Caribou Protection? More Talk than Action

Published on Dec 21 2018

OTTAWA, Dec. 21, 2018 – Today, the federal government released their second report on the boreal caribou critical habitat that remains unprotected, as required under the Species at Risk Act. As per the law, the report is meant to identify where critical habitat remains unprotected on non-federal lands as well as the steps being taken to protect the critical habitat.

One thing is for sure, more people than ever are talking about boreal caribou and the need to protect them. The new report lists many of the discussions ongoing in each jurisdiction across the country, many with Indigenous peoples and government, provincial and territorial governments, as well as with stakeholders and others. Many more discussions are promised in the document as well as through the new federal/provincial or territorial conservation agreements (aka. Section 11 agreements) that have been drafted in the past 6 months.

When it comes to actual new habitat protection however, interim or otherwise, the report notes that the “gaps in protection, as described in the first Progress Report remain”, which is to say caribou habitat remains largely unprotected.

No further detail is provided and in 31 pages of the report, there are only a few mentions of places where new portions of habitat may have been at least partially protected, for example:

  1. The protection of 5,865 square kilometers of caribou range in Alberta thanks to the establishment and expanded the Richardson, Dillon River, Birch Mountains, and Birch River wildland provincial parks under Alberta’s Provincial Parks Act, and
  2. The Dehcho First Nations resolution to designate approximately 14,218 square kilometers of land in the Dehcho region as the Edéhzhíe Protected Area under the Dehcho Protected Area Law (2018) and to finalize the Edéhzhíe Establishment Agreement with the Government of Canada, so that Edéhzhíe can become a National Wildlife Area under the Canada Wildlife Act.

Much of the report focuses on the numerous processes that have started or are ongoing, which, in some cases, set new deadlines for planning for caribou habitat protection, such as the conservation agreements between the federal government and a province or territory.

“It is very disappointing to see that many provinces and territories still done so little to protect habitat, and that many of deadlines for protecting caribou habitat are being projected into the future, when they should have been done by 2017. Caribou are disappearing on the landscape; and the primary driver is human induced disturbance; the lack of critical habitat being protected while new processes are established is a significant concern,” said Florence Daviet, CPAWS national forest program director.

CPAWS has been pushing for these section 63 reports since 2015, started a legal process in 2016, and came to a mutual resolution with ECCC in May 2018 regarding the need to undertake these reports as noted in the SARA.

“The value of these reports is that we can now start tracking whether or not the deadlines set in this document or in the new the federal/provincial conservation agreements described, are met,” noted Ms. Daviet, “and we very happy this is happening for boreal caribou and that in June these reports will also start for all other species where critical habitat has been identified.”

According to CPAWS, an important next step is that ECCC draft a policy for writing these Section 63 reports, so that they can become more effective tools for tracking change regarding the portions of critical habitat that remain unprotected. “We expect the reports will become increasingly focused on what is required under SARA, namely exactly which areas remain unprotected and clear steps being taken to protect the critical habitat,” said Ms. Daviet.

Boreal caribou numbers are continuing to decline.

“The urgency to act is greater than ever.  and if the provinces and territories don’t do their job and protect critical habitat, then the federal government still has a responsibility to step in to protect critical habitat, especially where the species are highly threatened,” said Ms. Daviet.

To read the report: https://wildlife-species.canada.ca/species-risk-registry/virtual_sara/files/reports/Chr-WoodlandCaribouBoreal-v01-2018Dec-Eng.pdf

For interviews or for contacts to provincial or territorial CPAWS representatives working on boreal caribou protection, please contact:

Florence Daviet
National Forest Program Director
613-569-7226 ext. 220
fdaviet@localhost