Whether it be President Bush, Obama or Canadian Leader Philippe Couillard,,,,,,,,,,,,,,all of them bend to the whim of INDUSTRY as it relates to habitat and wildlife protection...............I am just going to say it flat out---WEAK, UNINFORMED AND FLAT OUT WITHOUT EMPATHY FOR OUR FELLOW EARTH TRAVELERS ALL THREE OF THESE S-CALLED LEADERS ARE

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/save-the-caribou-save-the-boreal-forest#sthash.lHycclBk

Save the caribou, save

 the boreal forest

APRIL 7, 2014

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WASWANIPI, April 7 — Endangered woodland caribou
 face increasing encroachment 

on their Canadian habitat, and foot-dragging by the federal
 government to try to halt this

 advance could now doom the species. The cervidae, with
 its large snout and narrow antlers,

 called reindeer in Eurasia, has seen colonists, and later
 forestry, mining and oil and gas 

exploration companies carve out larger and larger swaths
of its vast habitat for human activities.

As a result, its numbers in Canada have fallen steadily over
 the past 150 years. In Quebec

 province, only pockets of caribou remain, largely in the north.

This population nosedive led the federal government in June
 2003 to list the boreal woodland

 caribou as threatened, which requires the environment
minister to prepare a recovery strategy.

But that did not happen.

Frustrated by multi-year delays in sorting out how to save
 the caribou and other species at risk,

 lawyers acting on behalf of five environmental groups —
the David Suzuki Foundation,

 Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club BC, Wilderness
Committee and Wildsight — sued the

 government.

Canada’s diversified economy is still heavily
supported by the exploitation of its abundant
natural resources, and the plaintiffs accused
Ottawa of delay tactics that benefited these industries.

The federal court agreed.

“It is... apparent that the delay encountered in
 these four cases are just the tip of the iceberg,”
 Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish said in her
 decision.

“There is clearly an enormous systemic problem
 within the relevant ministries, given the respondents’
 acknowledgement that there remain some 167
species at risk for which recovery strategies have
not yet been developed.”

Mactavish also ordered court oversight of the process
 to ensure that recovery strategies 

are produced in a timely fashion.

In response to the lawsuit, the government unveiled
 a humpback whale strategy, and issued

 proposed recovery strategies for the white sturgeon,
 murrelet and caribou, which have yet

 to be finalised.

Forest industry lobby

Quebec is home to about a quarter of Canada’s
woodland caribou herds, which are menaced 

not only by federal inaction but also by successive
provincial governments that see wildlife 

protections as hurdles to job creation and economic
 growth. Quebec’s forestry sector employs

 nearly 70,000 people and contributes almost three
per centto the province’s gross domestic 

product. And the industry is not shy about throwing its
 weight

 around.

Liberal leader Philippe Couillard is hoping for re-
election in his hometown district of Roberval,

 a hotbed of forestry activities, when Quebecers
vote today.

His party currently leads in the polls and is predicted
 to unseat the ruling Parti Quebecois.

On the campaign trail, the former neurosurgeon
 commented that saving the caribou would risk

 “thousands of jobs, millions of cubic meters of
wood and (several) pulp mills.”

The Parti Quebecois appears to be equally apathetic
 about the animal’s fate, pledging to invest 

 675CAD million (RM2.01 billion) over three years
to boost provincial logging.

Insisting that it is possible to both save the caribou
and increase forestry activities, outgoing 

Quebec Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet
 said that the current data on the number

 of caribou and their range in the province is flawed.

She added that until the numbers are updated, the
province has no plans to create a nature

 park for the caribou that would be off limits to
forestry firms.

A 2012 report for the government, however,
contradicts the minister’s assertions, providing

 clear numbers and where the animals roam.

Cree tribesmen in Broadback Valley region, about
 1,000 kilometres north of Montreal, have

 been lobbying over the past several years for the
creation of a 13,000-square-km nature

 park on their traditional lands, to protect the caribou.

Cree hunters have also stopped this year hunting
the animal because, they say, of a sudden 

and dramatic decline in the local caribou population.

“We only need some political leadership to protect
 this virgin forest before it’s too late,” said l

ocal Greenpeace chapter head Nicolas Mainville.

Isaac Voyageur, an environmental official with the
Cree tribe, said: “They should draw a line

 between job creation and environmental
 protection.” — AFP

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