A PLAN COMES TOGETHER
The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement represents a new era in conservation and resource management. Here’s how it’s working in the Saskatchewan River Delta.
F OLLOW a trickle of snowmelt down the eastern slopes of Canada’s Rocky Mountains and into either the North or South Saskatchewan River, past the farms, ranches and industries that keep Prairie towns humming, and, just past Prince Albert, it gets funnelled into the Saskatchewan River before fanning out over the wetlands of the largest inland delta in North America. Here, in the Saskatchewan River Delta, that trickle might just end up under the boat of Gary Carriere, a local guide and outfitter who has plied the delta’s maze of channels to fish, hunt and trap for more than 50 years. A burly guy who says grace with his guests before every meal, Carriere is also the lands and resources councillor for the village of Cumberland House, and he’ll tell you this place he loves is changing before his eyes. Formed about 10,000 years ago from glacial Lake Agassiz, the delta’s one million hectares of shallow lakes, marshes and forest form one of Canada’s most biologically diverse habitats and a major staging ground for migratory birds. “That’s what first brought the Europeans to this area,” says Carriere. “Even back in those days, they recognized it was very plentiful with wildlife; it’s why they built the first inland trading post here in 1774.” For decades, elders from surrounding First Nations have complained that dams and other industries upstream and downstream have negatively affected their way of life — polluting the water with mercury, damaging fishing equipment through fluctuating water levels and decimating the local fish, moose and muskrat populations that they’ve depended on for centuries (see “Hope for the Delta?” in the December 2013 issue of Canadian Geographic). Into this strained history stepped Saskatchewan-based planners from the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, a 2010 pact involving 18 forestry companies and six environmental groups committed to working together to sustainably manage the 73 million hectares of public forests covered by the nationwide agreement. The planning group for the agreement in Saskatchewan is focused on the PasquiaPorcupine Forest Management Area, a two-million-hectare region co-managed by industry signatory Weyerhaeuser and non-signatory Edgewood Forest Products. As with other regional working groups across the country, the Saskatchewan team is aiming to create a plan that achieves both economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. That goal is ambitious enough, but planners are actually faced with an even greater challenge: how to please not just loggers and conservationists but also governments and citizens, including First Nations and Métis who know all too well how big promises and big projects can irrevocably change their way of life.
TO TRY AND MAKE the plan a reality, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement uses a “whole-landscape” approach, a complex undertaking that demands exhaustive talks with communities, in addition to extensive scientific analysis that helps determine what ecological features make each region unique and how to conserve them. The Saskatchewan team was initially lumped in with the Manitoba working group, but it became obvious after the first year of planning that different approaches
would be required. Although both sides of the border are ecologically similar, First Nations and governments from both provinces had different attitudes toward the agreement, and viewed early consultations through a different lens — another reason why whole-landscape planning is so complex. When the team lost its Manitoba representatives, shrinking from six groups to four — forestry signatories Weyerhaeuser and Tolko Industries, along with environmental signatories the Saskatchewan Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and Prince Albert Model Forest — it made it easier to present a united front. “We’ve just let the community take the lead,” says Gord Vaadeland, executive director of Cpaws-saskatchewan. “If we continue to do that, and not worry how we as organizations are going to take credit for it, or capitalize on it, I think we’re much more likely to succeed.” The Saskatchewan working group is primarily focused on creating new protected areas to preserve the region’s intact ecosystems and fast-tracking efforts to protect species at risk, particularly endangered woodland caribou. To determine the size and location of protected areas in the province and throughout Canada’s boreal forest, the agreement’s planners study each region’s natural features and focus on protecting large, intact areas known as ecological benchmarks. Largely free from industrial disturbances, these areas have all the hallmarks of healthy landscapes — including all the wildlife species that historically existed there as well as the ability to withstand natural disturbances such as forest fires — and act as reference sites to help planners understand how the land responds to industrial activity. The provincial government had already protected more than 177,000 hectares to the northwest of the Pasquia-porcupine Forest Management Area and delta, around Seager Wheeler Lake, but the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement’s proposal would encompass that and more than double the protected area to almost
470,000 hectares, covering the upland portions of the delta’s western side and part of the Mossy River watershed that flows into it (see map). Beyond creating new protected land outside of the forest management area, the agreement’s proposed plan would also prohibit logging on lands where woodland caribou are concentrated, and protect buffer zones around those areas to increase connectivity for wildlife. “When the science showed the delta as the spot we should be protecting, my eyes just lit up,” says Vaadeland, who describes his first trip to the region as a life-changing event, especially after seeing the people’s passion for protecting it. “Hopefully, we’ve provided them with a vehicle to somehow make it happen.” With the agreement’s scientific analysis complete and the boundaries set for proposed protected areas, the long and difficult task of convincing others to adopt the plan begins. John Daisley, the agreement’s Weyerhaeuser representative, estimates getting full buy-in from government and others could take up to five years. He’s also quick to point out that the plan could still change after receiving feedback during ongoing consultations. “We’re absolutely up for making changes based on ideas from people in the community,” he says. “We need to work until we get a consensus on these things.” For the parties in the Saskatchewan working group, gaining consensus was relatively easy, since representatives from both sides bought into the science that identified protected areas and conservation zones for caribou habitat. But once that plan is shared with locals, there are many more variables to consider. Within any community, says Daisley, there’s bound to be some skepticism when outsiders come along with a new way of doing things. And that’s especially the case for First Nations and Métis, who have traditional rights on the land. “They haven’t been given that by the government,” he says. “That’s part of their ancestry.”
ON A CRISP, sunny day in late May 2015, the planning team gathers at Mistik Lodge, owned and operated by Carriere and adorned with stuffed lynx, deer and wolves from his past hunting trips. The planners are joined by scientists, local government officials and First Nations representatives, all eager to hear what the agreement has in mind for the delta. Much of the discussion hints at past tensions from losing a way of life to
The delta’s one million hectares of shallow lakes, marshes and forest form one of Canada’s most biologically diverse habitats.
changing times, and decades of dealing with the effects of upstream irrigation and industries, especially the E.B. Campbell Dam, originally called Squaw Rapids when it was built in 1963. “It changed everything,” says Lennard Morin, a longtime representative from the Saskatchewan Métis Nation. “It destroyed the fishing industry in a way, and even the trapping industry.” Morin was involved in the 1989 lawsuit against Saskpower (then called Saskatchewan Power Corporation), the government-owned company that operates the dam, which awarded the Cumberland House community $15 million. But winning the court case did nothing to end the acrimony for many in the area, especially those with long memories. As a boy, Morin recalls hearing the sound of muskrats, beavers, frogs and birds on the delta, and seeing the huge rush of water that would flow through the area during spring breakup. “It would stay about a day then go away, filling the marshes and feeding the muskrats,” he says. “Today that’s history. It doesn’t happen.”
The proposed plan will not solve all the environmental issues that affect the delta, but it can make a difference by protecting some of the ecosystems that have evolved there. Those participating in the meeting at Carriere’s lodge seem to acknowledge that reality — other than a light-hearted suggestion that the protected area should be even larger, no major concerns arise. Later that day, Carriere, who has spent more than three decades leading scientists from all over the world through the delta, says he believes that the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement and the science that underpins it could help bridge the gap between his community and government and industry. As a guide and village councillor, Carriere has been a conduit between the agreement’s planners and the local community, arranging discussions about and trips out onto the land and water. It’s in those many interactions where true collaboration and consultation happens, where traditional knowledge meets ecological science. “I’m no scientist. I just have eyes out on the delta,” he says. “I know a little bit of what goes on here, so I can share that.” When asked if he’s hopeful for the delta’s future, Carriere pauses. For years, he and others in the community have been talking about the urgency of protecting the region. “But we still have a hard time convincing anybody,” he says. Perhaps that’s why the community has, for the most part, welcomed the scientists and the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, and the stronger influence both can exert. “With science on our side,” says Carriere, “I think that together we can convince people that, yes, this place needs to be protected.”
The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement and the science that underpins it could help bridge the gap between community and industry.