Caribou herds, habitat continue to decline
Provinces have taken steps to preserve crucial territory, but Ottawa poised to step in
Canada’s woodland caribou herds and the habitat they need continue to decline five years after the provinces agreed to develop strategies to preserve them, a federal study has concluded.
And all provinces and territories are on a six-month deadline to lay out plans showing how they will keep the animal that’s featured on the back of the quarter on the land. They have already missed one deadline.
“A number of provinces and territories have taken action,” said Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson, parliamen- tary secretary to the environment minister. “That being said, it clearly is not enough.”
But a forestry industry representative said not enough is known about the changing boreal forest to make rules on how much needs to be saved.
“We can’t be cutting corners to the point where it might be doing nothing for caribou and putting thousands of people out of work,” said Derek Nighbor of the Forest Products Association of Canada.
The report, released Tuesday, found that none of Canada’s 51 caribou herds is growing. Twenty are in decline and not enough is known about 21 of them to even estimate their population trend.
The old-growth boreal forests the caribou depend on are also deteriorating. Despite five years of attempts to preserve or rehabilitate habitat disturbed by energy development or forestry, only 19 of 51 ranges met federal requirements to be 65-per-cent undisturbed — two fewer than in 2012. Industrial disturbance increased in 29 of the ranges. Only nine ranges were in better shape.
Last October, a five-year deadline passed for provinces to file detailed plans on how they were going to restore critical habitat. Several provinces, including Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, have released draft plans. Others are expected next year.
Under the Species At Risk Act, Ottawa will now determine whether the provinces have sufficiently protected critical habitat. If not, the environment minister is required to seek a federal order to do it for them.