Special Features

Pitcher Plant in Ka'a'gee Tu (J. Skelton)

To help sustain the NWT’s biodiversity and cultural landscapes, the NWT Protected Areas Strategy (PAS) aims to protect special natural and cultural areas, and core representative areas within each of the territory’s 42 ecoregions. In support of these goals, the PAS Science Team is currently compiling and mapping available information on a variety of ecologically-based special features in the NWT, such as rare plants, hot springs, mineral licks, karst, glacial refugia, amphibians and reptiles.

Multiple-scale data

Systematic conservation planning allows patterns of biodiversity to be considered at multiple scales. The coarse filter approach is a broad-scale approach that looks at protecting samples of landscape features. However, some species and significant ecological features may not be captured by the coarse filter approach. Therefore, it becomes necessary to target these features individually to ensure they are represented within protected areas. This type of analysis is often referred to as a fine filter representation analysis, and it involves the addition of more detailed information where it exists. Fine filter data is also referred to as special features data. Many conservation scientists recommend using the coarse filter and fine filter approaches together as a way to better represent the full biodiversity of a region.

How are special features used in the PAS?

The PAS Science Team is compiling information on several special features in the NWT: rare and may-be at risk plants, amphibians and reptiles, hot springs, eskers, mineral licks, glacial refugia, and karst. This information is available for use in protected areas planning and other land stewardship processes such as land use planning and regulatory impact assessments.

The PAS Science Team analyses how much of each special feature is captured within proposed protected areas, in order to determine major gaps in coverage. Special features information can also help target field studies.

Special features information is often incomplete, especially over a large area such as the NWT. The best data often comes from areas that are well-traveled or easily accessible to humans. For areas that are poorly known or seldom visited there may not be any special features information, but this does not mean that no special features exist in those areas. Such information gaps make it difficult to make conservation decisions on the relative importance of an area using special features data. It is important to apply the precautionary principle and use the best available information, incorporating new and better information as it becomes available. The PAS Science Team includes special features information by mapping all available special features and assessing how well existing and proposed protected areas would protect these features. In this way, features that have more data collected for them will not bias conservation decisions.

Please see the following pages for more information on each of the special features being studied: