Title
Supporting the Regional Assessment in the Ring of Fire Area: Cumulative Impacts of Climate Change and Development on Wolverine in Northern Ontario
Author(s)
Farrell, Claire E.; Hornseth, Megan; Rempel, Rob; Gobin, Jenilee; O'Connor, Constance; Scrafford, Matthew A.; Southee, F. Meg; McCaw, Laura K.; Ray, Justina C.; Carlson, Matt; Chetkiewicz, Cheryl-Lesley B.
Published
2026
Abstract
Indigenous Peoples hold deep connections to Indigenous Cultural Landscapes spanning intact high integrity ecosystems in northern Ontario. These landscapes sustain important biodiversity including at-risk species and play a vital role in climate change mitigation. The significant socioecological value of these landscapes is subject to trade-offs with increasing pressures to extract the abundant mineral deposits contained within them due to economic potential. We compiled this report to support the Regional Assessment in the Ring of Fire Area that provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the potential effects of current and future development and inform decision-making for the region. We share findings and lessons learned from a cumulative effects assessment for wolverine, an at-risk mammal that requires intact landscapes and broadly represents boreal species sensitive to both disturbance and climate change. Using A Cumulative Effects Landscape Simulator (ALCES), we simulated mineral exploration and extraction, forest harvest, and associated infrastructure (i.e., hydroelectric networks, roads, and other linear features) for low- and high-growth development scenarios and climate change for intermediate (RCP 4.5) and high (RCP 8.5) emission scenarios over five decades. Using a resource selection probability function developed for wolverine across northern Ontario, we predicted cumulative effects of development and climate change on future wolverine habitat distributions. The resource selection probability function included abiotic factors (chilling degree days, terrain roughness index), disturbance (forestry and winter roads, recent and regenerating burns), and food availability represented by environmental factors influencing the distribution of caribou, moose, and beaver (treed wetland, dense conifer, and mixed dense forest). Our cumulative effects model predicted a complete loss of wolverine habitat across northern Ontario in as little as 30 years. Climate change drove impacts at a regional scale, often masking development impacts at local and sub-regional scales. The Area of Undertaking and Ring of Fire region experienced rapid habitat loss within 10-20 years. After 20 years, any wolverine habitat remaining occurred in the northwest, along the Manitoba border. We experienced challenges disentangling confounding variation in climate and development, along with uncertainty in future development and ecological responses. This likely led to predicted development impacts being underestimated and the extreme declines in wolverine distribution related to climate effects being overestimated.