'Elevated risk' of caribou disappearing from oilsands region, memo tells Peter Kent
By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News
There is an "elevated risk" that threatened populations of boreal caribou in Western Canada will disappear before oilsands developers have the chance to restore old growth forests being disturbed for industrial expansion, Environment Minister Peter Kent was warned in a newly released memorandum.
Photograph by: Valerie Courtois , Canadian Boreal Initiative
OTTAWA — There is an "elevated risk" that threatened populations of boreal caribou in Western Canada will disappear before oilsands developers have the chance to restore old growth forests being disturbed for industrial expansion, Environment Minister Peter Kent was warned in a newly released memorandum.
The warning, prepared by Environment Canada for Kent's office and released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation, suggest it could take nearly half a century before industry stakeholders restore critical habitat needed to ensure the survival of the caribou.
"All Alberta local populations of boreal caribou are at an elevated risk of extirpation, particularly the seven local populations in the oilsands area," said the memo, signed by Coleen Volk, an assistant deputy minister from the department's environmental stewardship branch.
"As the restoration of habitat to the stage where it is used again by boreal caribou takes about 50 or more years, management of boreal caribou mortality may be needed over an extended period, particularly for local populations with high levels of disturbed habitat."
The memo, dated Sept 28, 2011, was prepared in the context of a legal battle between environmental groups that have taken the federal government to court for failing to enforce its own endangered species law that required a national recovery strategy for the species, also known as the main symbol on Canadian 25-cent coins, in 2007.
Based on the existing law, a recovery strategy would normally prohibit anyone from harming a species at risk or its critical habitat.But the environmental groups, including the Pembina Institute, the Alberta Wilderness Association and Ecojustice — an environmental law organization — have asked the courts to compel Kent to recommend that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet issue an emergency order to protect the caribou in Alberta from further industrial expansion.
Kent decided to dismiss the regional concerns after determining the species was not threatened on the national scale, the memo said. But he is still consulting provinces to analyze the options for a new national recovery strategy.
Apart from new oil and gas activities, including conventional oil development and shale gas exploration, the boreal caribou populations could also be threatened by forestry and mining activity, the memo said. Various boreal caribou populations are also listed as threatened or vulnerable in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Labrador.
"Habitat destruction leads to increased populations of moose and deer which in turn increases predator populations, mainly wolves, and eventually leads to increased predation of boreal caribou and decline in the size of local populations," wrote Volk in the memo.
"The life history of boreal caribou is different from that of other more northern caribou which form large migratory populations as a means to avoid predation. Rather, boreal caribou depend on large areas of undisturbed old growth forest habitat within which they distribute themselves widely to avoid predation."
The temporary solution emerging in the region has involved the slaughter of wolves in Alberta to prevent the predators from killing the caribou. A spokesman for Kent said that finalizing the recovery strategy was a "complex" issue."The minister is more concerned with getting the strategy right than meeting arbitrary time lines," said Kent's director of communications, Rob Taylor, explaining that there would be more actions announced in the coming weeks.A spokesman for Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen confirmed that the provincial government was consulted on the issue and was confident that Kent was proceeding carefully.
Simon Dyer, the Alberta-based Pembina Institute's director of policy, also said he was pleased to hear the minister was analyzing the issue, but urged him not to take too long.
"Time is of the essence," Dyer said. "We're losing habitat protection every day."
Kent has said the government is now reviewing how to "improve" the Species at Risk Act through new legislation he hopes to introduce later this year. He said the changes could help distinguish between protections for species that are at greater risk versus those that are only at risk in some regions.
The warning, prepared by Environment Canada for Kent's office and released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation, suggest it could take nearly half a century before industry stakeholders restore critical habitat needed to ensure the survival of the caribou.
"All Alberta local populations of boreal caribou are at an elevated risk of extirpation, particularly the seven local populations in the oilsands area," said the memo, signed by Coleen Volk, an assistant deputy minister from the department's environmental stewardship branch.
"As the restoration of habitat to the stage where it is used again by boreal caribou takes about 50 or more years, management of boreal caribou mortality may be needed over an extended period, particularly for local populations with high levels of disturbed habitat."
The memo, dated Sept 28, 2011, was prepared in the context of a legal battle between environmental groups that have taken the federal government to court for failing to enforce its own endangered species law that required a national recovery strategy for the species, also known as the main symbol on Canadian 25-cent coins, in 2007.
Based on the existing law, a recovery strategy would normally prohibit anyone from harming a species at risk or its critical habitat.But the environmental groups, including the Pembina Institute, the Alberta Wilderness Association and Ecojustice — an environmental law organization — have asked the courts to compel Kent to recommend that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet issue an emergency order to protect the caribou in Alberta from further industrial expansion.
Kent decided to dismiss the regional concerns after determining the species was not threatened on the national scale, the memo said. But he is still consulting provinces to analyze the options for a new national recovery strategy.
Apart from new oil and gas activities, including conventional oil development and shale gas exploration, the boreal caribou populations could also be threatened by forestry and mining activity, the memo said. Various boreal caribou populations are also listed as threatened or vulnerable in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Labrador.
"Habitat destruction leads to increased populations of moose and deer which in turn increases predator populations, mainly wolves, and eventually leads to increased predation of boreal caribou and decline in the size of local populations," wrote Volk in the memo.
"The life history of boreal caribou is different from that of other more northern caribou which form large migratory populations as a means to avoid predation. Rather, boreal caribou depend on large areas of undisturbed old growth forest habitat within which they distribute themselves widely to avoid predation."
The temporary solution emerging in the region has involved the slaughter of wolves in Alberta to prevent the predators from killing the caribou. A spokesman for Kent said that finalizing the recovery strategy was a "complex" issue."The minister is more concerned with getting the strategy right than meeting arbitrary time lines," said Kent's director of communications, Rob Taylor, explaining that there would be more actions announced in the coming weeks.A spokesman for Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen confirmed that the provincial government was consulted on the issue and was confident that Kent was proceeding carefully.
Simon Dyer, the Alberta-based Pembina Institute's director of policy, also said he was pleased to hear the minister was analyzing the issue, but urged him not to take too long.
"Time is of the essence," Dyer said. "We're losing habitat protection every day."
Kent has said the government is now reviewing how to "improve" the Species at Risk Act through new legislation he hopes to introduce later this year. He said the changes could help distinguish between protections for species that are at greater risk versus those that are only at risk in some regions.
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