Send a letter! Before October , the federal government will need to report on the progress that has been made by all governments in implementing, and meeting the objectives of, the national boreal woodland caribou recovery strategy released in under the Species-at-risk Act SARA. Earlier this year, CPAWS started a one-year clock, hoping to inspire governments to act before this first report. Looking across Canada today, it will be difficult to demonstrate that sufficient action has been taken to protect caribou.
Opinion: focus on tourism in Jasper National Park pushes caribou to local extinction — Edmonton Journal September Subscribe Now! Skip to content Menu. Caribou and You Caribou need large, intact ecosystems to survive. CPAWS is: Encouraging provinces and territories to implement the legal tools needed to protect at-risk caribou herds across Canada, focused on woodland caribou; Designing and implementing range plans for all boreal woodland caribou herds that include effective protection for core caribou habitat; Working with forestry companies and indigenous peoples to develop caribou habitat conservation proposals on lands leased to forest companies, to help provincial governments find sustainable solutions; Integration of robust caribou conservation considerations in land use management and other tools that could reduce or halt the threats to critical habitat, such as forest management laws, permitting regulations, and environmental impact assessments practices.
However, the current distribution of woodland caribou has shrunk dramatically over the past century, compared to their historical extent. The two different ecotypes of woodland caribou in Alberta are boreal and mountain, and vary in distribution based on their habitat needs. MAP: The Canadian distribution of 5 ecotypes of woodland caribou.
Both mountain and boreal woodland caribou display solitary behaviour for most of their lives, however they tend to spend time in small groups when calving, rutting, or over-wintering. Alberta mountain caribou historically migrated between summer and winter ranges.
In the summer, they live in alpine areas. In the winter, they typically descended into valleys and foothills to shelter in old-growth conifer forests. In recent decades, some or all of the populations have abandoned their winter ranges. This shift may be because of high human-caused disturbance in the foothills, and the associated high caribou mortality within those winter ranges and during migration. Boreal woodland caribou move extensively throughout the year but their winter and summer ranges overlap.
They choose areas of forested peat bogs and fens in combination with older coniferous forests. Because woodland caribou require abundant access to lichens, they prefer to live in old-growth coniferous forests and peat wetland complexes. But these areas have been increasingly impacted by industry — the key contributor to exclusion of caribou from quality habitat.
Caribou tend to avoid landscape disturbances — like un-reclaimed seismic lines and logged areas — for up to several kilometers, yet they require large areas of suitable continuous habitat where individuals are able to spread out and reach their preferred population density of approximately two to three caribou per km 2.
Landscape disturbances also stimulate other prey species such as white-tailed deer and moose, and in turn support higher wolf populations that can more easily travel to where caribou are found. With human-caused disturbances increasingly fracturing landscapes, this leaves little room for caribou to thrive.
Caribou have been an integral part of Indigenous culture in Canada for thousands of years, as a game animal, providing sustenance and resources for clothing and tools, and as a spiritual symbol, surrounded by many important cultural teachings and beliefs. Many of the traditional and treaty territories of Alberta Indigenous peoples overlap with caribou ranges. In Alberta, there are 45 distinct First Nation groups living on reserves covered by Treaty 6, Treaty 7, and Treaty 8.
Both First Nations and Metis have constitutionally protected land and resource rights. Indigenous communities are rights holders and have important knowledge when considering matters regarding caribou conservation.
Most Alberta Indigenous communities have stopped hunting caribou as a way to help reduce impacts on the populations. The most consistent and pervasive threat to the persistence of a viable caribou population in Alberta stems from resource extraction industries, which are causing an overall loss and fragmentation of habitat.
Reports from locals and government biologists dating back 60 years have documented the absence of caribou following the establishment of industrial activity in an area. Over the past 30 years, field biologists have shown the links among forestry, hydrocarbon development, and road building and the decline of woodland caribou. December — On December 16 th , one day before the scheduled court date, an EcoJustice news release announces that the legal case of its clients AWA, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, and David Suzuki Foundation, concerning protection for boreal caribou habitat in northeastern Alberta, is adjourned pending further discussions with the federal government.
November — Initial meetings are held for the multi-stakeholder Bistcho Lake, Cold Lake, and Upper Smoky caribou sub-regional task forces. Target dates for the task forces to complete their recommendations are: Cold Lake area by March ; Bistcho Lake area by April ; and Upper Smoky by September August — Governments of Canada and Alberta release a draft Agreement for the Conservation and Recovery of the Woodland Caribou , which is a conservation agreement under section 11 of the federal Species at Risk Act.
It outlines a proposed 5-year strategy to assist both mountain and boreal woodland caribou populations to become self-sustaining over the long-term. However, it lacks any specific timelines to achieve minimum habitat requirements, lacks funding commitments, and does not mention any interim habitat protection measures. This Agreement is intended to support the Cold Lake caribou population to recover to self-sustaining levels — enough to support traditional Indigenous harvesting rights.
The Alberta government also announces the creation of three new sub-regional caribou task forces that will focus on specific sub-regional planning areas — Cold Lake, Bistcho Lake, and Upper Smoky. These task forces promise to include 12 to 16 stakeholder representatives from indigenous communities, forestry, energy, recreational users, local municipalities, trappers, and environmental groups, including AWA. Sub-regional plans will be built on a foundation of science and socio-economic assessments.
This new park protects both the Ronald Lake wood bison population and partial tracts of the Red Earth and Richardson woodland caribou ranges. Additionally, two draft conservation agreements under section 11 of the federal Species at Risk Act are released for Southern Mountain Caribou in British Columbia.
C ranges affected by these agreements. AWA believes that the bilateral Canada-BC agreement has very fragile aspirations that can be easily postponed. By contrast, the four-way Partnership Agreement between Canada, B. It uses land-use zoning and includes upfront actions such as deferral of new tenure to start to deliver on its stated goals.
AWA comments that this protection is symbolic, affecting very little caribou range area. The protection order is finalized in June November — Alberta MP Linda Duncan addresses the federal cabinet regarding the dire situation of Alberta woodland caribou herds, and the urgent need for the environment minister to issue a safety net order.
May — The Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada determines there is an imminent threat to the recovery of southern mountain woodland caribou , including the Narraway, Redrock-Prairie Creek and Jasper populations of west-central Alberta. AWA welcomes this decision, in part as it protects significant areas of the Richardson and Red Earth caribou ranges, and provides some benefit to the Cold Lake and East Side of Athabasca River populations.
Under the Species at Risk Act SARA section 63, these reports are due every days after a recovery strategy or action plan that identifying the critical habitat is published; the Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou, Boreal Population, in Canada was published in With respect to the protection of critical habitat, while activities likely to destroy boreal caribou critical habitat are prohibited and regulated under various provincial laws, the discretion to authorize these activities e.
March — In early March, the Alberta government holds 1-day multi-sector workshops to discuss potential range plan scenarios for 6 caribou ranges in west-central, northwest and northeast Alberta. It describes current habitat disturbance and population trends by range, and lists potentially useful industry access and habitat restoration strategies. However, it does not include timelines, maps or commitments of how or when minimum caribou habitat requirements will ever be reached.
The federal government issues a 5-year progress report on implementation of the Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou, Boreal Population, in Canada.
It finds that human-caused disturbance in ten Alberta boreal ranges actually has increased since the Recovery Strategy was released; disturbance dropped slightly in the two most remote northwest ranges, Bistcho and Yates. AWA and conservation partners launch the website Caribou4ever.
June — The Alberta government releases a draft range plan for public comment for the west central Little Smoky-A La Peche caribou. The draft plan proposes habitat restoration, energy project guidelines, and some limited short-term forestry reductions but does not indicate how long-term caribou habitat requirements will be achieved in those two ranges.
The Government also commits to establish three Wildland Provincial Parks in northwest Alberta caribou ranges that will not adversely affect existing energy leases, in areas without existing forestry. This initiative contributes to Alberta boreal caribou population data, exchanges Indigenous knowledge, and supports Indigenous peoples to participate in caribou monitoring as well as other careers in Science and Technology. September to December — The Alberta government commits to achieving self-sustaining caribou populations and defers sales of new energy leases in all Alberta caribou ranges until range plans are finalized.
In December, the provincial government appoints a Little Smoky-A La Peche mediator to meet with indigenous communities and with multi-sector stakeholders including AWA, in order to advance range plans for these caribou populations. August — AWA finds that no new energy rights within any Alberta caribou ranges are scheduled for future sales. Two in-range licences covering 24 km 2 , which had been posted for the August 19 rights auction, have since been withdrawn by Alberta Energy.
It reflects early government-industry discussions, scenarios and analysis that excluded indigenous communities and environmental groups. April — In a news release AWA reveals that on April 29 th , in the midst of an election, the Alberta government plans another major auction of new oil and gas leases on 35, hectares km 2 of endangered mountain and boreal woodland caribou habitat, without rules to reduce surface disturbance below current excessive levels.
Since September the Prentice government has auctioned over km 2 of Alberta caribou ranges for oil and gas leases. March — On March 5 th , an AWA news release warns of Alberta government plans to auction new oil and gas leases on 21, hectares km 2 of endangered Redrock-Prairie Creek mountain woodland caribou habitat, in the Kakwa region of west central Alberta, without rules to reduce surface disturbance below current excessive levels.
On March 6, the Alberta government postpones the auction within the endangered Redrock Prairie Creek mountain woodland caribou range. AWA welcomes this decision and calls on the Alberta government to defer further energy lease sales in endangered caribou ranges until effective rules are in place to protect and recover their habitat.
Following this decision, the Alberta government posts new energy leases for sale in the same endangered mountain woodland caribou range in west central Alberta where it cancelled lease sales on March 6. Yet the Alberta government plans to sell off a further 1, hectares of energy leases in these endangered caribou ranges from May 14 th to June 25 th , in apparent disregard of the habitat crisis facing its caribou.
AWA calls on the Alberta government to stop undermining caribou survival chances and to halt new leasing and surface disturbance within caribou ranges. July — The Alberta government extends its deferral of the sale of new mineral rights in Little Smoky to include some forestry activities in the same area.
May — The Alberta government announces that, for the first time, it is deferring the sale of new mineral rights across the entire ranges of two of its fifteen caribou herds — the Little Smoky and A La Peche ranges — until Cabinet first adopts range plans describing how critical habitat will be protected to recover those two populations.
AWA welcomes this decision. March — The Alberta government sells new petroleum and natural gas lease sales in five threatened caribou range areas, despite already unacceptably high industrial disturbance of caribou habitat in those areas. AWA calls on the Alberta government to cease new surface leasing and new disturbance permits in Alberta caribou ranges and to make good on its promises to maintain and restore caribou habitat. Strong public pressure appears to have helped improve the final Recovery Strategy.
AWA calls for swift range plan development by Alberta and on-the-ground actions to meet the targets. The report calls for two huge zones: a Protection Zone in the north, and a Stewardship Zone further south. February — An extended public consultation period on the draft federal Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou, Boreal Population, in Canada ends February 22, The government receives 14, public comments.
Environment Minister Peter Kent suggests the government will delay releasing the final Recovery Strategy beyond the required day window. January — Federal Environment Minister Kent makes a decision not to recommend emergency protection of critical habitat for threatened caribou herds in northeastern Alberta.
AWA comments on the strategy, and is supportive of habitat-related measures: reducing human, deer and elk access into caribou ranges, thereby reducing wolf access. AWA will only support translocation, and limited use of cow-calf penning or predator management, if there is a clear priority placed on habitat-related actions. It certainly disturbs me that wolves have to be killed to protect four caribou calves. July — On July 28 th , The federal court decision is announced in response to legal action by AWA, Pembina Institute, and Alberta Ecojustice, seeking a court order to force federal Environment Minister Kent to recommend emergency protection of critical habitat for threatened caribou herds in northeastern Alberta.
Managing the boreal forest must occur at commensurate scales in time and space. Planning must consider the long term, in accordance with the long-term consequences of present-day human activities in the boreal forest. Such disturbances need to be considered cumulatively. We appreciate that the Land Use Framework provides new tools for establishing new thresholds for development and opportunities for conservation.
We therefore recommend that your government act now to protect key habitats and implement a comprehensive caribou protection plan to ensure that this iconic species is sustained for future generations. The cold temperature and high fresh water content of boreal soils on which caribou live slows decomposition, resulting in deep, carbon-rich soils that can be thousands of years old.
An acre of boreal forest can store two times the carbon of an acre of tropical forests like the Amazon. When the Boreal forest is developed or logged, its ability to absorb and store carbon is lost or reduced, and carbon is released to the atmosphere. A greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere.
High greenhouse gas levels affect global climate. When we protect caribou habitat, we take a big step in combatting climate change by storing greenhouse gasses. As such, woodland caribou is a strong indicator species for the health of the broader boreal. With considerable involvement of CPAWS, the Manitoba government released its draft strategy for the recovery of woodland caribou populations in this province in April , followed by a final strategy in October The next step is for the government to develop action plans for each of the identified caribou managements units in the province.
Two are currently being finalized though others have yet to begin. Though timelines have been set to complete these action plans between and , CPAWS believes the completion of these action plans by October of , as mandated in the national strategy, is crucial to ensure recovery efforts will be seen on the ground before populations see further drastic declines.
As the only proven effective method for ensuring long term caribou survival, CPAWS Manitoba continues to advocate for the recovery of this species through the protection of large-scale, in-tact habitats throughout their range in our province, and the proper management of these areas. We are pleased that CPAWS efforts resulted in the caribou strategy identifying the need for large cores areas for caribou where forestry will not occur.
Eight years. A federal. The Government of Canada and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society reach an important agreement on species at risk reporting. Speak up for. Woodland Caribou. Take Action. Protect Woodland Caribou in Manitoba. Write A Letter. Why are Woodland Caribou Disappearing?
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