Caribou protection deal drafted
Agreement allows some energy drilling to resume as protection plan is designed
Canada and Alberta have signed a deal on caribou protection that gives them years to take action but could allow energy drilling to resume on some ranges.
“I'm very concerned that development is in the fast lane, caribou conservation is slow,” Carolyn Campbell of the Alberta Wilderness Association said Friday.
The deal gives the two governments up to five years to design and bring in range plans for some of Alberta's most endangered herds, which rely heavily on remaining patches of undisturbed old-growth boreal forest.
That same timeline applies to restoring habitat and to avoiding new disturbances.
The plan envisions self-sustaining herds on healthy habitat some time between 50 and 100 years from now.
Campbell and Shaun Fluker, a University of Calgary law professor who follows environmental litigation, agree the deal improves transparency on conservation moves and opens a channel for federal funding.
But it will do little to change the immediate facts on the ground for caribou, said Fluker.
“There's nothing new in the details of restoration and protection. It's the same techniques they're currently doing.”
Caribou conservation has been controversial in Alberta and almost every other province for years, because habitat conservation is seen to conflict with forestry, and oil and gas.
The ranges of five of Alberta's most threatened herds are between 70 and 80 per cent disturbed.
Federal guidelines for healthy caribou habitat suggest the maximum is 35 per cent.
Despite the deal's promises to protect and restore habitat, it also contains loopholes that allow Alberta to develop more of it.
“The agreement lacks interim habitat protection while range plan development is proposed to occur, making it likely that critical habitat disturbance and caribou extirpation risk will continue to increase in the short-term,” said Campbell.
Oil and gas drilling as well as mineral exploration may now resume on caribou ranges if it's “in alignment with woodland caribou conservation and recovery objectives,” the plan says.
Alberta had stopped selling leases on those lands, Campbell noted. She also pointed out the agreement, unlike an earlier draft, doesn't rule out more timber harvesting on caribou range in the short term.
“There's definitely been concerning backsliding in forestry,” she said.
“It provides a framework to advance caribou conservation solutions in the context of Alberta's complex cumulative effects landscape,” said Elston Dzus of Alberta-pacific Forest Industries.
Tim Mcmillan of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers suggested the agreement is good for everyone.
Federal legislation obliges Ottawa to step in to protect herds if provincial efforts are insufficient. Ottawa currently faces a lawsuit over its alleged failure to do so.