“Caribou!” somebody shouts. 

Dozens of people spring from their seats and hurry for the doors of Old Crow’s community hall, sweeping me along. The caribou stew I’d just ladled into my bowl sloshes dangerously around as I stumble out into the sunlight. The Porcupine River is swollen with snowmelt from the Richardson and Nahoni mountains. Chunks of ice wash downstream. Fifteen caribou struggle against the current, the ripples in their wake catching the sun. 

Onlookers watch as caribou swim across the Porcupine River outside Old Crow, Yukon. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd

After five minutes of swimming they reach the far bank. The caribou scramble out from the river and vanish into the spindly spruce trees. People are beaming. The caribou have finally returned.

Visits to Old Crow, Yukon, are the best part of my job campaigning against oil drilling in the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd with the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. I’d come to the Gwich’in community in the Yukon’s northern corner for “Caribou Days.” Locals and visitors compete to fry the best bannock, skin a caribou leg the fastest or toss the most rings onto a set of antlers. In the evenings we feast on fresh caribou then jig and waltz to fiddle music. 

A caribou leg-skinning contest is one of the many community competitions held during Caribou Days in Old Crow, Yukon. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd

Caribou Days is meant to celebrate the return of the herd, as caribou flood north toward their calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Except lately, caribou have been hard to come by. People here have been starving for caribou meat.

Last spring was a poor time for caribou around Old Crow and during recent autumn migrations the herd hasn’t lingered around the community. Caribou are critical to the culture and subsistence way of life of the Vuntut Gwitchin and essential to food security in Old Crow, where a bag of apples can cost $17 and two litres of milk costs $9.99.

Nobody is certain why the caribou have been sparse of late. I’ve heard people suggest low-flying cargo planes are disturbing caribou, while others wonder if changes in the climate and increasing shrub growth could be factors. The scarcity of caribou around Old Crow is a paradox, because the herd is at a record high. However, the recent meat shortages the Vuntut Gwitchin have experienced foreshadow what could happen should the health of the Porcupine caribou herd take a turn for the worse, like many other caribou herds across the North.

Competitors attempt to toss rings onto a set of caribou antlers at Caribou Days in Old Crow, Yukon. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd

Caribou decorate a post outside Old Crow’s community centre, Yukon. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd

In 2017, the U.S. government opened the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge — the heart of the herd’s calving grounds — to oil drilling. Now the administration is fast-tracking an environmental review that would auction away the birthplace of the herd to the fossil fuel industry. 

For decades the Gwich’in have led the movement to protect the calving grounds — efforts that have ramped up since 2017. Lorraine Netro, Norma Kassi, Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm and countless other Gwich’in advocates have made journey after gruelling journey to Washington, D.C., to call for protecting the Arctic Refuge. In March, Chief Tizya-Tramm testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, telling lawmakers “development on the coastal plain amounts to the cultural genocide of the entire Gwich’in Nation.”

It’s in large part thanks to the work of the Gwich’in that the Arctic Refuge stayed off-limits to oil and gas for as long as it did. Once again, the Gwich’in and environmental groups are working to keep drilling out of the refuge by scrutinizing the U.S. Government’s environmental review process, building support for wilderness legislation on Capitol Hill and campaigning for banks to withhold financing for drilling.

The Porcupine caribou herd is one of the last large, healthy, migratory caribou herds on the planet. Farther east in the Arctic, the Bathurst and Baffin herds have declined 96 per cent and 98 per cent over the past 30 years. Collectively the two herds have lost close to 700,000 caribou. 

The Fortymile caribou of the central Yukon and Alaska are a shadow of their former selves — once so plentiful the herd could take ten days to cross the Yukon River, bringing the steamships that plied back and forth to the Klondike goldfields to a halt. The fate of many caribou herds is reflected in the alarming loss of biodiversity around the planet. That makes the Porcupine caribou herd’s vitality all the more incredible, and protecting the herd even more critical.

The late-evening sun, still high above the horizon, gleams through one of the windows in the community centre and casts a square of dazzling light in the centre of the hall. Lorraine Netro lays out caribou antlers, a hide and spruce boughs on the hardwood floor. Many of the people filtering in are dressed in vests and mocassins made from caribou or moose hide and decorated with hand-beaded flowers. There’s a fashion show tonight, then a talent show and another dance. 

A community waltz is part of the Caribou Days celebrations in Old Crow, Yukon. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd

The return of the caribou have lit up the weekend’s festivities and are a reminder of why the Porcupine caribou herd is so important to life in Old Crow. Still, it’s hard to forget the danger that lies ahead. Keeping oil drilling out of the Arctic Refuge calls for monumental efforts from the Gwich’in, and groups like ours that support them in this campaign. Securing permanent protection for the calving grounds could take years, maybe even decades. That’s a long time. But for tonight, it is time for more jigging and fiddle music.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Canadian conservation groups are celebrating the proposed creation of an Arctic marine conservation area in Lancaster Sound, a region long-threatened by the possibility of exploratory oil and gas drilling.

Shell Canada first applied for exploration rights in Lancaster Sound in 1971 and although the related permits were set to expire by 1979 and despite a moratorium on drilling in the region, they inexplicably remained listed on the public registry of active permits.

Those permits, which granted Shell offshore rights in the waters of Baffin Bay, frustrated a decades-long fight to protect the biodiversity rich Lancaster Sound, an area famous for its large populations of narwhal, beluga, walrus and polar bear.

In April Ecojustice on behalf of the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) filed a suit against Shell Canada and the federal government. Ecojustice maintained the expired permits, whose geographical boundaries overlapped proposed protected areas, should be struck down.

On the eve of World Oceans Day, Shell Canada announced it was voluntarily releasing the permits and granted the land to the federal government via the Nature Conservancy of Canada. The federal government in turn announced a five-year plan to establish more ocean protections including the creation of the Lancaster Sound Marine Conservation Area.

Canada is far behind other western nations when it comes to ocean protection. According to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, only 0.11 per cent of Canada’s ocean area is protected from industrial activity. Canada recently announced a plan to raise that figure to 10 per cent, which would bring the country in line with conservation benchmarks achieved in the U.S. and the U.K.

Devon Page, executive director of Ecojustice, told DeSmog Canada he is very pleased with today’s announcement.

"With Shell giving up its permits, a major hurdle to the creation of the Lancaster Sound National Marine Conservation Area has been lifted," he said. 

"That said, the obvious next step would be to move forward with the finalization of the NMCA and making sure that the boundaries proposed by the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and supported by our client are adopted. The Arctic is an incredibly unique and biodiverse region and protecting Lancaster Sound, along with other important marine areas, is essential if Canada is to meet its commitments to protect coastal and marine areas."

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association's proposed boundaries for a marine conservation area based on traditional knowledge of the land. Over the years successive federal governments refused to draft marine conservation plans that aligned with local Inuit boundaries because of Shell’s permits in the proposed zone.

In a previous interview Page said the fact that climate change is opening up the Arctic to oil exploration is a “troubling irony.”

“We need to do whatever we can to stop full-scale exploration of the Arctic,” he said, adding that despite major international climate treaties like the Paris Agreement “you can see no change in behaviour from the oil industry.”

David Miller, president and CEO of WWF, said having a marine sanctuary in Lancaster Sound has been a goal of his organization for many years.

“Lancaster Sound is an incredibly ecologically rich area: it’s rich from the perspective of those who value nature as a critical part of our world that we need to support. It’s also rich from perspective of local people who get their sustenance and basic way of life from the same natural bounty that is there,” Miller told DeSmog Canada in an April interview.

“As the arctic warms quite rapidly we really need to preserve areas like Lancaster Sound and conserve them so ice-dependent species — which will have areas with less lengthy sea ice — will have chance of surviving.”

“There’s no question that climate change is opening up the Arctic to exploration that couldn’t have been dreamed of 15 years ago — not just oil and gas but any resource development on an industrial scale,” Miller said.

Shell gives Up 40-yr fight for expired #arctic permits, opening conservation area https://t.co/4AqMCsEgFZ #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/4wDF8LZsZ2

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 9, 2016

“From an environmental perspective the existence of potentially active permits adjacent to or within boundaries to marine conservation area creates huge obstacle to the potential for creating marine conservation areas.”

Ian Miron, staff counsel with Ecojustice said the legal challenge was “certainly not the first step in this process.”

The government failed for years to explain why the permits were being treated as valid, Miron told DeSmog Canada.

“These permits are under the jurisdiction of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada,” he said. “On their face the permits were scheduled to expire in 1979.”

Image: Lancaster sound. Photo: Christopher Debicki via Pew Charitable Trusts

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The federal government is currently reviewing Arctic drilling laws at the request of the petroleum industry, according to information released through Access to Information legislation.

The memos show a review of the Canada Petroleum Resources Act is underway after Imperial Oil, ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron “requested the [Act] be amended to increase the maximum term of exploration licences to 16 years.”

Licences are currently granted for nine years but the memo, prepared by ministerial staff for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt, notes companies want longer licences because “industry’s interest today is in much deeper water and in areas not previously explored.” 

A second memo states industry identified preferred changes to existing law: “Industry stakeholders have identified changes to the regime, which merit consideration, the implementation of which would require either legislative amendment or changes in federal policy.”

Screenshot of internal memo prepared for Minister Valcourt.

Minister Valcourt Ignored Advice, Broke Rules: Documents

The documents, released to Reuters, also show the government refused to take the advice of bureaucrats who recommended the government use an open-bid process to hire a consultant to review the legislation.

Instead Minister Valcourt appointed former National Energy Board member Rowland Harrison even though in an internal memo staff warned hiring Harrison “through a non-competitive process is questionable” and could be seen as “inappropriate.”

The memos recommend Valcourt initiate an external expert review to “lend credibility to the findings.”

Against these warnings Valcourt hired Harrison to perform the review even though the sole-source contract would violate federal rules for contracts worth more than $25,000, the documents show.

“The documents show very clearly that the review is being conducted at the behest of the oil industry, in response to their request that the law be changed so they can keep their Beaufort licences for seven extra years.” Alex Speers-Roesch, Arctic campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, told DeSmog Canada.

“Reading the documents, it’s hard not to conclude that Minister Valcourt has already decided to give the oil industry what they want, and that the review is happening largely to give those changes a veneer of legitimacy.”

Minister Valcourt is campaigning for re-election in the Madawaska-Restigouche riding in New Brunswick.

Arctic Drilling Expensive, Problematic

Last month Shell announced it was abandoning its Arctic drilling plans, citing high costs and difficult conditions.

Shell made the announcement after a test well failed to produce oil and gas at commercial rates. Backing out could cost the company as much as $4.1 billion in charges, according to the Globe and Mail.

Similar difficulties may be on the horizon for Imperial Oil and BP, both of which announced plans to delay drilling activity in the Beaufort Sea, north of Tuktoyaktuk, this summer, blaming short timelines.

Imperial and BP planned to begin drilling in the region by summer 2020, the same year their exploration licences expired.

According to Lee Willis, Imperial Oil’s exploration operations manager, the companies suspended regulatory work for the project, saying “under the current licence term, there is insufficient time to conduct the necessary technical work and complete the regulatory process.”

Imperial Oil and BP purchased exploratory licences from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada for $1.8 billion.

According to Speers-Roesch, companies like Imperial have “seriously underestimated the challenges of offshore Arctic drilling.”

“Now they want the government to bail them out of their own mess by changing laws and weakening safety rules. “

Speers-Roesch pointed out that Imperial and Chevron have already requested the federal government waive oil spill safety rules required for drilling in harsh Arctic conditions.

“Now they’re asking the government to change the leasing rules because Arctic drilling is harder than they realized, the project is taking longer than they thought, and they don’t want to pay for new drilling licences,” Speers-Roesch said.

Valcourt Rushing Review?

The internal documents also show Valcourt wanted a review of the drilling laws completed by October 1, 2015.

Yet in an e-mail to Greenpeace, provided to DeSmog Canada, Harrison disclosed he will not meet that deadline.

“The terms of my appointment require an interim report by December 18 on the specific issue of the length of exploration licences in the Beaufort Sea and a final report by March 15, 2016,” Harrison wrote.

“Once the election is over, I will provide further guidance as to scope and process.”

Speers-Roesch said the internal documents may show some “disagreement” about when the review would be completed.

“This raises serious concerns that Minister Valcourt is improperly rushing an important government review process in order to satisfy timelines dictated to him by the oil industry,” he said.

“Generally Valcourt seems to be rushing this review. Another reason he may have ignored the open-bid process for the review contract is that he wanted to get the review launched before the election, so the next government would be stuck with it.”

Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada did not provide comment by time of publication.

Valcourt Arctic memo by mikedesouza

Valcourt Arctic memo2 by mikedesouza

Image: Coast Guard News

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Canada will almost certainly not meet its international greenhouse gas emission reduction target by 2020 and doesn’t even have a plan showing how the nation might achieve its climate change goals, according to a blistering new report released Tuesday.

Julie Gelfand, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, said a climate change audit found current federal measures will have little effect on emissions by 2020, the year Canada committed under the Copenhagen Accord to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions 17 per cent below 2005 levels.

Gelfand said in her report that the government has introduced regulations in the transportation and electricity generation sectors.

She noted, however, that regulations in the oil and gas sector — where emissions are growing the fastest — are still not in place eight years after the government first indicated it would regulate this area.

“There is strong evidence that Canada will not meet its international 2020 greenhouse-gas-emission reduction target,” she said. “The federal government does not have an overall plan that maps out how Canada will achieve this target. Canadians have not been given the details about which regulations will be developed, when, nor what greenhouse gas reductions will be expected.”

"Canadians are being grossly misled if they think that this government has even the remotest intention of ever trying to achieve any greenhouse gas targets, let alone join the realm of civilized nations," Liberal environment critic John McKay said in response to the audit.

As DeSmog Canada has previously reported, Canada’s total lack of national climate legislation became international news after a major report highlighted its absence.

Gelfand added the federal government has also not provided the necessary coordination so that all levels of government, working together, can achieve the national target in six years’ time.

The report plays into the growing impression that Canada, often seen as a pariah internationally for its lack of climate change leadership, is too-heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry, especially in Alberta.

The Harper Government, which currently came under fire after Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined to attend the UN Climate Summit in New York City, recently released a public document to highlight Canada’s climate achievements. Critics called the document “Orwellian” for suggesting Canada had made climate progress.

Another audit found that joint Canada-Alberta monitoring projects looking at air, water and biodiversity need to be better integrated to understand the long-term environmental effects of oilsands development, including cumulative impacts.

“Among other questions, the government does not know what Environment Canada’s role will be in oil sands monitoring beyond March 2015,” Gelfand said.

“It has not made clear the rationale for what projects will be subject to environmental assessments, and I am concerned that some significant projects may not be assessed.”

Gelfand’s comments are in line with concerns raised by First Nations in the oilsands’ region, many of which are currently embroiled in legal battles against government and industry for permitting new projects without addressing cumulative impacts that negatively affect treaty rights.

A third audit of the Canadian Arctic revealed that many higher-risk areas are inadequately surveyed and charted with some maps and charts over 40 years old.

“I am concerned that there seems to be no overall vision of what the federal government intends to provide in this vast new frontier, in terms of modern charts, aids to navigation and icebreaker services, given the anticipated increase in vessel traffic.”

Gelfand added this year’s audits show that, despite some initiatives and progress in certain areas, there remain many unanswered questions.

“In many key areas that we looked at, it is not clear how the government intends to address the significant environmental challenges that future growth and development will likely bring about.”

In conclusion, she said Canadians expect the government to prepare for the future and that the difficulty of addressing climate change will only increase as the nation delays.

The environmental footprint of oilsands development is steadily increasing, Gelfand concluded, adding that increased Arctic shipping routes due to melting sea ice will create higher environmental risks.

NDP environment critic Megan Leslie said the results of the audit are “disappointing,” especially given the resource push in the north.

"We have delicate ecosystems in the Arctic. Further to that, there is a really small window right now of when we could actually do that cleanup. We've seen a lot of discussion about drilling in the Arctic and that's one of the major concerns is that if something were to happen, the ice comes pretty quickly,” she said.

“Is there enough time to even clean up the damage that could be done?"

Gelfand also noted an absence of preparatory knowledge. “In each case it is likely that a lack of action today will translate into higher costs tomorrow,” she stated.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Photo Gallery.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Canada's tar sands are one of 14 energy megaprojects that are "in direct conflict with a livable climate."

According to a new report released today by Greenpeace, the fossil fuel industry has plans for 14 new coal, oil and gas projects that will dangerously increase global warming emissions at a time when massive widespread reductions are necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. In conjunction these projects make it very likely global temperature rise will increase beyond the 2 degrees Celsius threshold established by the international community to levels as high as 4 or even 6 degrees.

"The disasters the world is experiencing now are happening at a time when the average global temperature has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius, and they are just a taste of our future if greenhouse gas emissions continue to balloon," the report states.

The report, "The Point of No Return: The Massive Climate Threats We Must Avoid," [PDF] emphasizes the urgent need to move beyond dirty energy if we are to avert catastrophic global warming and includes research provided by Ecofys, a consulting firm specializing in sustainable energy and climate policy.

The research focuses on 14 megaprojects slated to produce as much new carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 alone as the United States produces in an entire year. Together these projects would add 300 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere by 2050, through the "extraction, production and burning of 49,600 million tonnes of coal, 29,400 billion cubic metres of natural gas and 260,000 million barrels of oil." By 2020, these projects would increase global CO2 emissions by 20 percent, placing the world on the path of a 5 or 6 degree Celsius temperature rise.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global emissions increased by 5 percent in 2010 and 3 percent in 2011, right on track for a 5 or 6 degree long term warming. What will guarantee that level of warming is the continued construction of dirty energy projects. What could mitigate the dangerously high temperature rise is the halt of such projects in the next five years.

The Filthy Fourteen

The world's largest and dirtiest energy projects include coal production in Australia, China, the U.S., and Indonesia, oil production in Canada's tar sands, the Arctic, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, Iraq, and Venezuela's tar sands, and gas production in the U.S., Kazakhstan, Africa, and the Caspian Sea.

The Impacts

Ecofys estimates that a business-as-usual approach to energy production would entail "a clear scenario for climate disaster with a 5-6 degree celsius increase in average global temperature." An alternative scenario would involve a carbon budget designed to keep the global average temperature increase below 2 degrees.

"To stay within this carbon budget," according to Ecofys, "cumulative emissions between 2010 and 2050 cannot exceed 1,050 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (Gt CO2e), and global emissions need to start decreasing at the very latest by 2016." Cumulative emissions associated with the 14 megaprojects are estimated to be 2,340Gt CO2e, far beyond the acceptable rate if any progress is to be made to avoid "climate chaos."

The report states "the problem is that investment in energy infrastructure for fossil fuels locks the world into using coal, oil and gas for decades. The IEA estimates that 590 Gt CO2 is already locked in by existing fossil fuel-dependent infrastructure, and building new coal, oil and gas based infrastructure must stop by 2017 to avoid locking in more emissions than can be emitted without overshooting 2 degrees celsius warming."

"After that, the only way to stay below 2 degrees celsius warming is to shut down the many new coal, oil and gas power plants and the new coal mines and oil operations that could be operating, making the task of meeting the target hugely expensive and politically difficult."

The 14 projects would bind us to new carbon intensive investments, further entrenching the problem of fossil fuel reliance within the global economy. The solution, as recommended by Ecofys, is to make a quick and committed switch to clean energy projects which would "provide almost one third of the reduction needed to have a 75 percent chance of avoiding climate chaos."

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.