Alberta’s stance on caribou a test of federal law
A caribou researcher says Alberta’s decision to suspend portions of its draft plan to help the threatened animals recover is the first major test of the federal Species at Risk Act.
The province has sent Ottawa a letter that raises concerns about the socio-economic impacts of the recovery plan.
“It’s a bit surprising and dramatic but it’s actually not, really,” said University of Montana biologist Mark Hebblewhite, who is part of a science advisory group on boreal caribou for Environment Canada. “Not just myself, but lots of other people have seen a showdown like this coming.
“Caribou to me are the biggest national test case of the Species at Risk Act in Canada. To date, we have had very inexpensive species-atrisk problems. This is not an inexpensive species-at-risk problem.”
Alberta’s draft plan is designed to help threatened woodland caribou recover in 15 different ranges.
The province plans to spend more than $85 million in the next five years to restore caribou habitat by eliminating seismic lines, building birthing pens and bringing in other measures. It has already invested $9.2 million and the estimated cost over the next 40 years is more than $1 billion.
“Caribou recovery cannot occur without an infusion of federal funds to restore habitat necessary to ensure population growth,” said the letter from Environment Minister Shannon Phillips to federal counterpart Catherine McKenna.
Phillips said the province will suspend consideration of conservation lands pending further review and the outcome of a socio-economic impact study.
A scientist in Edmonton said he’s seen similar responses on caribou from past Alberta governments.
“When you see governments start to move to any real efforts to conserve caribou, they run up against this enormous task,” said Stan Boutin, a professor at the University of Alberta.
“The reality of it is that things have been changed so much —particularly in Alberta because of our activities — that fixing the problem now is going to cost an enormous amount of money, probably would mean jobs and all of the bad things government doesn’t want to deal with.”