Creek FSR) closure received camera treatment on the east side of Granby Provincial Park. Likewise, two gates (Grano FSR and Arthurs Road) received camera treatment on the west side of the park. The decision to not place a camera at the Goatskin-Rendell FSR gated closure was based on site similarity to that at Arthurs Road. It was an identical AM structure protecting similar area a comparable distance from the arterial road (Rendell FSR) along a spur road in similar physical condition. The five targeted locations thus 71 monitored three gates, one signed closure, and one unmarked closure in the Kettle/Granby study area. The default view of all Kettle/Granby cameras is shown in Figure 4.6. Figure 4.6. Default view of cameras in the Granby/Kettle study location on July 1st 2015. A) Young FSR, B) Arrow Neck FSR, C) Johnston Creek FSR, D) Grano FSR, E) Arthurs Road. Similarly, cameras were installed at five AM sites dispersed throughout three southeast Kootenay AMAs on June 23-25th 2015: Galton Range, Upper Wigwam, and Wigwam Flats. One signed location with a permanently open gate (Rabbit Creek FSR) and one unmarked (McGuire Road) location received camera treatment in the Galton AMA. One high-traffic gated location 72 (Wigwam FSR) in the Upper Wigwam AMA utilized two cameras to control for a second road leading to an open area further beyond the closure. Two gated and signed temporary closure sites in the Wigwam Flats AMA (Mt. Broadwood and Drinkwater FSR) received cameras. The temporary closures were classified as gated and signed after July 15th (Mt. Broadwood) and August 31st (Drinkwater FSR) as these roads’ status was closed to motorized vehicle traffic after these dates. The five targeted locations thus monitored one gate, one signed closure, one unmarked closure, and two temporary closures in the Kootenay/Wigwam study area. The default view of all Kootenay/Wigwam cameras is shown in Figure 4.7. 73 Figure 4.7. Default view of cameras in the Kootenay/Wigwam study location on July 1st 2015. A) Drinkwater FSR, B) Mt. Broadwood, C) Wigwam FSR, D) Rabbit Creek FSR, E) Wigwam FSR control. Cameras were revisited utilizing an ORV between September 1st and 5th to provide interim service. Battery life was checked and fresh batteries installed if required. Memory cards were removed and all recorded images transferred to a field laptop for later analysis. The Drinkwater camera was relocated to record all vehicles encountering the closure rather than only those traversing past the closure point, as the road beyond the camera was now seasonally closed. During the service visit, it was discovered the camera at the closure point in 74 the McGuire Creek drainage in the Galton Range AMA had been stolen. This camera was located six kilometers up a rough dead-end road with no obvious desirable destination attributes, and was well concealed being bolted to a tree approximately three meters high—its visual identification was merely by chance from a nearby dirt mound. Reinstallation of another camera at this site was deemed unwise due to possible future theft; as such, this field location was removed from the study as a similar nearby location did not exist. During interim field service, it was found some cameras recorded several thousand false-positive images. This was likely due to vegetation within the camera’s point-of-view moving and triggering the shutter, but a discernable pattern of causation was not obvious. As such, during the field visit to the Kettle/Granby study location, the Johnston Creek and Grano FSR cameras’ parameter “Sensor Level” was changed from Auto to Normal to help mitigate these false-positive images. All cameras were removed from the field on October 22nd-26th, 2015 just prior to the first snowfall.12 At this time, two more cameras were found to have been lost due to theft: Johnston Creek FSR in the Grano study area, and the Wigwam FSR control camera. Both were well concealed. Results of analyzing the effectiveness of various AM strategies appears in Section 5.2. 12 Local stakeholders cautioned the mountain pass accessing the Rabbit Creek drainage via Phillips Pass-Rabbit Creek FSR typically snows-in early November, prompting the removal of all cameras in the study to maintain data similarity with that of the Rabbit FSR sample site. 75 Chapter 5: Results - Efficacy of Access Management Strategies The following section describes results of (1) exploration and characterization of trends in the preliminary road management communication network for southern BC, and (2) examination of the effectiveness of AM strategies using field examples of implementations in the two case study locations. 5.1 Stakeholder Organizational Behavior Analyses 5.1.1 Geospatial Relationships Statistical analysis of the road-user system management network was preceded by geographic assembly of the entities and their relationships in the context of southern BC. A single node represented FLNRO and MoE headquarters in Victoria. Figure 5.1 shows the initial distribution of nodes and edges in the preliminary road-user system management network using a random distribution algorithm in Gephi. It represents the preliminary network using only data from the stakeholder questionnaire and links identified through this research project: n = 44 nodes and n = 53 edges. It does not include geospatial relationships. 76 Figure 5.1. Random distribution of nodes in the preliminary road-user system management network, grouped by community. The large green node represents private forest tenure holders and the large blue node individual public road users—all others represent individual organizations in the network. Gephi’s network modularity statistic reported n = 6 distinct communities when resolution was 1.0 and edges were not weighted according to communication frequency. Nodes were grouped by color according to these communities to show between-sector relationships, where green represented government road management nodes, purple Kootenay/Wigwam users and management, yellow government recreational lands management, red government EA initiatives, and teal the Kettle/Granby users and management. The random distribution of nodes depicts the network’s chaos without further clarity—accurate spatial representation was far more valuable. The spatial extent or boundary of the network represented the dispersion of nodes throughout southern BC using a constant scale of kilometers. Connectivity between nodes engaged in road management, as derived from geospatial inference, was here added to the network. For example, nodes which share geographic location and sector type could or should theoretically maintain active communication. Specifically, government nodes were 77 undirectionally linked to the closest regional office and communication weighted as frequent. This yielded a network with n = 44 nodes and n = 62 edges. Using the same color scheme as above, each node was plotted to describe perceived geographic relationships as seen in Figure 5.2. While this geographic layout depicts spatial proximity of nodes, there were many instances where nodes overlapped (i.e. located in the same city), thus masking network density. Further analyses unwrapped the network’s characteristics. Figure 5.2. Geospatial connectivity in the southern BC road management network derived using nodes that share the same attributes of geographic location and sector type. The two nodes seemingly outside and below the main geographic network represent private forest tenure holders (green) and individual public road users (blue). Individual road users and private land tenure holders are densely spread throughout southern BC, thus they are represented here using a single node. The map projection is World Mercator. 5.1.2 Network Analysis Statistics describe the network structure and include measures of connectivity, topic dissemination, betweenness centrality, and eccentricity. These statistics were generated using 78 the Yifan Hu algorithm in Gephi as seen in Figure 5.3. The average number of connections across the network was 2.9 degrees—directed edges were symbolized by arrows to indicate information flow from source to target nodes. The degree distribution of real-work networks are typically right-skewed—the road-user system management network is no different. Figure 5.4 shows most nodes have low degree with only a few “hub” nodes exhibiting high degree. Hub nodes in this network were filtered to those with n degree = > 5 and were entirely comprised of government sector nodes. A trend line following the power law of the degree distribution suggests a scale-free network. Using an average weighted degree, where each edge was weighted according to the frequency of communication along that degree, highlighted how some nodes had a higher degree of connectedness due to frequency of communication, in fact averaging 7.6 degrees across the network. Figure 5.3. Yifan Hu algorithm applied to the road-user system management network, with nodes grouped by color according to community. Edge color symbolizes source node community. 79 Figure 5.4. Degree distribution of network nodes. The dashed line depicts a trend following the power law distribution typical of scale-free networks. A density metric was used to calculate network connectivity and illustrate the proportion of completeness of the network. That is, network density measures how many links exist between nodes compared to the total number of possible links in the network. Directed edges can have two possible links between two nodes, while undirected edges can have only one link between the same two nodes. While the road-user system organizational network included both directed and undirected edges, the density metric below utilized a formula assuming all edges were directed as this is typical of such a stakeholder network. The density of the network was calculated as follows (after Gonzales & Parrott, 2012): 𝐷 = {𝑛𝑁 = (𝑥(𝑥 − 1)2 )} Where: D = the density of the network n = number of actual links in the real-world network N = total number of possible links in the network x = total number of nodes in the network 0246810121416180 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18Node CountNumber of DegressDegree Distribution80 Network density was D = .07, where x = 44 and n = 62. Actual edges represent only seven percent of all possible links across the network. This finding suggests a very poorly connected and fragile communication network, highly susceptible to perturbations of nodes and edges. The network is not at all robust because targeted removal of important links would functionally sever node communities. This finding is partially due to the preliminary nature of the assembled network where the dataset does not map all stakeholders in the network. However, when the network density calculation was conducted using only nodes in the government sector, where network mapping was more advanced, network robustness only marginally increased: D = .09, where x = 33 and n = 48. Analysis and symbolization of the topic of communication between nodes was notably difficult in this network as Gephi was not intended to analyze multiple edges from a single node. As such, analysis of questionnaires coded responses into categories that represent the content, and qualitatively suggests general and underlying themes of response regarding communication within the road management network. Analyses of coding suggest the topic of communication was partitioned by network community. Specifically, discussion of AM fit into local-scale road management dialogue only when it was unique to that community. For example, when public conservation groups organized for a common management goal with which road use interfered, AM was acknowledged as a component of the management system. A measure for betweenness centrality illustrated how often nodes were situated on the shortest non-weighted path between two other nodes, and thus can be interpreted as a measure of node influence (see Combe et al., 2010 for detailed discussion). Betweenness centrality was calculated using Gephi’s network diameter statistic, with normalized undirected centralities ranging from 0 to 1. Betweenness is ranked in Figure 5.5 using the Yifan Hu algorithm. When filtering to nodes with betweenness = > 0.2, seven “hub” nodes were found to have high centrality within the network, connecting the six distinct communities. These were all comprised of government services (e.g. habitat management and conservation planning). 81 Figure 5.5. Rank symbolism for betweenness centrality of nodes in the road-user system management network using the Yifan Hu algorithm. Nodes are ranked according to color intensity, where a bolder blue color represents nodes with a higher betweenness statistic, and thus are better connected. The Kootenay/Wigwam study location community is circled in the top right and the Kettle/Granby study location community in the center. Similarly, the network can be ranked using measures of eccentricity to show maximum link distance between nodes. The maximum number of links between nodes was n = 8. Eccentricity measures represented isolated nodes in the network. Figure 5.6 shows both local network communities responsible for their respective AMAs had among the highest measures of eccentricity. 82 Figure 5.6. Eccentricity symbolism for ranking outlying nodes in the network. Those shown progressively-bolded red have the most number of links connecting them to other nodes, and are thus the most isolated entities. Circled are the local communities closest to the two case-study locations. 5.1.3 Hypothesis Testing for Network Connectivity Network analyses indicate there are no obvious direct and reoccurring connections between individual road users and the larger management network. Individual users maintain connectivity with management officials on a continuum from infrequent to frequent. But if betweenness = < 0.2, user-to-management official communication will not be sufficient to adequately incorporate local stakeholders. This is due primarily to the onus being placed on individuals to seek connectivity rather than public officials striving to better that communication. Individuals may not prioritize such connectivity due to varied circumstances, for example doubting their concerns provide valuable input to the AM planning processes or not being provided local opportunity for consultation. Only one questionnaire respondent indicated their organization directly communicated with individual public road users. It is very troubling that even seemingly well-connected 83 government sector nodes do not maintain at least infrequent dialogue with individual road users in their area, except when physically enforcing AM regulations. Subsequently, hypothesis H2A that stakeholder involvement in AM administration differs based on their connectivity to management nodes in the network is accepted. In the case of AM planning, it is clear network connectivity and involvement are positively correlated; that is, where there is no connectivity there exists no mechanism for a user to potentially engage in AM dialogue, hindering their involvement. In the absence of communication connectivity, there is reduced opportunity for stakeholder education of closure rationale and objectives. As such, hypothesis H2B that road users’ response to an AM strategy will in part be proportional to how well informed the user is of the road closure's rationale and its defined objectives is accepted as a natural extension of hypothesis H2A. Accepting H2B acknowledges several users approached and consulted AM signage in the field as recorded by wildlife cameras. As clearly some users engage with educational information, it can be stated that prior education would accomplish a similar result. A more informed individual has the capacity to evaluate their personal impact on ecological components of the system prior to being in the field, where a similar decision may be conducted impulsively and without due consideration of the magnitude of subsequent social and ecological consequences. 5.1.4 Discussion Polling select organizations of a network with questionnaires proved a satisfactory method for preliminary mapping of organizational behavior and communication flow between entities. However, there are important limitations to understand preceding discussion of results. The questionnaire utilized the term “social” to denote the information sharing structure of the network to potential participants. The term appeared to reinforce an incorrect perspective due to participants’ concerns about sharing their private information, even with organizations inherently public-based. In several instances, initial impressions of the questionnaire were dominated by interpretations of what a social network colloquially represents (e.g. Facebook and Twitter). Therefore, it is recommended to avoid “social 84 network” terminology, instead using “communication structure” or “information sharing network”—this would undoubtedly improve questionnaire response rates. Further, as discussed by Mills et al. (2014), a specific social and governmental context may influence an organization’s values and thus inhibit the desire to participate in particular resource-planning initiatives. This phenomenon was experienced during administration of the questionnaire, with difficulty encountered garnering support among stakeholders in the road-user system to complete the questionnaire. Unquestionably, the easiest stakeholders to gather communication information were government sector organizations, and the most difficult were local-scale public organizations. This research’s network analysis is limited to identifying only the perspectives of stakeholders’ who participated in the road management network questionnaire—without a doubt there are numerous other perspectives not acknowledged by this research, or not yet understood in the context of southern BC’s road management. Issues arose surrounding confidentiality of information even though participants were assured the information they provided would not be distributed to anyone with whom they did not already identify as having communicated. While providing a graphical display of how the contact fits into the network would likely dissuade their concerns, for obvious reasons that representation cannot be generated without preliminary research to define initial network parameters. Additionally, this graphic display would support the participant’s concerns about sharing private information on connectivity. Therefore, graphical presentation of the network was not supplied to organizations included in this research. There was also limitations associated with the structural design of the questionnaire. Most notable was utilizing a structured, close-ended questionnaire to understand the complexity of road management which may have been more accurately understood using a personalized interview approach. Face-to-face interviews would be better suited to understanding the unpredictability of human road-use behaviors, and would partially mediate the difficulties inherent with accurately representing human behavior in the predictive model of the road-user system. Acknowledging the limitations of the questionnaire’s design as described above, mapping the preliminary network was still successful in showing how the efficacy of AM is 85 affected due to the fragility and eccentricity of the network. A word of caution as suggested by Liu et al. (2007): exploring the coupled human-environment road-user system in a moderate-scale example such as southern BC is useful to make inferences about regional variations in system dynamics. However, due to the unique complexity of the system, it is unwise to extrapolate findings to broader systems with properties (e.g. road structure and use, socioeconomic drivers, governance structures, and ecological baselines) different from that of southern BC's. Additionally, difficulties associated with stakeholder participation in the questionnaire and simplifications required for modeling such as dense, interconnected network prevent its absolute application to management of the road-user system. However, generalities about communication flow and involvement of stakeholders can be established and built upon from this research. This research suggests communication links in the management network are disjointed—understanding the communication of AM between management nodes and individual road users is vital to successfully educating all road users. Understanding geographic connectivity in the network highlights avenues along which road management information can be most efficiently transmitted to individual road users. Directionality of information flow in the network was most often upward from local-level organizations to large scale government management entities. Government nodes typically maintain non-directional communication throughout the network. Geographic layout of the network adequately illustrated how road management nodes (i.e. FLNRO field offices) are equally dispersed throughout southern BC. All network communities link back to government headquarters in Victoria. As such, individual users of the road-user system have local access to the management network if they pursue communication with government nodes through local field offices. Analysis of the average weighted degree of nodes indicated communication frequency plays a vital role in percolation of information throughout the network, both from an efficiency of information flow and temporal delay perspective. The density metric showed a highly fragile network where removal of nodes would have far-reaching negative repercussions, ultimately resulting in users being unaware on uninvolved with AM administrative processes. It was expected government nodes would be better connected in the management network so as to 86 effectively include all key stakeholders in the AM planning and monitoring processes, but this was not evident. The only common link in the network between MoE and FLNRO was their resource and environmental management mandates. A measure of centrality depicted government nodes as being the most influential actors in the network. But findings suggest the topic of communication between nodes at higher levels in the network rarely referenced AM planning or strategies, but instead focus on habitat and ecosystem management. An eccentricity metric illustrated how the network’s local management communities are not equally well-integrated into the government-sector dominated nodes central to the management network. That is, the Kootenay/Wigwam local community is far better connected than the Kettle/Granby area community. This leads to information collection biases in that community. Eccentricity and betweenness-centrality analyses presented one hub node in southeast BC highly connected to various stakeholders across multiple sectors. The node's official position is that of a facilitator of education and outreach concerning local AMAs—their cross-scale connectivity was expected because of their position as an intermediary between local and provincial nodes. No such similar hub node existed for the Kettle/Granby study area. It is important to identify, understand, and present the importance of such facilitating nodes to higher levels of government that often oversee their administration. Unfortunately, when these nodes are removed due to a misunderstanding of their importance, there is often a cascading effect of negative implications throughout the network well beyond the individual’s immediate contacts. The position of the Kootenay/Wigwam study area hub node was terminated at the end of 2015. The future efficacy of local AM strategies will be reduced accordingly due to new road users’ unawareness of motorized closures in the absence of comprehensive and dedicated education. One important caveat emerged from analyzing the management network. A total of twelve BCTS districts are involved in management/use of roads throughout southern BC (BC Timber Sales, 2005). BCTS field offices are well dispersed throughout the province. Therefore, this research presents BCTS woodlands managers as being uniquely positioned in the network to inform on local road use regimes and particularly AM issues. These entities are charged with 87 managing timber harvesting in their business area, access to which roads are essential. The BCTS is part of FLNRO, and thus able to provide input information to MoE about road density and traffic volume assuming government ministries were to actively coordinate. BCTS nodes could fill the communication gap between government management and local road users. 5.2 Effectiveness of Access Management Strategies The duration of field study spanned 131 days from June 18th to October 26th and was divided into two sections, the partition of which coincides with the interim camera service period in late August. Study period 1 spanned June 18th to August 31st inclusive, and study period 2 spanned September 1st to October 26th inclusive.13 The results of this section are exploratory analyses of road use at each individual AM sample site. The effectiveness of each AM strategy, defined as the infrastructure's ability to reduce road traffic volume past the point of closure, is calculated from these trends. This puts emphasis on descriptive summary and graphical display of the variables to understand trends of road use and wilderness area recreation, and descriptive statistics of behavioral outcomes (i.e. x appears to occur in y circumstances). These descriptive statistics are not sufficient to define why users reacted in a particular manner to each AM strategy. Rather, they suggest trends site trends which future research can be designed to better understand, and better infer population statistics for AM strategies. Data analyses began with all photos from both study periods coded into three categories: actual user traffic including vehicles and pedestrians (in-camera), wildlife and livestock, and false-positives. The Johnston Creek FSR sample site in the Kettle/Granby study location and the McGuire Road sample site in the Kootenay/Wigwam study location were removed from quantitative analyses as data were incomplete due to camera theft. As such, total study sample sites were reduced to n = 8—four in each case study location.14 There was an overwhelming amount of false-positive images recorded in both study locations. Of n = 13 The division between study periods also coincides with the beginning of hunting season (September 1st), and thus increased resource road use in most parts of southern BC. 14 Wigwam employed two cameras, but together are considered one sample site. 88 44,478 total photos, only 20% (n = 9023) represented actual road users interacting with an AM structure. The remainder were comprised of false-positives, wildlife and livestock, and installation photos, in descending numerical count. Figure 5.7 details a numerical summary for this initial coding procedure, and highlights the proportion of false-positive compared to in-camera photos at each sample site. Figure 5.7. Numerical results for initial coding of all recorded images as categories in-camera, wildlife, and false-positive. Cameras at Johnston Creek FSR and McGuire Road were removed from all analyses due to incomplete data. In-camera count for Mt. Broadwood is distinctive from others because it viewed activity in a parking lot area, thus recording actions’ of users over extended time periods. For reasons of clarity, false-positive counts >6000 are not displayed (e.g. Grano, Rabbit, and Young). SAS statistical software JMP 11 was used to assess the distribution and normality of recorded in-camera, wildlife, and false-positive images. As expected, in-camera photos at the Mt. Broadwood sample site emerged as the only statistical outlier—these photos were 0100020003000400050006000Photo CountField LocationNumerical Statistics for In-camera, Wildlife, and False Positive CodingIn-camera Wildlife False-positive89 removed from the summary statistics detailed in Table 5.1. A Shapiro-Wilk Test was conducted to approximate the normality of the data, where the null hypothesis is that the data is from the normal distribution. The test failed to reject H0 for all three categories at the significance level α = .05 with outliers removed—the p-value is considered evidence the data is in fact normally distributed. Analyzing the distribution of the three initial coding categories suggested in-camera photos can be estimated to comprise 9% of total records with a 95% confidence interval of 8.5% to 9.1% when monitoring an AM sample site similar to those assessed herein. Table 5.1. Summary statistics for coding in-camera, wildlife, and false-positive images, where α = .05. Category Mean n Min / Max n Std Dev n Confidence Interval 1 - α Shapiro-Wilk W Test In-camera (n=7) Wildlife (n=8) False-positives (n=8) 487 151 4251 138 / 1238 34 / 275 730 / 8599 423 78 2863 96, 879 85, 216 1858, 6645 p = 0.0580 p = 0.9358 p = 0.6641 The Johnston Creek sample site was unique in the sense that it recorded a mass of photos within the first two weeks of study period 1 exceeding the storage capacity of the camera’s memory card—almost all were false-positives (i.e. recording sequences of 5-10 images with no vegetation movement or change in lighting within a span of 15-20 seconds of each other). Causation for the significant number of false-positives is undetermined, but was likely due to vegetation movement from wind and incoming solar radiation being erroneously interpreted as infrared movement. Interesting, false-positives often continued after sundown and in times of no wind. It seems the “auto” shutter level in the camera parameters is susceptible to solar radiation on young vegetation as sites with this type of foliage in the camera’s trigger range returned the most amount of false-positives. Therefore, it is recommended this setting not be used, but rather manually defined to “normal” (see Appendix A)—this appeared to help minimize false-positives during study period 2. As this study was concerned with user’s behavioral reaction to an AM strategy, sequential in-camera photos documenting activity in front of the camera were clarified as only 90 two records: an arrival and departure photo. Between all sample sites, these daily “encounter pairs” defined n = 2,144 discrete interactions with an AM strategy. This represented the total number of industrial and public users who approached and responded to the AM strategy as derived from the arrival and departure records. Each encounter pair was then coded for the type of road system use, where “resource extractive” defined all industrial operations and “public interaction” all public users. Encounters were classified as resource extractive when one or more of the following conditions were met: users wore high-visible safety apparel and/or had keys to open gates; vehicles arrived and departed on sequential days at similar daily times; vehicles had visible identification decals, radio communication antennas, and portable fuel storage tanks; or heavy equipment related to natural resource extraction (e.g. logging trucks and bulldozers). Based solely on wildlife camera data, resource extractive users comprised 39% of all encounters. Due to difficulties identifying commercial (e.g. hunting and trapping, guide outfitting) road users, they were categorized as public users. Public users represented 61% of total vehicle encounters. Instances of multiple daily encounters by the same user did occur, most notably with industrial users. These were coded as an encounter each time the user approached the closure. There are errors associated with the coding of industrial versus public encounters, most notably with resource management operations (e.g. a joint FLNRO/ONA grizzly assessment was conducted in the Kettle/Granby study area during the summer months) conducted by contractors in unmarked vehicles. These vehicles were difficult to differentiate from public vehicles as they were typically unmarked. Table 5.2 details encounter statistics for each sample site. 91 Table 5.2. Study duration encounter statistics for all sample sites by AM case study location. Sample Site Total User Encounters n Resource Extractive n Public Interactive n Kettle/ Granby AMA Arrow Neck Arthurs Grano Young 70 444 58 85 46 402 18 55 24 42 40 30 Kootenay/ Wigwam AMA Drinkwater Mt Broadwood Rabbit Wigwam 90 880 178 404 2 340 1 6 88 540 177 398 Industrial road users were not of interest in this study because they were permitted access into all vehicle closed areas for resource harvesting and management purposes. Therefore, subsequent coding only classified recreation and vehicle type for public encounters. n = 5 recreation categories were as follows: cycling, walking/hiking, hunting, horse riding, and motor touring. This process was conducted for each day of the entire study period to understand daily trends in recreational density and type of use. Additionally, summation of different vehicle types for all encounters was recorded, classifying users that arrived via foot/bicycle, car, SUV, ORV, heavy equipment, pickup, and unknown (n = 7).15 During this process, initial difficulties were associated with understanding the user dynamics of each study site (particularly locations where users dismounted and continued past the closure by other non-motorized means). However, patterns spanning days and geographically-adjacent sites typically emerged to streamline the classification process. For example, daily arrival times, 15 In addition to bull dozers et cetera, category “heavy equipment” also includes motor vehicles with a tonnage capacity >1 (e.g. logging trucks). The category “unknown” denotes users who interacted with a closure (i.e. went past it) but their arrival method was unknown as the camera did not record it (e.g. vehicles parked off camera). 92 typical recreational usage regimes, recurrent vehicles, and appearance of users at geographically related sites were used to help understand site and area-specific user regimes. Coding public encounters for arrival vehicle type generated the category “motorized vehicle encounter, public”, and coding the type of recreational interaction with the AM strategy generated the sub-category recreation type “motorized touring, public”. These two categories were utilized to (1) understand the total number of public vehicles that approached and thus reacted to an AM strategy, and (2) sum the number of vehicles that continued past the closure via motorized means. This facilitated evaluating the effectiveness of each site’s AM strategy at regulating motorized vehicle traffic past the closure point. Coding for recreation type also aided evaluation of type and density of recreational use at each sample site. Determining effectiveness of each strategy is calculated in Section 5.2.3 using the proportion of vehicles that respected the closure compared to total encounters. Figure 5.8 is an example of paired public encounter photos used in evaluating AM effectiveness at each site. When determining whether the user transited past the closure, subjective evaluation of the required time spent past the AM implementation was unavoidable—however, this parameter is fully adjustable. This study settled that if road users remained past the point of closure for greater than five minutes they were coded as having ignored the closure, or that the closure was ineffective in regulating their road use. This was judged as sufficient time for users to find a suitable location past the closure in which to turn around a motor vehicle and leave the closed area immediately. 93 Figure 5.8. Example of paired encounter photos used to evaluate AM effectiveness. The user approached the closure at 17:47 hrs and departed at 19:03 hrs, sufficient time spent past the closure for the user to be classified having disregarded the closure. The following section details sample sites’ specific user regimes, the results of coding recreation and vehicle type for each sample site in both case study locations, and the proportional effectiveness of the employed AM strategy. It is important to understand that evaluation rendered figures of proportional effectiveness that are not suitable for statistical inference outside the assessed sample population of AM. The following notation is used when referring to the number and type of resource road users: ne for resource extractive users, and ni for public interactive users. For reference, detailed maps of each study location can be found on page 66 and 67. 5.2.1 Kettle/Granby Study Area Sample Sites Arrow Neck FSR Situated within the Granby AMA on the east side of Granby Provincial Park, this permanent signed closure offers loop road connectivity with Young Main FSR (access to which the Young sample site controls)—both provide access to the high country alpine areas east of the park. Its primary attractant is motorized vehicle recreation up to the boundaries of the AMA. No other forms of recreation were recorded, despite recreation attractants such as freshwater lakes situated several kilometers within the AMA boundary. Hunting and hiking 94 activities are common in the AMA. There is no physical infrastructure preventing vehicle traffic. During camera installation all signs were intact, and road surface indications suggested vehicles had transited past the closure recently—there was no sign of vehicles having turned around in the space provided roadside immediately before the signage as seen in Figure 5.9. Figure 5.9. Arrow Neck FSR sample site showing the small road closure signage with road-side vehicle turn-around space, and the resource road approaching the closure at time of installation. Industrial road traffic at this site consists of timber resource management and was almost double that of public traffic (ne = 46 versus ni = 24). Discrete public motorized vehicle encounters consisted of ni = 10 during period 1 and ni = 14 during period 2 at this site. Upon removal of the camera, all signage was intact and road use and signs of vehicles transiting past the closure was similar to the time of installation. At the end of study period 2, there was still no sign of vehicles having turned around in front of the sign. A total of ni = 17 users navigated past the closure during the study period. Arthurs Road Located within the Kettle AMA, this permanent gated and sign closure offers road connectivity to the high country to the west of Granby Provincial Park. As such, it is an attractive area for hiking and hunting recreation—no other forms of recreation were recorded. The site utilizes a lockable gate with signage as the AM strategy to limit all types of motorized 95 vehicles. During camera installation, the gate was locked with all signs intact, and there was no evidence of motorized users navigating past the closure. In fact, the steep topography and large trees surrounding the closure, as shown in Figure 5.10, prevent all but small ORVs from circumventing the closure. Figure 5.10. Arthurs Road sample site showing road closure gate and signage at time of installation. The road at this site was subject to heavy pressure from natural resource extraction for timber resources during the entire study period. As such, motorized traffic at this site was dominated with industrial vehicles by one order of magnitude (ne = 402 versus ni = 42). Regardless, there were ni = 16 period 1 and ni = 26 period 2 discrete public motorized vehicle encounters at this site. The gate was open during resource extraction operations, but primarily closed otherwise. Unfortunately, upon removal of the camera it was discovered the gate was left open by previous industry personnel. However, road use and signs of vehicles circumventing the closure appeared similar to installation, and there was evidence of vehicles having turned around in front of the gate even though it was open. A total of ni = 20 users navigated past the closure during the study period. Grano FSR Positioned due north of the Arthurs Road sample site, this permanent gated and signed closure also regulates all vehicular access to the high country surrounding the western border of Granby Provincial Park. The area beyond the closure provides hiking and hunting 96 opportunities, but the primary recreation attractant is motorized vehicle use, the only form of recreation recorded at this site, on the roads and trails up to the boundaries of the Kettle AMA. During installation of the camera, the gate was open but otherwise intact. Figure 5.11 illustrates the AM strategy at this location: an open gate in front of the stream crossing and sign immediately before the gate. Road use was low due to site remoteness, and there was minor evidence of motorized users having navigating past the closure as the gate was not closed or locked. There were no signs of vehicles having turned around in front of the closure. Like the Arthurs Road site, the topography surrounding this closure prevented all motorized access when the gate is closed and locked as it is positioned directly before a stream crossing. However, to the left of the bridge there was a rough ORV trail cut through vegetation and across the creek permitting access to the closed area. This trail appeared unused during 2015, and was likely users’ response to the gate being closed in 2014. Figure 5.11. Grano FSR sample site showing road closure signage and gate at time of installation. Road traffic at this site was primarily public (ni = 40 versus ne = 18), consisting of ni = 16 period 1 and ni = 24 period 2 public motorized vehicle encounters. The gate was only sporadically closed throughout the study period, primarily remaining open. During removal of the camera, the gate was still open and road use and signs of vehicles circumventing the closure appeared similar to installation. No ORVs had utilized the rough trail cut across the creek to the 97 west. Positively, there was evidence of vehicles having turned around in front of the gate. A total of ni = 15 users navigated past the closure during the study period. Johnston Creek FSR This site was on a rough road running parallel east to the Arrow Neck site, and provides access to remote areas of the northern portions of the Granby AMA used by a local trapper. The location of the sample site was suggested by a local wilderness conservation public stakeholder, and is positioned immediately before the geographic boundary of the AMA further up-road.16 It monitored a permanent closure with no AM infrastructure to regulate traffic, but rather relied on users’ knowledge of area closures to regulate access. The camera was stolen during study period 2, and thus data were incomplete. As such, this site was removed from analyses of AM effectiveness, unfortunately rendering assessment of this type of AM strategy in the Kettle/Granby study location null as no other sample sites of this type were monitored. During study period 1 this site received ni = 9 public encounters, of which all travelled past the closure point via motorized means. During the site visit to remove the camera at the end of study period 2, road use had markedly increased from installation and service times, suggesting an increase in traffic during the local hunting season. Young Main FSR Situated southwest of the Arrow Neck sample site, this permanent gated and signed closure regulates all forms of motorized access to Young Lake and the high country east of Granby Provincial Park. It also offers road connectivity with Arrow Neck and Johnston Creek sample sites. The primary recreation attractant is motorized vehicle use on roads up to the boundaries of the AMA, although freshwater lakes exist several kilometers within the AMA boundary. Only one user group travelled past the closure on foot. At the time of camera installation, all signs were intact and the gate was closed but damaged, and thus not lockable.17 16 The AMA boundary is unmarked, and the camera was placed as close as possible to the boundary while still maintaining adequate concealment. 17 A contractor repaired the gate during study period 1, thus allowing it to be locked. 98 Site indications suggested motorized vehicles had traversed to the right and around the gate via a narrow ledge between the gate and the creek. Road use was low similar to Grano FSR, likely due to the remoteness of the site, and there was little sign of vehicles turning around immediately before the gate. Figure 5.12 illustrates the closed gate in front of a bridge crossing. Figure 5.12. Young Main FSR sample site illustrating the road closure gate and sign, and the resource road approaching the closure at time of installation. Industrial road traffic at this site consisted of timber resource management and comprised a significant portion of the total motorized traffic volume (ne = 55 versus ni = 30). The gate was typically returned to its closed state by authorized users when they departed the area at day’s end. Distinct public motorized vehicle encounters consisted of ni = 18 during period 1 and ni = 12 during period 2 at this site. Upon removal of the camera, all AM infrastructure was intact but the gate had been left open (later found to be the result of industry personnel working within the AMA). Road use was similar to the time of installation, and there was no sign of vehicles transiting around the closure. A total of ni = 14 users navigated past the closure during the study period. 99 5.2.2 Kootenay/Wigwam Study Area Sample Sites Drinkwater FSR This readily accessible site is situated adjacent to a high-traffic resource road within the Wigwam Flats AMA. A seasonal-temporary closure that is signed and gated, it regulates all motor vehicle traffic and is open only between June 15th and August 31st. It offers easy access to the northeast areas of the Mt. Broadwood Heritage Conservation Area. There is very rough loop road connectivity with Lodgepole FSR to the southeast. The primary recreation attractant here is hunting during the closed period and motor touring during the open period. During camera installation, the sign and gate were functional as shown in Figure 5.13; however, there was evidence on surrounding trees where previously posted signs had been destroyed. Figure 5.13. Drinkwater FSR sample site showing the comprehensive area closure signage and the gate at time of installation. Shown right is the Drinkwater FSR’s intersection with the main Lodgepole River FSR used heavily for timber transport to area mills. The lower Elk Valley is in the distance. Encounters at this site consisted almost entirely of public (ni = 88 versus ne = 2), of which ni = 45 were observed during period 1 and ni = 43 during period 2. The gate remained open during the entire study period. Upon removal of the camera, signage and the gate was intact and road use appeared similar to the time of installation. There was significant sign of vehicles having turned around before the closure. As this site was only closed to motorized traffic 100 during study period 2, ni = 2 of a total ni = 43 users were observed having navigated past the closure during this time. McGuire Creek Road This site is located approximately six kilometers up a very rough road accessing a small drainage on the western slopes of the Galton AMA. The camera was positioned at the end of the road where it crossed a small creek—there were no obvious destination features further up-road aside from hunting opportunities. As detailed in Ministry of Environment (2012), this site apparently employed a gate and signage at road’s end—no such infrastructure was located in the immediate area. As such, this site was used to monitor an AM strategy that used no gates or signs, relying on users’ knowledge of the area’s closures to regulate access. The camera was stolen during study period 1, and thus no data was recorded for this sample site—it was removed from analyses of AM effectiveness. Unfortunately, as this was also the only site in the Kootenay/Wigwam study area monitoring this type of AM strategy, its loss resulted in the complete removal of this type of AM strategy from this study’s evaluation. Mt. Broadwood Situated due south of the Drinkwater FSR sample site, this temporarily-closed gate regulates all types of motorized access except ORVs to points downstream along the Wigwam River and the Mt. Broadwood Heritage Conservation Area. During the open period of June 15th and July 15th, the primary recreation type on the open road is motorized vehicle use to access camping and fishing areas. During the closed period, the area provides a diverse range of recreational opportunities: hiking, fishing and hunting, horseback riding, and mountain biking—all free of motorized road traffic. All forms of motorized and non-motorized recreation were recorded at this site. During installation of the camera the gate was open and functional, and the sign was intact and viewable, albeit vandalized. Road use at this site was the highest amongst all sample sites, likely due to the ample recreation opportunities. Figure 5.14 illustrates the AM strategy at this location: an open gate and comprehensive signage approximately one hundred meters before the gate. Unlike other sites, the topography 101 surrounding this closure allows motorized users to circumvent the closure via a gas pipeline right-of-way (ROW) adjacent to the road, an ongoing issue for road management. Figure 5.14. Mt. Broadwood sample site showing the lockable gate and preceding signage at time of installation. The road at this site is subject to heavy industrial use by contactors working on the pipeline ROW in the area during a significant portion of the study period. However, due to the popularity of recreation beyond this site, public encounters still surpassed those of industrial users (ni = 540 versus ne = 340). Discrete public motorized vehicle encounters consisted of ni = 450 during period 1 and ni = 90 during period 2 at this site. During the closed period, the gate was opened daily by industrial users, and reliably closed at day’s end. Upon removal of the camera, the gate was closed and there was very recent evidence of ORVs bypassing the closure via the pipeline ROW. A total of ni = 294 encounters were recorded at this site during the closed period, of which ni = 23 navigated past the closure. Rabbit FSR This remote sample site is located in the extreme south of Galton AMA, just north of the international boundary. It is a permanent closure employing a gate and signage, and when closed regulates all types of motor vehicle traffic. While the road itself dead-ends only a few kilometers past the closure, there is a rough trail extending further and connecting into the upper reaches of the Wigwam River, thus providing loop access into the Upper Wigwam AMA 102 and on to the Wigwam FSR sample site. As such, recreation attractants here are primarily mountain biking, but hunting is also popular. Motorized vehicle use on the open Phillips Pass-Rabbit Creek FSR was common, and unfortunately several main spur roads also received motorized use despite being closed and signed. At the time of camera installation, all signs were intact but there was evidence of multiple instances where previous signs had been destroyed. While the gate was intact, it was not lockable due to recurring vandalism with users cutting the lock—the gate had been open since the end of 2014 (Burley, 2014). Road use was low likely due to the remoteness of the site, but vehicles had recently turned around before the gate. Figure 5.15 illustrates the semi-hidden open gate with accompanying small and partially obscured signage to the upper left. Figure 5.15. Rabbit FSR sample site showing gate closure and inconspicuous signage at time of installation. Road traffic at this site was dominated by public users (ni = 177) with only one instance of a government resource management vehicle. Public encounters were as follows: ni = 142 during study period 1 and ni = 35 during study period 2. The gate was open during the entire study period. During removal of the camera, road use appeared similar installation. A total of ni = 44 users navigated past the closure during the study period. 103 Wigwam Bridge This sample site is situated at the northern extent of the remote Upper Wigwam AMA, where the Wigwam Main FSR diverts from the east side of the valley, crosses the river and continues south along the west side of the valley. A very rough road also continues south along the east side of the Wigwam River, eventually joining the Wigwam Main FSR via another bridge crossing in the south. Thus, there is loop road connectivity throughout the Upper Wigwam AMA and also into Galton AMA via Rabbit FSR. The road on the east side of the valley is open year-round, and the road on the west side is permanently closed and protected with gates and signage at both access points. The permanently closed area contingent upon the effectiveness of these two AM points is popular for fishing and hunting, hiking and mountain biking, and guide outfitting. The gate was not located immediately before the bridge crossing, so there was easy opportunity for ORVs to gain access around the gate via a gravel embankment to the left—a constant problem at this site (Burley, 2014). The sample site was unique in the sense it required two cameras to monitor encounters and behavioral reactions to the AM strategy. A control camera was placed approximately 150 meters before the gate to monitor total road traffic and users’ time spent up-road of the camera. A second camera was positioned at the bridge crossing and recorded user traffic on the closed road immediately beyond the gate. Together, these cameras allowed quantification of total site encounters, users who turned around at the closure, users who continued south on the open road, and users who navigated past the AM implementation. During camera installation, the signage was intact and the gate locked. As shown in Figure 5.16, there was significant evidence of previous signage which had been destroyed, and recent evidence suggested users had circumvented the gate via the problematic gravel embankment to the left. 104 Figure 5.16. Wigwam Main FSR sample site, showing the gate with signage and gravel embankment to the left. A road continues south along the east side of the valley as seen to the left of the gate. The second photo depicts the bridge crossing 100 meters past the gate. Encounter data for study period 2 was omitted for this sample site due to theft of the control camera after September 1st, thus hindering quantification of total encounters. However, statistics were still available for study period 1. The camera at the bridge remained in place until the end of the study period, and frequency of use steadily declined throughout study period 2 similar to all other sample sites. User encounters at this site consisted almost entirely of public. During study period 1, the control camera recorded ni = 398 users versus ne = 6, and the bridge camera recorded ni = 196 users. The gate remained locked during the entire study period except for times when authorized users accessed the area. Upon removal of the camera, all signage was intact and the gate closed and locked. There was no sign of vehicles circumventing the closure via the gravel embankment, but significant sign of vehicles having turned around before the closure (total unknown due to camera theft). A total of ni = 14 users were observed having navigated past the closure during study period 1. 5.2.3 Hypothesis Testing for AM Effectiveness The evaluation results of public motorized vehicle traffic at all sample study sites provides summary data for the proportional effectiveness of the employed AM strategy at each location. Classification of the type of employed AM strategy was refined from the “intended” 105 type of strategy detailed in Table 4.2 to the observed “functional capacity” of the closure. That is, where an AM strategy employed a gate and sign to inform road users of the closure but that gate was left open, this study considered the AM strategy as signage only. Table 5.3 reflects this classification refinement, and the proportional effectiveness of the AM strategy at each sample site. The effectiveness of different AM strategies in regulating public vehicle traffic past a closure point expresses the percentage of all encounters at a site where the user respected the AM regulatory closure. It was calculated using the following formula: niTniDNNY111 Where: Y = the proportional effectiveness of the AM strategy, expressed as a percentage N D = users who disregarded the closure and traveled beyond via motorized means N T = public vehicle encounter recorded during the closed period n = number of sites with the selected AM strategy 106 Table 5.3. Assessed effectiveness of implemented AM strategies at discouraging motor vehicle road use as observed during the closed period at each site. The type of AM strategy is adjusted from Table 4.2 as governed by the status of the implementation during this study’s evaluation period. Sample Site AM Type Public Interactive n Public Non-compliance n Proportional Effectiveness Kettle/Granby AMA Arrow Neck Arthurs Grano Young Sign Gate + sign Gate + sign Gate + sign 24 42 40 30 17 20 15 14 29 % 52 % 63 % 53 % Kootenay/Wigwam AMA Drinkwater Mt. Broadwood Rabbit Wigwam Sign (temp) Gate + sign (temp) Sign Gate + sign 43 294 177 398 2 23 44 14 95 % 92 % 75 % 96 % In the Kettle/Granby study location, there were two types of AM implementations: gates with signage and signage alone. Between the four sample sites, infrastructure regulated 52% of all public motorized vehicle traffic past the point of closure. Gates with signage were more effective (56%) than signage alone (29%). The Kootenay/Wigwam study location had three types of AM implementations: gates with signage, signage alone, and seasonal-temporary closures. In this study area, effectiveness statistics were significantly higher by regulating 91% of public traffic. Again, gates with signage were more effective (95%) than signage alone (79%). The two sample sites Grano FSR and Rabbit FSR are noteworthy. Effectiveness at the Grano sample site was likely highest amongst those in the Kettle/Granby study location due to the site’s remoteness (23 km from the valley bottom) and rough initial road condition keeping users away. There were also few natural characteristics beyond the closure that would typically attract recreational users to the area, aside from access to the remote high country to the east. However, contrasting with that speculation was the Rabbit site that had the lowest AM 107 effectiveness in the Kootenay/Wigwam study location, but was also approximately 21 km from pavement up a moderately rough road. Here, there were recreation opportunities for mountain biking and locally-known productive hunting areas. These findings suggest that effectiveness may not be related to road distance from pavement, but rather road condition. This aligns with the conception that road condition, rather than distance, is most damaging to motor vehicles and deters users from accessing an area, also suggested by Hunt and Hupf (2014). This demonstrates how AM effectiveness is linked to site-specific characteristics. The hypotheses as detailed in Figure 1.4 were tested using standard formulations of null hypotheses and included data from all n = 8 sample sites in Table 5.3. Hypothesis H1A that AM strategies will be effective in buffering wilderness areas from more than 78% of vehicle traffic used the null hypothesis that the effectiveness of assessed AM strategies would be equal to that reported by Hunt and Hupf (2014), or: H0: p of AM success = 0.78; HA: p > 0.78 Due to the small sample size, a right-tailed binomial test was conducted using JMP 11 to assess whether AM strategies have a hypothesized probability of success at preventing road users travelling past a closure greater than 78%. The test reported a p-value = 0.001, permitting the rejection of the null hypothesis at the significance level α = .05. Considering the effectiveness of strategies at all sample sites evaluated by this study, results suggest AM will buffer an AMA, with parameters similar to those assessed herein, from an estimated 86% of public vehicle traffic with a 95% confidence interval between 84% and 88%. Hypothesis H1B that seasonality will govern the effectiveness of AM strategies because of changes in road users’ demographic composition contrasted the overall effectiveness of strategies in study period 1 with study period 2. It used the null hypothesis that the time of year has no influence on the proportional effectiveness of AM, which was rejected because evidence suggests the effectiveness of AM strategies assessed in this population was reduced during hunting season in southern BC. As shown in Table 5.4, AM strategies were more effective during study period 1 compared to study period 2, regulating ninety percent versus seventy-three percent of motor vehicle traffic. This finding illustrates that effectiveness can in 108 part be attributed to the demographic of road users as there is typically a marked shift in road user type from interactive recreation to hunting activities during the beginning of September. This finding is corroborated by qualitative evidence from wildlife cameras that shows increased disregard of AM strategies by road users obviously engaged in road-based hunting. Table 5.4. Seasonal effectiveness of AM strategies by sample site. Sample Site Period 1 Effectiveness % Period 2 Effectiveness % Arrow Neck Arthurs Grano Young 30 31 63 45 29 65 63 67 Drinkwater Mt. Broadwood Rabbit Wigwam — 94 85 97 95 75 37 — Total 90 73 H1C hypothesizing that effectiveness of a single AM strategy would differ between geographic regions of southern BC used the null hypothesis that the effectiveness does not differ significantly between the two case study watersheds, or H0: both case study locations have the same proportional effectiveness. In the Kettle/Granby study area there were n = 136 encounters and n = 66 users who disregarded the closure, so the overall effectiveness of AM was 52%. In the Kootenay/Wigwam study location there were n = 912 encounters and n = 83 users who disregarded the closure, so the overall effectiveness of AM in the Kootenay/Wigwam location was 91%. Therefore, H0 was rejected as there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that AM strategies employed in the Kootenay/Wigwam location were more effective at regulating motorized traffic past a point of closure. 109 Lastly, acknowledging the significant amount of traffic related to resource extraction, it was important to explore predictions for road traffic type by sample site characteristics. Specifically, the relative impact of industry extractive versus public interactive road traffic was evaluated. Industry use of resource roads represents a notable portion of road traffic at more than half of sample sites: Arrow Neck, Arthurs, Grano, Mt. Broadwood, and Young. This observation is debated using the null hypothesis that there is no difference in the frequency of industry traffic compared to public traffic by sample site, and the alternative hypothesis that traffic type is in some way related to location, or: H0: frequency of industry traffic = public traffic; HA: industry traffic ≠ public traffic Pearson’s Chi-Squared Nonparametric Test was conducted to explore this relationship. Table 5.5 details the number and type of road users recorded at each sample site, as well as summary statistics using the following formula: 𝜒2 = ∑(𝑂𝑖 − 𝐸𝑖)2𝐸𝑖𝑘𝑖=1 Where: χ2 = Chi-squared test statistic k = number of sample sites, n = 8 Oi = observed frequency of road traffic type for sample site i Ei = expected frequency of road traffic type for sample site i 110 Table 5.5. Chi-square test statistics for frequency of road traffic type by sample site. Sample Site Oi Industry Traffic Oi Public Traffic Ei Industry, Ei Public (𝑶𝒊 − 𝑬𝒊)𝟐𝑬𝒊 Arrow Neck Arthurs Drinkwater Grano Mt. Broadwood Rabbit Wigwam Young 46 402 2 18 340 1 6 55 24 42 88 40 540 177 398 30 28, 42 175, 269 35, 55 23, 35 347, 533 70, 108 159, 245 33, 52 12.322, 8.006 295.023, 191.688 31.559, 20.505 1.027, 0.667 0.125, 0.081 68.118, 44.259 147.339, 95.732 13.838, 8.991 Total 870 1339 χ2 = 936.63 As expected, the observed road traffic proportions are statistically significant and not due merely to chance. Where df = k – 1 = 7 and χ2 = 936.63, p-value = 0.001 permitted rejection of the null hypothesis at the significance level α = .05. There was in fact a statistically significant relationship between the frequency of road traffic type and location. This can be confidently attributed to industrial and commercial activities, where if such activities occur in an area, the distribution of road user type is estimated to be 39% industry traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 37% to 41%, and 61% public traffic with a 95% confidence interval of 59% to 63%. This finding demonstrated that while industrial traffic will be most common in areas where resource extraction is underway, motorized resource road traffic will typically be comprised primarily of public road users. 5.2.4 Discussion It is important to recognize this study only evaluated strategies employed at sample sites, and offers no indication of users’ reactions to other AM implementations up-road of the monitored closure. This is particularly important for temporary closures during the open period 111 when users are permitted past a principle closure point and can react to other closures further within the AMA. Therefore, results must be considered in context of each closure. For example, the Mt. Broadwood site cannot be used as a proxy to estimate down-road AM effectiveness because it only evaluated traffic at the gate’s location during the open period, a time where users continually interacted with other closures within the Wigwam Flats AMA. Obviously, some users will travel off the main open road onto spur roads that are in fact closed. Further, some users complied with the closure during their first encounter, but disregarded the closure in subsequent encounters. This indicates users weigh the cost-benefits of entering a closed area based on situational parameters and their internal valuation schemas. For example, users hunted past the Rabbit gate on foot, but later returned to their vehicle and entered the AMA via motorized means for unknown reasons. Regardless of the effectiveness of signage, it is undoubtedly more easily vandalized than other forms of AM (i.e. deactivation trenches and gates), perhaps hinting to its lower effectiveness. Gates can also be more effective than signage solely from a visual perspective. Figure 5.17 shows a sign up close and from a distance. Often, signs are so obscured or ambiguous that users simply may not see them, whereas closed gates across a road are near impossible to miss. 112 Figure 5.17. Obscurity of AM signage as viewed from resource road. The image on the left illustrates the initial view of the sign as users approach the closure. The sign on the left, courtesy of the BC government, is a close-up representation of that same sign. As shown, the sign’s subtext is not intuitively viewable from within a vehicle travelling the road. As demonstrated in Section 2.3.5 there are several methods for counting motorized road traffic. This study demonstrates how wildlife cameras, while still harboring application difficulties (i.e. highly susceptible to theft), provide the most comprehensive information for a study site compared to other methods. Hunt and Hupf (2014), when using TRAFX magnetic counters, had to remove study sites from analyses because of timber harvesting activities as counters were unable to differentiate between industrial and public users. Alternatively, wildlife cameras facilitate exclusion of industrial traffic by visual identification, thus providing more comprehensive quantification of motorized traffic type at sites experiencing a wide variety of road use. For example, public traffic at the Arthurs Road sample site was easily distinguished from that of industrial traffic, thereby permitting the study site’s inclusion in analyses concerning public users. Additionally, the visual and temporal record of users facilitates the opportunity to document the impact of industrial versus other forms of road use over space and time, otherwise impossible with buried or other forms of non-visual based traffic counters. However, this study highlighted the importance of camera parameters and positioning when utilizing such devices for monitoring resource road traffic. Cameras must be active both 113 day and night as road users often encounter closures in early morning hours (e.g. industrial activities) and after dark (e.g. recreational users departing a closed area). As demonstrated at the Arthurs Road and Grano FSR sample sites, a delay of ten seconds between recording a photo and reinitializing is too long as the camera can miss sequential vehicles travelling very close to each other. While such instances were usually accounted for as the users departed the area distant to one another, it undoubtedly introduces standard error into the summation of behavioral reactions to and effectiveness of AM. Decreasing the time delay in an effort to capture sequential vehicles will likely increase false-positives, functioning to paradoxically hinder the capture of vehicles because the time delay is reset with each false-positive thus potentially missing road traffic. This was demonstrated at the Johnston Creek site where road dust indicated multiple vehicles (as seen transiting past the Young closure via a loop road) had passed but actual users were not recorded. Judging by the development of road dust, the vehicles passed the camera within its “delay” period of ten seconds after a false-positive. Thus, there is a compromise between excessive false-positives and duplicate photos of users, and accurate quantification of road-use statistics—this fact is site-specific as it relates to the frequency and density of road traffic. Further to time delay discussion in accurate quantification of road users, cameras’ internal time clocks must be accurately calibrated when used in close proximity to each other (e.g. a control camera before a treatment camera). Accurate time clocks help understand road-use dynamics, and the present status of a gate or how long users consulted signage. For example, the Wigwam sample site used two cameras whose clocks were several minutes apart, but were sufficient enough to determine when the gate had been left open because a vehicle took such little time to traverse between the control and treatment camera. Battery life and digital storage capacity were largely a non-issue for this study. During the interim service visit, batteries were changed in all cameras utilizing rechargeable cells as their capacity was nearing approximately 25%: Mt. Broadwood, the bridge at Wigwam Main, and Rabbit FSR. Cameras installed with Duracell non-rechargable AA cells did not require replacement; in fact, these batteries outlasted the entire field study period (i.e. in all instances, Duracell batteries were capable of continuing to record images past the termination of field 114 observations). As such, it is recommended Duracell non-rechargeable AA batteries be used in place of rechargeable AA batteries when extended periods of field observations are expected or high traffic locations are being monitored. Camera theft posed a significant problem at all sample sites. During installation, cameras were positioned in a fashion where natural vegetation helped conceal their location. For many cameras, foliage loss due to onset of autumn increased their visibility and thus susceptibility to theft. Interestingly, both cameras at the unmarked closures and the single control camera were lost due to theft—all cameras monitoring physical implementations of AM were left untouched. This finding suggests either of three outcomes: (1) road users hold sufficient respect for the rationale of closed areas to consider cameras an appropriate method of enforcement; (2) if road users not familiar with a closed area’s boundaries identify a camera, they may not understand for what purposes the area is being monitored and rebel against the perceived invasion of privacy in the wilderness, or (3) camera theft was merely due to chance. To reduce the possibility of theft, the ideal location for camera installation is dark colored trees as seen in Figure 5.18. Figure 5.18. Preferable camera installation for reducing susceptibility to theft. Shown is the Drinkwater camera mounted in a tight grove of pine, as viewed from the resource road. Spruce and balsam trees are the least desirable and Douglas Fir the most preferable mounting locations. 115 Alternatively, this study suggests cameras can be adequately concealed using martin traps. Such devices are employed by local trappers along established trap lines, and are thus common to see along resource roads in remote areas. They typically consist of a wood box structure as seen in Figure 5.19, usually in a state of disrepair. Such boxes are easily constructed and made to resemble old traps. A camera can be mounted within the box, and the trap positioned to view road traffic—an adaptation of hiding something in plain sight. As the interior of the trap is dark, identification of cameras is only possible with close-up inspection of traps. Figure 5.19. Field example of a martin trap and its view of the adjacent resource road. The implementation of AM planning differed markedly between the two study locations. Kootenay/Wigwam area closures were generally more efficient than those in the Kettle/Granby area because all AMAs provisioned for at least one open road through the AMA which users could explore. This minimized the total kilometers of closed roads while maximizing the net benefit to wilderness area and wildlife as discussed in Section 1.2.3. The Rabbit FSR gate is a great example: there are notable hunting areas beyond the gate but none before, such that the gate regulates access only to areas of principle negative motorized impact, and the 25 kilometers of open road before it allows users the opportunity to explore the AMA using any form of motorized recreation. This maximizes the benefit for vehicular-based recreation and provides an opportunity for walk-in hunting, together protecting habitat 116 and wildlife (i.e. environmental components of the road-user system) while ensuring public recreation (i.e. social use of the system). Alternatively, AM planning in the Kettle/Granby area relies entirely on permanent road closures with no opportunity for seasonal access. Additionally, the Kootenay/Wigwam study area offers temporary closures that allow users to explore an area, thus mimicking the perception of minimal roads closed while maximizing the benefit of such closures. Users are able to self-regulate their access rather than relying on force regulation for AM infrastructure. The effectiveness of temporary closures suggests this strategy works very well, but is not employed at the Kettle/Granby study location. 117 Chapter 6: Conclusion – Toward Effective Access Management Resource roads in British Columbia are an enormous 620,000 kilometer, multi-billion dollar, public asset. They penetrate virtually all of the province’s extensive collection of crown land and protected wilderness areas. These wilderness areas are an essential refuge for many ecosystem components such as wildlife and diverse flora, but also provide social and economic benefit such as recreation and natural resources. The integrity of these wilderness areas is threatened by extensive natural resource development and expansion of the already vast resource road network—a threat further compounded by acute climatic change. Vulnerability assessments suggest much of BC has already exceeded sustainable thresholds of ecosystem use. It is thus clear that continued status quo resource development and accompanying human use-for-benefit will further degrade wilderness areas beyond a point of no return. Consequently, effective mechanisms are required to mitigate extraneous human-induced environmental change associated with resource development and use of roads in wilderness areas. This research explored the efficacy of road AM strategies to bolster the integrity of wilderness areas by reducing the cumulative impact of motorized vehicle use on resource roads through moderation or elimination. A literature review explored the applicability of complex systems theory and network analysis to natural resource management, the context of BC’s resource roads and how they relate to the environment through placement and use, and the types of AM strategies and how their effectiveness can be measured. It conceptualized the coupled “road-user system” of BC as being comprised of both human and environmental components, both of which are integral to the system’s function. An analysis of the road management stakeholder network was conducted to explore how information about road closures is disseminated from large-scale management bodies to individual road users in southern BC. Lastly, fieldwork explored the applied effectiveness of four types of road closure mechanisms employed as AM strategies. The following section discusses the outcomes and potential application of the research findings. It is shown how the efficacy of AM is a function of both how well stakeholders are 118 engaged in the planning process and educated about road closures, as well as the behavioral reaction to such closures as they are encountered by users in the field. Recommendations are presented on how best to approach future AM plans and strategies to aid resource road governance organizations to manage for effective and efficient wildlife and habitat protection for BC’s wilderness areas. 6.1 Research Outcomes 6.1.1 Stakeholder Network Communication The literature detailed how public consultation is vital to the overall success of AM strategies, and that education positively influences the acceptability of AM. The effectiveness of an AM strategy fundamentally hinges on stakeholder acceptance and ultimately compliance. A stakeholder questionnaire formed the qualitative component of this research’s mixed methodology, and was presented to a preliminary group of road stakeholders to map their communication. The focus of the questionnaire was to understand how organizations were connected to one another, the topic of discussion throughout, and the frequency and directionality of information flow. Gephi was used for visualization and analysis of the network, where it was shown stakeholders were arranged as nodes in the network and communication links symbolized as edges. The network’s node and edge density was not statistically representative of reality; rather, it demonstrated the preliminary collection of related road management organizations and communication existing across various system scales and communities within the network. The results of network analysis indicated the preliminary road management network in southern BC is highly fragile and disconnected, consisting of n = 44 nodes and n = 62 edges and dominated by government sector organizations. A network modularity statistic found n = 6 network communities well dispersed throughout southern BC. The average number of links —across the scale-free network was 7.6 degrees when communication was weighted according to frequency. This showed how communication frequency is correlated with a higher degree of network connectivity. Only seven percent of possible links were actually maintained in the 119 network, primarily flowing through seven influential “hub” nodes in the government sector. Directionality of information typically flows from local to large scale organizations. It was clear AM is not a principle topic of communication. Ranking the network according to a measure of eccentricity illustrated how both network communities responsible for their local AMAs were among the most separated from the central network. Exploration of the network indicated connectivity between individual road users and the larger management network is virtually nonexistent. Accordingly, hypothesis H2A that stakeholder involvement in AM administration differs based on road users’ connectivity to management nodes was accepted. Communication deficiencies equate to reduced user education of closure rationale and objectives simply through elimination of opportunity. While communication deficiencies are an obvious result of disjointed connectivity, hypothesis H2B that users’ behavioral response to an AM strategy is partly due to how well informed the user is of the road closure rationale was less apparent. Ultimately, H2B was accepted based on the acknowledgement that reduced involvement leads to reduced education. Further, evidence from stakeholders’ behavioral reaction to signage—as recorded by wildlife cameras—showed users engage with signage posted at AMA boundaries, leading to the conclusion that prior education would accomplish a similar result of awareness. The primary limitation of this research component was the completeness of the stakeholder network due to it not fully modeling all road-use stakeholders and their interactions with one another. Further development of the network is required before it can applied to guide road management in southern BC. 6.1.2 Field Effectiveness of Access Management Past multi-disciplinary research helped guide this quantitative component of the research’s mixed methodology. The literature demonstrated AM strategies can reduce road traffic volume by approximately seventy-eight percent. Public stakeholders consider highly restrictive strategies the least desirable, but gates can reduce traffic by as much as ninety percent. In general, seasonal strategies are more effective than permanent closures. Road rehabilitation is very effective simply because the road no longer exists to use. There is 120 contending evidence for the effectiveness of signage: some suggest it is respected, while others report it is ineffective due to its reliance on “voluntary compliance”. Fieldwork involved installation of automated wildlife cameras to monitor road traffic and users’ behavioral reaction to four types of AM strategies (gates with signs, signage only, temporary closures, and unmarked boundaries) in two distinct case-study locations in southern BC. The sample sites were a near-census of the population of various AM strategies within each case-study location. The two locations were chosen to contrast various AM strategies implemented in two unique contexts (e.g. social, economic, and environment) with varying administrative methods of education and enforcement. The primary difference between the two locations was stakeholder composition and education/communication strategies—the Kootenay/Wigwam AMA was far advanced with regard to education compared to the Kettle/Granby AMA. A total of n = 44,478 total photos were recorded at n = 8 sample sites, but only 20% involved actual road users interacting with an AM structure. It was subsequently shown that in-camera photos can be estimated to comprise only 9% of total photos recorded when monitoring an AM sample site similar to those assessed by this research. Categorization of road traffic and recreation type separated industry and public users, ultimately defining the category “motorized vehicle encounter, public”, within which a sub-category of recreation type denoted users travelling past a closure via motor vehicle. These two categories were utilized to quantify total public encounters with an AM strategy and the number of vehicles that continued past the closure via motorized means. This proportion was used to calculate the effectiveness of each site’s AM strategy, where if road users remained past the point of closure for more than five minutes the AM strategy was considered ineffective at influencing their road use decision. The results of this research indicate that together, AM strategies reduce motorized traffic by an estimated 86%, with a 95% confidence interval between 84% and 88%. The proportional effectiveness of temporary closures is highest at 92%, permanent closures using gates with signage are 88% effective, and permanent closures with signage alone are the most ineffective at 70%. The overall applied effectiveness of AM was compared to previous academic work stating AM effectiveness is 78% or higher using a right-tailed binomial test. It 121 was found there was a statistically significant probability that AM effectiveness is greater than the hypothesized 78%. Further, the hypothesis that seasonality has an effect on AM effectiveness was found true as effectiveness during study period 2 was significantly lower than that of study period 1 (i.e. AM is more effective during July-August than September-October). This finding confirms effectiveness is in part governed by recreation and demographic type of road users. The effectiveness of AM most definitely differed significantly between the two case study locations. The Kootenay/Wigwam AMA was confidently more effective compared to the Kettle/Granby AMA—91% and 52% effective, respectively. Lastly, a Chi-squared test was conducted to explore whether location and road traffic were statistically related. It was shown that where natural resource harvesting is underway, road traffic type in these two study areas can be estimated between 37% to 41% industry traffic and 59% to 63% public traffic. 6.1.3 Summary Remarks The mixed methodological approach explored the efficacy of AM from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. The road-user system was conceptualized in Chapter 3 as being focused around interaction between the heterogeneous components of the coupled human-environment system. It was shown how interaction determines a range of management outcomes fundamentally constrained by social-economic and environmental limitations. This research’s method of assessing the efficacy of AM within the context of the whole system and its constraints fits well into the “complexity paradigm”. The stakeholder questionnaire facilitated assessment within the system’s cultural, social and economic constraints, and exploring the applied ability of AM to reduce motorized traffic volume facilitated an understanding of AM effectiveness within the environmental constraints. Network analysis was successful in depicting communication flow and individual users’ non-connectivity with management organizations. The graphical network developed by this research is a suitable representation to share with stakeholders. In this manner, future research could further refine the network as participants could view how they fit into the existing management network. It emerged that BCTS woodlands managers could aptly fill the 122 substantial communication void between government management and local road users due to their unique position of local scale management of forests while being connected to large-scale management entities such as FLNRO. Cameras were shown to be suitable method by which to collect resource road use and recreation statistics, vehicle traffic type and volume, and users’ reactions to closures. Placement of cameras is a compromise between capturing clear images at the site and concealing the camera to avoid potential identification. When utilizing only one camera, it must be placed in a manner whereby the closure point is visible to assess users’ response, increasing its susceptibility to vandalism. Unfortunately, three of the eleven cameras deployed by this research were lost to theft—a significant concern, so creative disguise of cameras is of utmost importance. Comparatively, if two cameras are used, each may be placed well away from the closure point with a more open point-of-view. This will both reduce false-positive associated with concealment foliage, and reduce the possibility of loitering individuals at the AM site visually identifying the camera. However, employing two cameras at each AM sample location will consume twice the monetary and human resources. Increased AM effectiveness in the Kootenay/Wigwam study area is undoubtedly due to advanced road user education program in place, but also AMA strategies that minimize the total closed roads in an AMA. Providing at least one open road still allows users to visit an area. This maximizes the net benefit to both social and ecological components of the system, while still achieving the goal of wilderness area protection from road use impacts. 6.2 Discussion and Recommendation – Efficacy of Road Access Strategies in BC This research informs best-practice procedures to plan, communicate, and implement effective AM strategies in an acceptable manner for a diversified range of contending stakeholders in various regions of southern BC. The efficacy of AM is ultimately a function of how well it is incorporated into resource road management that acknowledges the complexity of the road-user system. Exploring the coupled human-environment road-user system in a moderate-scale example such as southern BC is useful to make inferences about regional variations in the system’s dynamics. However, it is cautioned that due to the unique complexity 123 of the system, it is unwise to extrapolate the findings of network structure and efficacy of AM outside of BC due to unique road structure and use, socioeconomic drivers, governance structures, and ecological baselines. 6.2.1 Complexity Theory to Guide Road Management This research highlighted the importance of complexity science in natural resource management, and specifically how it can guide resource road management and influence the efficacy of AM strategies. The road-user system in southern BC is comparatively straightforward to manage because roads are a stationary entity which allows perceptions of change to be readily acknowledged (Ostrom, 2009). In other words, roads don't move in space, but their effects occur over space and time. Those memory effects are pervasive and resilient. The complex self-organized feedback loops between human and environmental components occur over increasing spatial and temporal scales of the panarchy. Emergent patterns in the system are governed by the environmental, social, and economic characteristics of resource development and road use in southern BC. For example, recreation values are socially constructed and regulated at a large scale but their application is typically focused at the small scale, while timber harvest is also planned at the governance level but conducted locally in response to various environmental constraints. It is recommended that road management acknowledge the unique regional-scale wilderness area conservation goals, natural resource development and road density, and stakeholder use regimes. The coupled human-environment property of the road-user system and AM planning requires involving all relevant network stakeholders in decision-making processes. For example, if land managers contemplate closing an area to road use to protect wintering caribou from increased wolf predation associated with snow machine compaction, appropriate stakeholders should be consulted to explore possible economic and recreational consequences. The relationship also functions in a similar fashion where changes to human use regimes must also consider the ecological impacts. For example, involving local stakeholders in management to diversify the type and amount of resources harvested and the type of road-124 related use in an area will reduce society's focused impact and the resulting ecosystem degradation (Messier et al., 2015). Therefore, understanding why and for what purpose stakeholders utilize resource roads is required to manage road access in a fashion that ensures lower-level ecological systems are robust to small-scale fluctuations in resource demand typical of the system. In southern BC, stakeholder behavior is influenced by individual beliefs, societal norms on use of resources, and institutional management limitations such as closures under the Wildlife Act. Similarly, ecological influence on social behavior includes the availability and abundance of resources at the small-scale, with large-scale processes maintaining that availability (Parrott & Lange, 2013). For example, users may select for roads accessing fishing lakes, but the quality of fishing is governed by large-scale nutrient dispersion, hydrologic regimes, spawning patterns, and perhaps limnology practices. Adaptation is the behavioral response of human or environmental components to the reconfiguration of the road-user system, such as that induced by accessibility closures. Ideally, road management should recognize at what human-use threshold ecological components can sustainably function, and in turn tune road use to prevent exceeding resiliency thresholds. Adaptive management to increase future resiliency of the system will allow it to respond well to a dynamic range of social and environmental changes precipitated by global scale processes and external drivers (Folke et al., 2010). It should house mechanisms to respond to external forces of societal and cultural valuation of recreation and resources, economic changes impacting demand for resource road use, and environmental change and degradation leading to a reduction of ecosystem components' benefit to users. This will maintain the human-environment processes that facilitate social and economic benefit (Folke et al., 2010; Parrott & Meyer, 2012). For example, fostering adaptive capacity facilitates future resource and recreation supply in a manner where wilderness areas are continually able to adjust to habitat and range shifts northward in latitude and upward in elevation due to climate change. In general, adaptive management should mimic natural forest disturbances with harvesting paradigms that increase natural variability, in turn providing continued recreational value such as hunting and guide-outfitting while strengthening related ecological resources 125 within wilderness areas. It should promote least-cost road access strategies that provide human use and bolster the adaptive capacity of the environment within a range of realistic possibilities as defined by stakeholder inclusion and best-practice science. Continued adoption of progressive management techniques to avoid an undesirable system trajectory should be paramount. The physical road structure is a leverage point from which to manage these tradeoffs of desired access and use with requirements to maintain ecosystem services (Parrott & Meyer, 2012). For example, to facilitate gradual exploration of the effect of roads on both the environment and society, targeted road deactivations are recommended to help understand emergent trends related to road-user dispersion and displacement, and the environmental response to reductions in traffic volume. Road deactivations and AMAs are a means to improve resiliency by shifting demand elsewhere throughout wilderness areas in a controlled fashion. In that sense, resource harvesting may stress an area for five to eight years, but permitting only resource management stakeholders’ access during that critical period of forest and wildlife rehabilitation and then closing the area to motor vehicles will best reduce the negative impacts of superfluous recreational traffic. For example, the Upper Wigwam Main FSR in southeastern BC accesses valuable timber resources but is permanently closed to public motor vehicle access. In response, these areas may be well suited to absorb impacts from future human activities elsewhere in the forest, maintain ecological services, and permit an insulating avenue to develop new recreational opportunities where there have historically been none. Conversely, having too many roads, focused harvesting practices, and sustained use of roads for social benefit may precipitate undesirable system regime changes (e.g. collapse of wildlife stocks for guide-outfitting, degradation of public water reservoirs, and forest species density decline or spatial shifts). Ideally, the landscape must be managed as a mosaic of open, closed, and seasonally-restricted access areas. The challenge remains determining each category’s proportional representation of the total road network that is both socially and ecologically acceptable—a decidedly wicked problem. Additionally, management should acknowledge and plan for the influence of uncertainty and hysteresis effects with long-term monitoring programs to perceive gradual system change 126 (Knapp et al., 2014). For example, road-user system memory effects can include improper classification of temporary access roads resulting in high prevalence rates of legacy open roads, and thus focused detrimental human use due to rehabilitation deficiencies and human recreation (Chapman et al., 2014). As recommended by Parrott and Meyer (2012), BC's cumulative effects framework is an appropriate long-term spatiotemporal monitoring program to quantify gradual human-environment change due to resource development. Positively, road impacts are incorporated into this framework (FLNRO, 2014a); however, the benefits of AM are not specifically addressed within this framework and thus can be overlooked. It is recommended the benefits posed by AM strategies are integrated into BC’s CEF. Stakeholder network analysis is well suited to exploring human use, structural linkages, and adaptation properties between government policy and decision makers and road-user system stakeholders. It identifies how well stakeholders are incorporated into the decision-making processes of road management in southern BC. Analysis helps identify ecological areas presently experiencing high human use by considering the number of stakeholders as a proxy for the degree of stress compared to the environmental capacity to sustain that use. Further, these areas may also lack adequate stakeholder integration into the management process. As such, they may be vulnerable to mismanagement for sustainability because there is a disproportionately few number of stakeholders involved in the decision-making process where outcomes tend to affect a great many stakeholders whose objectives are not recognized. Lastly and above all: dissect and utilize complexity. Develop a polycentric approach where resource road management is conducted as close to and with affected local stakeholders as possible (Ostrom, 2009). It is recommended the problem of deficient communication between “split government ministries” in BC be immediately addressed and collaborative inter-governmental road management fostered. Road construction and maintenance being managed by FLNRO and human use (e.g. recreation) by MoE, with neither actively communicating for road management, is unwise considering the coupled nature of the road-user system. Improved road and AM in southern BC is accomplished by further developing stakeholder communications and information sharing, and understanding areas of spatial and temporal concern in the road-user system and redirecting resources to alleviate that concern. 127 Implementing the most effective and efficient AM strategies as determined through local stakeholder’s input and the geographic context is important. In this manner, road management is responsive to the needs of society and the environment with the capacity to incorporate emerging societal behaviors and environmental properties. 6.2.2 Planning and Implementing Access Management Strategies The massive diversity of the road-user system’s components and the spatial magnitude of BC's resource road network demonstrate the need to prioritize areas requiring conservation, restoration, and protection efforts in BC. Road traffic composition is not a stochastic process, but rather driven by landscape-level social or economic benefits. Access management strategies function to protect wilderness areas from the cumulative impacts associated with roads. The efficacy and social acceptability of their application is invaluable to natural resource managers working to ensure the resiliency of BC’s wilderness areas. However, it is cautioned that the results of this study are applicable only to resource management in southern BC; extension of findings to northern BC or elsewhere is not recommended. Access management strategies are most effective when developed and framed in a setting that seeks to utilize social science-based assessment information to guide road structure, stakeholder network analysis, quantification of user composition, implementation of structures, and communicative strategies to both involve and educate road users on the purpose of the closure. Effectiveness and acceptability of various AM strategies is a function of the unique physical and social contexts in which they are applied throughout southern BC. Ultimately, communication of road closures’ rationale and social compliance with those closures function together to influence the efficacy of AM regulatory mechanisms within an evolving context of environmental protection goals, and social and economic precedents. It is clear that when actively involving local users in road management, governance effectiveness, biodiversity conservation, and local livelihoods are improved (see Messier et al., 2015; Persha, Agrawal, & Chhatre, 2011). Further, limited education results in varied AM effectiveness when non-local users recreate in an area, unaware of its closed status. On the whole, AM strategies assessed by this research were massively more effective when coupled 128 with a user education program (i.e. 52% in the Kettle/Granby AMA vs. 91% in the Kootenay/Wigwam AMA, undoubtedly due to a well-connected hub node that communicates regularly with public road user representation groups). While it is clear not all users will engage with education tools, advanced programs such as online maps and forums will eventually percolate to all users. Better informed road users have the capacity to evaluate their personal impact on ecological components of the system prior to visiting the wilderness. In turn, this functions to prevent those users from engaging with the closure in the field, resulting in reduced motorized traffic encounters at the borders of AMAs. Thus, education alone is itself an adequate AM strategy. Nowhere in BC does such an integrative large-scale road AM planning and education strategy exist aside from public consultation in project-level EA, and brief notes in the BC Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis. BC’s CEF has limited ability to assess road access impacts unless employed as an integrated decision-support tool within the overall context of resource development and public road use at the landscape level, and the capacity for that landscape to continue providing resources in a sustainable manner. As such, if resource managers choose to implement AMAs with point-source AM strategies, it is recommended they do so in consultation with identified local road users and provide intuitive education tools to communicate the closure rationale and boundaries to end users. Implementing AM strategies along with consultation and education will equate to improved baseline social acceptance of AM strategies, and thus increase compliance and effectiveness. However, the physical effectiveness of an AM strategy will always be governed by the geographic context. AM strategies can be conceptualized as hard versus soft road closures (i.e. gates versus signage)—soft closures are preferable, such as temporary road closures with signage. It is recommended hard strategies such as gates be installed at bridge crossings or in areas with steep embankments flanking the road corridor because they will best discourage users from circumventing the closure. Temporary closures with signage will function best when implemented along with comprehensive education strategies due to the variable nature of temporarily open roads. In any event, temporary closures are by far the least-cost, most efficient means to implement targeted road closures. Signage alone will be 129 most ineffective if not coupled with education. Conversely, locked gates can be implemented in lieu of lacking stakeholder education. Placement and maintenance of AM strategies is a significant component to their effectiveness. Gates are only effective when closed, both at day’s end but also during the day when there is a high chance of public users encountering the AM strategy. For example, due to the gate typically being locked and no signs of circumvention, it is very likely that all recorded motorized traffic on the closed Wigwam Main FSR was due to the gate being left open during times when authorized users were in the closed area. Further, it is recommended that all future installed gates be constructed in a manner where the gate’s lock is fully enclosed and protected from vandalism. Exposed padlocks and chains, regardless of their size, are simply too vulnerable to be relied upon for maintaining a gate’s closed status. As a last resort, the maintained status of AM infrastructure can be monitored with wildlife cameras, and structural vandalism and violations under the Wildlife Act pursued and prosecuted. 6.2.3 Meaningful Wildlife and Habitat Management It would seem the social acceptance of road closures is best rationalized as being productive and meaningful by considering the spatial extent and density of motorized vehicle use in wilderness areas. The question then becomes: why not have a small proportion of the roads free of this human stressor for the benefit of environmental system components? The efficacy of AM can really be that simple—road-user system management is not so easy. There are fundamental challenges in BC associated with extensive resource harvesting in areas whose access is technically closed. It is very difficult to convince users who approach such a closed area—and see substantial natural resource extraction beyond—that their road-use impact is any more harmful than that which is already underway in the area. The most effective way to approach this challenge is to conceptualize to road users that resource harvesting “road use”, while extensive, does not stress an area for years at a time in such a way as sustained public traffic. It has been shown that road use is functionally more harmful to wildlife than the road itself, so once resource harvesting is complete and the area is closed, the benefits of no vehicle traffic are once again realized. This is the best-case compromise between 130 required economic use of wilderness areas (i.e. dwindling timber supplies and value) and environmental protection objectives (i.e. sustainability). However, convincing users that their impact will not be superfluous to that which is already underway during resource harvesting is nigh-on impossible because their road use is without a doubt less than that of industry’s in the context of, for example, massive logging operations with large daily vehicle counts. This ongoing wicked problem of “you’re not allowed to go in there, but we are” is not new to BC, unique to resource roads in general, or easily quelled because of the diversity of road use and users—the concern will always be there, and the effectiveness of AM strategies will be affected as such. During this research, colloquial discussion with road users contrasted the acceptability of various AM strategies. Gates keep people out, but also force people to stay out. Users do not like to be forced, and thus view signage as more appropriate because it allows them to self-regulate their access. Deactivating roads can be effective middle-ground between gates and signs, functioning to prevent some motorized use but still permitting access. The magnitude of deactivation is one method to “control” access; that is, leaving a rougher road surface less conducive to travel will discourage use. Further, several individuals conveyed that education is of utmost importance. Large signage at the bottom of a road or valley will warn users, thus allowing them to make an educated and informed decision about their future actions. This is preferable to punitive enforcement by government officials. Further, “pre-education” is very valuable—minimalist information in the BC Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis does not suffice. It is clear users would rather be informed during the planning stage of backcountry travel rather than at the bottom of the resource road leading to their chosen destination. There is significant concern among the public about allowing industry use and preventing public access. In the end, stakeholders desire equality with regard to closures; that is, if AM strategies are implemented they should apply equally to all users. Only access critical to wildlife and habitat management should be permitted, otherwise AM for wildlife and habitat protection becomes meaningless and ineffective. Allowing resource extraction pressures wildlife and most definitely changes habitat in a focused manner far exceeding public impacts. 131 This is evidenced in this research by industry users dominating motorized traffic at some sample sites. In the end, road management must acknowledge that all types of recreation impact ecological components (e.g. guide outfitters utilizing horses still affect wildlife). Thus, locally-permissible impact must be quantified and scaled across all users groups and recreation types—motorized traffic does not always represent the entirety of wilderness area impacts. Therefore, accomplishing meaningful wildlife, habitat, and wilderness area protection thus becomes difficult in a system with such contending valuation. It is recommended AM be equally applied to all user groups to effectively protect wildlife and wilderness areas, otherwise the intent of these closures is nullified. This includes all resource extraction activities. The small, not well scaled or labeled, and terse representations of AMAs in the BC Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis are simply not sufficient as a primary education tool. Online and smart-phone education tools and applications should be developed to facilitate stakeholder education. Access management area boundaries must be clearly documented and signed. “Height of land” boundaries are recommended because these geographic “lines” are clear to all users in the backcountry (i.e. it is unlikely users will misinterpret the location of a ridge line separating two water drainages). This would make AM closures more intuitive, and ultimately more effective at achieving meaningful wilderness area protection. Figure 6.1 is a brief example of employing the “complex systems” approach to achieve a meaningful wildlife and habitat management objective using AM. 132 Figure 6.1. Complexity approach to meaningful wildlife and habitat management. 6.3 Key Recommendations and Future Research for Effective Access Management Government, industry, and public stakeholders must function together within the context of existing and emerging land-uses, acknowledging the cumulative environmental impact of resource roads, to regulate road access in an acceptable and effective manner for all stakeholders. This research provides natural resource managers a means by which to view road and AM in southern BC through a “complex systems” lens. This research’s clear assessment of the efficacy of AM, using the applied effectiveness of three different types of AM strategies and There is currently a desire to understand the causation of dwindling ungulate populations in the southeastern region of BC. Preliminary discussion suggests this decline is in response to increased predation from wolves, bears, and other large carnivores. Traditionally, BC has managed ungulate populations, but not carnivores—there is the proposal to do so to mitigate their impact on ungulates. Considering the issue from a systems perspective requires that human implications be incorporated into the equation. Roads and their use by both predators and humans can function to displace ungulates and provide a natural corridor along which carnivores can easily travel. For example, wolf transit along resource roads is common. So then, to understand causation and manage the ungulate decline is not simply a matter of managing predator populations, but understanding the system as a whole and how carnivores and human use of roads will function to pressure wildlife. Managing road access or rehabilitating several roads in select areas thus becomes a management option in addition to managing carnivore populations when considering predator-prey dynamics. In the case of restoring ungulate populations, select AM strategies can return lost habitat to ungulates and/or reduce easy movement of large carnivores across the landscape. 133 an example of how to map stakeholder inclusion in AM processes to better educate road users, is a basis from which effective AM may be considered for wilderness area protection. The FRB’s (2015) recommendation to develop online collaborative planning concerning physical road location, status, and accessibility is echoed by this research. Such a system could easily update the ever-evolving condition of the coupled road-user system to facilitate sustainable management. In turn, quantifying physical road condition will guide resource managers in applying the most efficient and cost-effective AM strategies given the local demographic and geographic context. Further, it is recommended a publically-accessible centralized database be established to contain all provincial AMAs and point-source closures. This would improve the efficacy of AM on the aforementioned premise of prior education. For example, it would prevent users traveling several hundred kilometers only to find upon arrival an area was closed to their access, and where a sign may then be insufficient to influence a decision to not travel further due to energy already expended reaching the destination. Future research could explore the effectiveness of permanent road closures diverting from a seasonally-open main road—these closures can be considered secondary as they are within an AMA, and many users will ostensively interact with them. Future research should explore the relative impact of various stakeholders and recreation type so as to inform AM planning for areas that exhibit a dominant type of user (e.g. motorized use for hunting versus an area dominated by mountain biking). For example, further work should explore why AM was so much more effective in the Kootenay/Wigwam study location as compared to the Kettle/Granby study area. Was measured effectiveness truly due to education strategies, road user composition, or perhaps other explanatory parameters? It is recommended that continued development of the road-user system network analyzed herein be a management priority to help map relevant road-user system stakeholders. For example, it should be understood how public organizations such as the BC Wildlife Federation, BC Cattlemen’s Association, Backcountry Horsemen of BC, and the Quad Rider ATV Association of BC fit into the management network. Network development could be conducted by stakeholder organizations using in-house datasets (i.e. email lists) to understand connectivity and frequency of its employees both within and outside of their organization with regard to 134 resource road management. This could then be fed into a larger provincial road management network, and would preserve confidentiality of network entities as identities can be masked within an organization’s network. There are several solutions to improve the efficacy of AM in southern BC. It is recommended facilitating and intermediary organizations be created with a mandate to develop comprehensive education and outreach materials to explain the purpose of road closures and thus increase their effectiveness. In order to best connect management organizations with individual road users, it is helpful if individual users are part of a larger group of likeminded individuals representative of their unique type of road use (e.g. BC Wildlife Federation or ATV BC). A larger collection of individuals is more easily identified via network analyses and thus consulted by government road managers compared to randomly dispersed, difficult to contact local road users throughout the province. As presently designed signs are clearly too small and inadequate, allowing road users to call into question their legitimacy and applicability given such waning commitment on the part of road management officials to posted forms of information, especially in instances where the road beyond the sign is clearly used by motor vehicles. The question arises: how can users be convinced their impact will be any worse or cumulative than that already underway on the road? As such, it is recommended that signs be designed larger and more visible, and more frequently posted along principal access resource roads. Improving the physical effectiveness of gates is accomplished by simply having authorized users close and lock gates behind them. Non-functional (i.e. vandalized) gates must be repaired at the earliest convenience. Bolstering AMA overall effectiveness can be accomplished by implementing a single open road or seasonal road closures. 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Los Angeles: Sage. 144 Appendices Appendix A: Bushnell Trophy Camera HD Initial Installation Programming Parameters Parameter Status Mode Camera Image Size 8M Pixel Image Format Full Screen Capture Number 1 Photo LED Control High Camera Name Not applicable Video Size 640 x 360 Video Length 10 seconds Interval 10 seconds Sensor Level *Auto NV Shutter Low Camera Mode 24 hours Format Not applicable Time Stamp On Set Clock Not applicable Field Scan Off Coordinate Input Off Video Sound On Default Set Not applicable Firmware Version BS683BWYx05212 *Parameter “Sensor Level” changed to “Normal” on select cameras during service check to mitigate instances of false-positive images. 145 Typical Camera Installation – View from the Targeted Resource Road 146 Appendix B: Stakeholder Questionnaire Mapping the Social Network of Resource Road Management in British Columbia The Centre for Environmental Assessment Research at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus is conducting research into natural resource road management. Resource roads are the province's backcountry forest service and logging roads. This questionnaire is part of research to develop a portrait of the network of organizations involved with all aspects of resource roads. The objective of this questionnaire is to better understand the function of network organizations (referred to as stakeholders) who are involved with and impacted by resource road management decisions and initiatives in BC. This research will help inform more effective communication strategies and ultimately help back road management. Examples of involvement with roads include their use for resource management, recreational, or other economic purposes; discussion about management of existing and construction of new roads; dialogue concerning benefits and detriments associated with roads; and managing access over portions of roads. Your input is very important in constructing this social network. Below is a brief questionnaire asking how your organization may be involved in this social network and if so, who it communicates with and the nature of that interaction. For example, government land managers may work with private forest companies and public organizations to maintain access on roads for recreational, economic, and environmental purposes; commercial tourist companies may communicate with public environmental organizations to foster resource stewardship; and members of the public may discuss with government land managers environmental or social impacts associated with roads. There are no opinion questions in the questionnaire. The questions reflect information that may be reasonably given in response to a public information request. The information gathered in this questionnaire will be treated confidentially. This questionnaire will subsequently be provided to those organizations you suggest as being part of your network. You may consult the results and suggest ways to change your organization’s position in the network at any time. 147 The questionnaire is a form-fillable pdf document that may be saved. Please return to b.dewolff@alumni.ubc.ca. Please direct any questions to Brent DeWolff at this address. Your organization: ___________________ Title or position: __________________________ Social network questionnaire 1. With regard to resource road administration, management, and planning in BC, with which agencies or organizations does your organization communicate more than once per year? For example: receiving environmental monitoring information from private contractors, or providing information on a one-time basis to interested members of the general public. Organization: ________________ Department: ___________ Location: _____________ Contact Info of Organization: ___________________________________________ 2. How often does this communication occur? For example: routine (once or more per week), occasional (once or more per month), or infrequent (once or more per year). Organization: __________ Routine ☐ Occasional ☐ Infrequent ☐ 3. What is the purpose of the communication with each organization as listed below? Please check all that apply. Organization: ___________________ ☐ Provide Information ☐ Request Information ☐ Receive Information ☐Other – please describe: _________________________ 148 4. What is the general topic of communication with each organization as listed below? Please check all that apply. Organization: ___________________ ☐ Engineering (for example: existing road maintenance, new road construction) ☐ Resource management (for example: natural resource extraction) ☐ Environmental management (for example: habitat and/or wildlife) ☐ Ecosystem administration (for example: water reservoirs or aquatic habitats) ☐ Access management (for example: road closures for habitat/wildlife conservation) ☐ Public recreation (for example: camping, off-road vehicle travel, and hunting) ☐ Commercial operations (for example: guide outfitting and nature-based tourism) ☐ Ranching (for example: livestock management) ☐ Other – please describe: ______________________________________________ 5. Are there other agencies or organizations you suggest we contact with regard to resource road administration, management, and planning issues in BC? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 149 Appendix C: Summary Data for Road-user System Management Network NodeIDLabel Sector Location Latitude LongitudeModularityClassDegreeWeightedDegreeEccentricityBetweennessCentrality1Okanagan Nation AlliancePublic Penticton 49.49 -119.59 1 4 10 6 0.0534152Granby Wilderness SocietyPublic Grand Forks 49.03 -118.44 1 2 4 6 0.0000003Conservation ScienceGov, MoE Victoria 48.43 -123.36 1 2 6 7 0.0315614 Fish & Wildlife Gov, FLNRO Penticton 49.49 -119.59 1 2 6 5 0.0324665 Fish & Wildlife Gov, FLNRO Nelson 49.49 -117.3 1 3 7 5 0.0596716 Forest Sciences Gov, FLNRO Vernon 50.26 -119.25 2 5 17 5 0.0287847 Ecosystems Gov, FLNRO Williams Lake 52.13 -122.16 2 3 9 5 0.0061838Conservation ScienceGov, MoE Victoria 48.43 -123.36 2 3 9 5 0.2177939Environmental AssessmentPrivate Nelson 49.49 -117.3 2 2 6 5 0.00000010 Conservation Officer Gov, MoE Fernie 49.5 -115.06 4 7 16 7 0.25581411 Teck Coal Ltd Commercial Sparwood 49.71 -114.89 4 1 3 8 0.00000012Fernie Rod/Gun ClubPublic Fernie 49.5 -115.06 4 1 2 8 0.00000013Sparwood Fish/Wildlife FoundationPublic Sparwood 49.71 -114.89 4 1 3 8 0.00000014Elkford Rod/Gun ClubPublic Elkford 50.19 -114.88 4 1 2 8 0.00000015 Elkford ATV Club Public Elkford 50.19 -114.88 4 1 2 8 0.00000016 Canfor Commercial Elko 49.3 -115.12 4 1 2 8 0.00000017 BC Parks Gov, MoE Penticton 49.49 -119.59 3 5 14 7 0.17497218 Crown Lands Gov, FLNRO Kamloops 50.66 -120.36 3 1 2 8 0.00000019 Land Services Gov,ABR Victoria 48.43 -123.36 3 1 3 8 0.00000020 Transportation Gov,MoT Penticton 49.49 -119.59 3 1 3 8 0.00000021 BC Parks Gov,MoE Victoria 48.43 -123.36 3 1 4 8 0.00000022 FPB FPB Victoria 48.43 -123.36 5 18 36 5 0.37302523FLNRO, Okanangan-ShuswapGov,FLRNO Vernon 50.26 -119.25 5 4 12 5 0.07766724 FLRNO, Rocky Mtn Gov,FLRNO Cranbrook 49.51 -115.75 5 3 9 6 0.06266125FLNRO, Kootenay LakeGov,FLRNO Nelson 49.49 -117.3 5 3 9 6 0.08778126FLNRO, Arrow-BoundaryGov,FLRNO Castlegar 49.31 -117.66 5 2 6 6 0.00064627 FLNRO, Columbia Gov,FLRNO Revelstoke 50.99 -118.19 5 2 6 6 0.00064628 FLNRO, Cascades Gov,FLRNO Merritt 50.12 -120.83 5 2 6 6 0.00064629 FLNRO, Kamloops Gov,FLRNO Kamloops 50.66 -120.36 5 2 6 6 0.00064630FLNRO, 100 Mile HouseGov,FLRNO 100 Mile House 51.64 -121.3 5 2 6 6 0.00064631 FLNRO, Headwaters Gov,FLRNO Clearwater 51.65 -120.04 5 2 6 6 0.00064632FLNRO, Central CaribooGov,FLRNO Williams Lake 52.13 -122.16 5 3 9 6 0.01548533 FLNRO, Chilliwack Gov,FLRNO Chilliwack 49.15 -121.96 5 2 6 6 0.00064634 FLNRO Headquarters Gov,FLRNO Victoria 48.43 -123.36 5 13 48 5 0.34755435 BCTS, Kootenay Gov,BCTS Nelson 49.49 -117.3 5 1 2 6 0.00000036BCTS, Okanagan-ColumbiaGov,BCTS Vernon 50.26 -119.25 5 1 2 6 0.00000037 BCTS, Kamloops Gov,BCTS Kamloops 50.66 -120.36 5 1 2 6 0.00000038 BCTS, Chinook Gov,BCTS Chilliwack 49.15 -121.96 5 1 2 6 0.00000039BCTS, Cariboo-ChilcotinGov,BCTS Williams Lake 52.13 -122.16 5 1 2 6 0.00000040Private Land Tenure HoldersCommerical 5 1 2 6 0.00000041 Private Road Users Private 6 0 0 0 0.00000042Habitat ManagementGov,FLRNO Cranbrook 49.51 -115.75 4 3 7 6 0.27131843Forest/Range Evaluation ProgramGov Victoria 48.43 -123.36 2 6 12 4 0.27695644 MoE Headquarters Gov,MoE Victoria 48.43 -123.36 0 3 8 6 0.222591Nodes 150 Source Node Target Node Type Id WeightFrequency(I=infreqent, O=occasional, R=routine)Topic1 2 Undirected 187 2 1 2,3,51 4 Undirected 188 3 2 3,5,71 5 Undirected 189 2 1 3,52 5 Undirected 190 2 1 3,53 1 Directed 191 3 2 3,53 44 Undirected 246 3 3 3,4,5,64 23 Undirected 247 3 3 1,2,3,5,7,85 25 Undirected 248 3 3 1,2,3,5,7,86 7 Undirected 192 4 3 1,2,3,56 8 Undirected 193 4 3 1,2,3,56 9 Undirected 194 4 3 1,2,3,56 23 Undirected 252 3 3 1,2,3,5,7,86 43 Directed 195 2 1 1,2,3,57 32 Undirected 254 3 3 1,2,3,5,7,87 43 Directed 196 2 1 1,2,3,68 43 Directed 197 2 1 1,2,3,78 44 Undirected 257 3 3 3,4,5,69 43 Directed 198 2 1 1,2,3,810 11 Undirected 199 3 2 5,610 12 Undirected 200 2 1 5,6,710 13 Undirected 201 3 2 3,4,5,6,710 14 Undirected 202 2 1 5,610 16 Undirected 203 2 1 1,515 10 Directed 204 2 1 517 19 Undirected 205 3 2 917 21 Undirected 206 4 3 917 44 Undirected 267 2 2 3,4,618 17 Directed 207 2 1 920 17 Directed 208 3 2 922 23 Directed 209 2 1 122 24 Directed 210 2 1 122 25 Directed 211 2 1 122 26 Directed 212 2 1 122 27 Directed 213 2 1 122 28 Directed 214 2 1 122 29 Directed 215 2 1 122 30 Directed 216 2 1 122 31 Directed 217 2 1 122 32 Directed 218 2 1 122 33 Directed 219 2 1 122 35 Directed 220 2 1 122 36 Directed 221 2 1 122 37 Directed 222 2 1 122 38 Directed 223 2 1 122 39 Directed 224 2 1 122 40 Directed 225 2 1 134 23 Undirected 227 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 24 Undirected 228 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 25 Undirected 229 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 26 Undirected 230 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 27 Undirected 231 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 28 Undirected 232 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 29 Undirected 233 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 30 Undirected 234 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 31 Undirected 235 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 32 Undirected 236 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,834 33 Undirected 237 4 3 1,2,3,6,7,842 10 Undirected 238 2 1 3,542 24 Undirected 299 3 3 2,3,5,7,842 34 Undirected 239 2 1 3,543 22 Directed 240 2 1 1,2,3,4,5,7,843 34 Directed 302 2 2 1,2,3,4,5,7Edges 151 Appendix D: Summary Data for AM Effectiveness Analyses StudyLocationSample Site AM TypeTotalEncountersTotalDisregardPeriod 1EffectivenessPeriod 2EffectivenessTotalEffectivenessLocationEffectivenessIndustryTraffic CountPublicTraffic CountArrow Neck Sign 24 17 0.300 0.286 0.292 46 24Arthurs Gate + sign 42 20 0.313 0.654 0.524 402 42Grano Gate + sign 40 15 0.625 0.625 0.625 18 40Young Gate + sign 30 14 0.445 0.667 0.533 55 30Drinkwater Sign (temp) 43 2 0.953 0.953 2 88Mt Broadwood Gate + sign (temp) 294 23 0.936 0.745 0.922 340 540Rabbit Sign 177 44 0.845 0.372 0.751 1 177Wigwam Gate + sign 398 14 0.965 0.965 6 398Total: 1048 149 0.897 0.730 0.858 870 1339"Effectness" represents the proportion of all vehicles prevented from travelling past a closure point."Period effectiveness" omitted for Drinkwater (N/A) and Wigwam (data incompleteness).Permanent gate effectiveness = 0.87647059Permanent sign effectiveness = 0.69651741Temporary effectiveness = 0.91988131120.5150.909
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Environmental Sciences
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Resource road management complexity and efficacy assessment in access management : toward implementation of effective access management for southern British Columbia
Text