The B.C. government is lobbying intently behind the scenes to dissuade the federal cabinet from issuing an emergency order to protect the endangered spotted owl, according to a cabinet minister briefing document obtained by The Narwhal.

The document cites socio-economic impacts and B.C.’s “significant protections” for spotted owls as reasons why Ottawa should back away from issuing a rare emergency order to prevent industrial logging in the owl’s old-growth forest habitat.

The spotted owl has become a symbol of B.C.’s failure to protect imperilled wildlife and the province’s on-going destruction of old-growth forests, where the football-sized bird nests in cavities in large trees and preys mainly on flying squirrels and bushy-tailed woodrats. Only one wild spotted owl remains in the wild in B.C. following decades of clearcutting in its temperate rainforest habitat.

About 30 spotted owls live at a B.C. government-funded breeding centre in Langley, where eggs are hatched in incubators in the hopes of reintroducing the owls into the wild. Last summer, captive-bred owls, outfitted with tiny GPS backpacks, were set free for the first time. One owl was found injured and returned to the breeding centre — “apparently hit by a train,” according to the document — while the other two died over the winter. 

In February, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said he would recommend cabinet issue a rare emergency order under Canada’s Species At Risk Act to protect the spotted owl’s critical habitat — habitat scientists deem necessary for the survival and recovery of the chocolate-brown bird with creamy white spots. An emergency order would give Ottawa the power to step in and make decisions that normally fall to the provinces, such as whether to issue logging permits in critical habitat. But Guilbeault didn’t make the recommendation; a legal action the environmental law charity Ecojustice launched in June aims to force the minister to follow through. The final emergency order decision rests with the federal cabinet.

“An emergency habitat protection order could increase protection by 120,000 hectares of suitable habitat that occurs throughout the historic range of spotted owl, which will have significant impacts on forest sector jobs and provincial revenue,” states the two-page briefing note prepared for B.C. Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen and released through freedom of information legislation. “To date, Canada has never provided compensation for socio-economic impacts of emergency habitat protection orders.”

Why emergency orders are rare for species at risk 

Only twice in the 20-year history of the federal Species At Risk Act has cabinet issued emergency orders: once to protect the western chorus frog in Quebec and once for the greater sage grouse in Saskatchewan and Alberta. 

“While [the Species At Risk Act] forces Minister Guilbeault to recommend the emergency habitat protection order, the federal cabinet can consider other factors, including provincial input …” says the briefing note, dated Feb. 3. Public servants prepared the note for Cullen prior to a meeting with Guilbeault to discuss the federal minister’s determination that spotted owls face imminent threats to their survival and recovery, requiring Guilbeault to take action or run afoul of the Species At Risk Act.

B.C. will need to ensure the federal cabinet “is fully informed of both the socio-economic impact of protecting a further 120,000 hectares and the provincial commitment to recovering spotted owls in B.C.,” the briefing note says. It does not elaborate on socio-economic impacts or place a dollar figure on them. 

B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau said the province’s efforts to derail a spotted owl emergency protection order parallel its attempt to quash a potential Canada-U.S. inquiry into transboundary water pollution from Teck coal mines in southeast B.C. 

“There’s a pattern here,” Furstenau said in an interview. “This provincial government puts industry interests over the environment [and] ecological habitat protection.”

“We now have an environment minister and a forestry minister and a water, land, and resource stewardship minister, but none of them seem to be oriented to those things. They are there to make it possible for industry to carry on with its activities on the land in B.C. that have created this catastrophe.”

The planet is in the throes of a global mass extinction event, with 1,800 species officially at-risk in B.C., Furstenau pointed out. “And we have a government that has demonstrated very clearly that it is not going to take the kinds of actions necessary to protect the species that are at risk of extinction.”

She said it’s tragic B.C. is “witnessing the end of a species and can’t recognize that it is our policies, our decisions and our actions that need to change.” 

Spotted owls a political hot potato 

The internal provincial briefing note says B.C. has protected more than 281,000 hectares of critical spotted owl habitat in wildlife habitat areas. It fails to mention some wildlife habitat areas are open for clear-cut logging and target shooting. It also doesn’t mention the B.C. government approved two dozen clear-cuts in spotted owl critical habitat, including in a wildlife habitat area, to make way for the federally owned Trans Mountain pipeline, a seemingly contentious issue the province throws back at Ottawa in the briefing note, saying the pipeline was approved “with little or no mitigation for the captive breeding facility.” 

“Trans Mountain has now agreed to mitigate concerns based on guidance from B.C. staff,” the document says. “It was only through B.C.’s insistence and leadership that Trans Mountain has recently agreed to undertake steps to mitigate these risks.” 

Cullen’s ministry declined The Narwhal’s request for a telephone interview with a subject matter expert, saying no one was available. In an emailed response to questions, the ministry said construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline occurred through horizontal drilling under a right-of-way within 40 metres of a spotted owl aviary at the captive breeding facility in Langley. “The construction occurred during the sensitive breeding window,” the ministry wrote, saying the province has repeatedly raised concerns with the federal government about noise disturbance from the project and “related risks to survival and breeding success” at the breeding facility.

Andrea Olive, a University of Toronto political science professor whose research focuses on biodiversity and conservation policy, dismissed the B.C. government’s claim it has protected sufficient habitat for the spotted owl. “If that were true, the spotted owl would not be in the situation it’s in. Obviously, it doesn’t have adequate habitat. That’s why it’s endangered.”

The provincial briefing note also informed Cullen that staff at Environment and Climate Change Canada were preparing a federal cabinet briefing package for the emergency protection order. In advance of the cabinet presentation, the documents say Guilbeault’s ministry would engage with First Nations whose traditional territory overlaps with the historic range of spotted owls; staff from Cullen’s ministry would “support the development of this engagement and will participate in the meetings in order to ensure that provincial expertise is shared.” 

In an emailed response, Samantha Bayard, media spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the federal government is committed to the survival and recovery of the spotted owl. Bayard said the department is working with the B.C. government “to identify additional measures to protect and recover this symbolic species and its old-growth forest habitat” and has initiated consultations with Indigenous Peoples.

“Consistent with his obligations under the Species At Risk Act, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada will make a recommendation in a timely way to the Governor in Council for measures to protect [the] spotted owl from imminent threats,” Bayard wrote. She said the federal government is committed “to acting on sound science and all available information when it makes decisions.” 

In addition to the findings of the imminent threat assessment that formed Guilbeault’s opinion, Bayard said a number of factors may be considered in emergency order decisions. “These include views shared by Indigenous Peoples, socio-economic and legal considerations, views shared by stakeholders and efforts by the government of British Columbia to mitigate imminent threats.”

“Based on actions taken” by the B.C. government, Environment and Climate Change Canada said Guilbeault has determined the species is no longer facing imminent threats to its survival, but that “imminent threats to its recovery remain.” 

Province calls federal Species At Risk Act ‘inflexible’

The Narwhal asked Environment and Climate Change Canada for a list of actions taken by the B.C. government — aside from announcing logging deferral extensions in the Spuzzum Valley, where the last wild spotted owl lives, and a nearby valley that until recently was home to a single male wild spotted owl, who vanished and is presumed dead. “It appears that the province of British Columbia is the lead on this, and they are currently working on a response,” the federal department told The Narwhal in an email. The federal department also sent a copy of this email to the B.C. environment ministry.

B.C.’s environment ministry passed the buck, saying it is not able to speak to the follow-up questions posed to the federal environment ministry. The provincial ministry also sent the federal government a copy of its email to The Narwhal.

The provincial briefing note calls the federal Species At Risk Act “inflexible” and says the Act contains no provisions for a “science-based, adaptive habitat management approach.” 

Olive and Ecojustice lawyer Andhra Azevedo expressed surprise about provincial officials making these statements.

Laws like the Species At Risk Act are meant to be inflexible, Olive said. “If it were too flexible, it wouldn’t protect anything.”

She said recovery strategies mandated under the Species At Risk law are scientific documents, based on western science and Indigenous Knowledge. “It’s science telling us what the species is, what its habitat and distribution is, what its threats are … If science is saying a threat is habitat loss, and we have scientific reason to believe that that’s true, then the government ought to take action to reverse habitat loss.” 

Azevedo pointed out B.C. has no stand-alone legislation to protect species at risk of extinction, despite a 2017 commitment by the BC NDP, the party in power, to pass it. She said conservation groups like the Wilderness Committee, which Ecojustice represents in the emergency order legal action, have no alternative but to turn to the federal legislation. “The Species At Risk Act is all about a science-based approach, at least in terms of many of its first steps.”  

According to the provincial briefing note, B.C. government experts with decades of experience in spotted owl recovery do not recommend additional habitat protections. Instead, the unnamed experts recommend a “science-based, adaptive habitat management approach.” Such an approach, the note said, will ensure habitat protection measures are “adjusted and applied” as more owls are released and “we learn more about where and how released owls disperse and establish territories.”

Olive said she hadn’t heard of the “adaptive habitat management approach.” The Narwhal asked Cullen’s ministry for an explanation and was told, “This science-based approach to identifying critical habitat was intended to adapt over time as new information is gathered. As an example, monitoring of released captive-born owls will be used to determine habitat requirements and test habitat models.” The ministry also said the “adaptive management cycle” supports the inclusion of Indigenous world views and Indigenous Knowledge.  

The ministry said the federal government will complete a socio-economic impact assessment as part of their cabinet package and “B.C. will support with information as requested.”

Azevedo said an emergency order represents one of the last opportunities to try to recover spotted owls in Canada. 

“It is very clearly time for the federal government to step in, under the Species At Risk Act, and do exactly what the emergency order provision is intended to do — take urgent and emergency action to stop [logging] authorizations that are threatening the ability to recover this species … so that hopefully, the species can start to have a stable population in the wild.”

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.

Parks Canada says Ontario would be violating an agreement between the federal and provincial governments if it goes ahead with plans to open up parts of the Greenbelt for development.

In a letter sent to the Ontario government and a legislative committee, viewed by The Narwhal, Parks Canada said the agreement mandates the province to consult before changing the boundaries of the Greenbelt. It was penned for the protection of Rouge National Urban Park, at the eastern edge of Toronto, which borders a portion of the Greenbelt in Pickering, Ont., called the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. The preserve is among the areas set to be removed from the Greenbelt. 

Ontario hasn’t yet consulted Parks Canada about the removals, said the letter, dated Nov. 29 and signed by Omar McDadi, a field unit superintendent at Rouge National Urban Park. If Ontario goes ahead with the changes to the Greenbelt, it would violate that agreement and likely hurt Rouge National Urban Park, species at risk and farmland, Parks Canada said.

“Should these lands be removed from the Greenbelt and developed as proposed, Parks Canada’s analysis suggests that there is a probable risk of irreversible harm to wildlife, natural ecosystems and agricultural landscapes within Rouge National Urban Park,” said the letter. 

Another complicating factor: the Ontario government has also made verbal promises in the past to transfer part of the agricultural preserve to Parks Canada, the letter said.

“We request a meeting with the province … to discuss the Greenbelt land removal and development proposal at your earliest convenience,” the letter closed.

Melissa Candelaria, a press secretary for Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry Graydon Smith, did not answer detailed questions from The Narwhal, but said in an email that the federal government should be working with Ontario to tackle the housing crisis.

“To say that there is a probable risk of irreversible harm to wildlife and natural ecosystems is incorrect,” Candelaria said, noting that any development would still have to comply with Ontario’s endangered species law, which the Progressive Conservative government has weakened twice.

In a statement, Parks Canada did not answer questions about the contents of the letter, but said it’s a “technical response” to the proposed changes to the Greenbelt and was sent to the Ontario government on Dec. 4.

“Parks Canada looks forward to productive discussions on the issue with the province,” the statement said.

The impacts to Parks Canada compel the federal government to intervene, said Phil Pothen of the charity Environmental Defence. Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault recently warned the provinces that Ottawa plans to put the brakes on development that harms endangered species, saying “the party is over.”

If Ottawa is serious about that, the federal government should take the province to court to enforce Ontario’s agreement with Parks Canada, Pothen said.

“The federal government needs to play hardball,” Pothen added.

Oliver Anderson, Guilbeault’s director of communications, confirmed the authenticity of the Parks Canada letter but said Parks Canada sent it independently. The federal government is waiting to see how the province responds, he added.

“I don’t think there are any what ifs here that we would engage,” Anderson said. 

The Ontario government has proposed opening up 7,400 acres of Greenbelt land for development, a large chunk of which would come from the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark has said the move will help it build 50,000 homes and lessen the province’s housing crisis — though the province’s housing affordability task force said earlier this year that cutting into the Greenbelt isn’t necessary.

The province has also pledged to add 9,400 acres of other land to the Greenbelt to make up for the areas where it plans to remove protections and allow development. Some of that would come from urban river valleys that were already publicly owned and couldn’t be used for construction. The rest would come from a portion of a larger landform west of the Greater Toronto Area called the Paris-Galt Moraine — farmland there is already protected through other mechanisms.

The changes aren’t final yet, but could go through at any time. At least 20 protests against opening the Greenbelt were held over the weekend across the province, with hundreds of Ontarians turning out to ask the government to reconsider.  

Ontario NDP housing critic Jessica Bell said Parks Canada’s letter is another sign that the government didn’t do proper consultations before proposing the Greenbelt land swap. 

“The government has launched an attack on the Greenbelt,” she said. “It will be Ontarians that pay the price.”

Development in Greenbelt could harm at-risk species in Rouge National Urban Park

The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve has long been one of the most contentious parts of the Greenbelt, which the province created in 2005 — a prime location scoped out by developers, but also a place with enormous ecological importance. 

Prominent developer Silvio De Gasperis, a longtime donor to Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives and the owner of the TACC Group of construction and development companies, is listed as a director for companies that own over 1,300 acres of land in the preserve, The Narwhal and the Toronto Star found in an investigation published last month. That land is now slated to be removed from the Greenbelt and opened for development.

The preserve — along with Rouge National Urban Park — make up the last intact corridor between Lake Ontario and the Oak Ridges Moraine, another part of the Greenbelt that marks the headwaters of more than 30 rivers.

The preserve also borders a section of the park known as the Townline Swamp Wetland Complex, “arguably the most ecologically sensitive area” of the park, the letter said. It’s home to “dozens” of protected species, including the Blanding’s turtle, bank swallow, eastern meadowlark, wood thrush, red-headed woodpecker, monarch butterfly and several types of bats. 

The Blanding’s turtle, a threatened species, is of particular concern, Parks Canada said in the letter. Since 2014, the park has worked with First Nations, the Toronto Zoo and the local conservation authority to release more than 500 of the turtles into the wetland complex. “While turtles are released in Rouge National Urban Park, these species move in an unrestricted fashion between the park and the adjacent Greenbelt lands,” the letter said.

Development on those lands could cause a “cascading effect on the quality of habitat in Rouge National Urban Park” and “may also increase the likelihood of flooding” in the region, the letter noted. Parks Canada said it’s also concerned about how the changes could affect farming in the area and 10 First Nations involved in the Rouge National Urban Park First Nations Advisory Circle. 

In 2015, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation submitted a land claim covering the Rouge River Valley to the federal and provincial governments. It overlaps the boundaries of Rouge National Urban Park and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. 

Pothen said the letter confirms that the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is a “crown jewel” of the Greenbelt. 

“The land Ontario has targeted for destruction is not superfluous,” Pothen said. “This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation for the entire Greenbelt.”

Updated Dec. 5, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include a statement from Parks Canada.

Updated Dec. 6, 2022, at 3:54 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include a statement from the Ontario government.

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.

Lake Superior’s last caribou were already in trouble by the time hungry wolves crossed an ice bridge to their island refuges and began hunting them towards the brink.

The gentle-looking creatures with velvety antlers had once been abundant around Lake Superior, where they’d lived for about 10,000 years, since the last ice age. But over the past two centuries — after Europeans settled on the Great Lakes — human development whittled away at their habitat. Most had retreated from the mainland to islands just off the shore. The caribou were backed into a corner.

The ice bridge formed in the winter of 2013-14, kicking off a years-long wolf banquet. The steady decline of the caribou quickly escalated into an emergency. In 2018, under pressure from conservationists, the Ontario government worked with Michipicoten First Nation to airlift the caribou to safer homes in a bid to buy time. They persist — for now — just out of the wolves’ reach. 

But the clock is ticking: the tiny, even more remote islands they’re living on for the moment don’t have the resources to support very many of them, and one likely can’t support them forever. And while the Lake Superior caribou face the same threats as their relatives across the country, the unique traits that have allowed them to hang on this long mean their survival could be important for their species as a whole.

“They don’t deserve to be wiped out. It’s no fault of their own,” said Gordon Eason, a biologist who’s retired from his former job at Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, and lives in Wawa, Ont., on the lake’s northeastern shore. “It’s just that things have changed around them. There’s kind of an ethical thing there, that we owe them something.” 

The slow death of the Lake Superior caribou has happened on the watch of successive governments who have failed to stop, let alone reverse, the damage. Recent decisions made by Premier Doug Ford’s government to water down endangered species law, including exempting logging operations, likely won’t help. Advocates say a new deal ostensibly aimed at protecting caribou, struck between Ontario and Canada earlier this year, probably won’t either — it was widely decried by environmental groups, who said it “ignores the negative and cumulative impacts [of] industrial logging, road building, drilling and blasting.” 

“That conservation agreement is a lot of words that really say nothing,” Chief Patricia Tangie of Michipicoten First Nation told The Narwhal. “There’s no commitment for protection.”

The situation leaves locals, First Nations and scientists with plenty of fodder for debate. How far are people and governments willing to go to keep the herd alive? What does restoring nature mean when nature, as it exists right now, isn’t the natural state of things at all?

“It’s not as simple as saving caribou,” said David Wells, who runs a Wawa-based guided tour company called Naturally Superior Adventures. He and Eason often debate the fate of the Lake Superior caribou for an audience of Wells’ customers. Wells says he plays devil’s advocate against Eason’s staunch protection stance for the sake of getting the audience thinking.

“It’s much more complicated than it appears on the surface.” 

The long decline of the Lake Superior caribou

Woodland caribou, a species that includes the Lake Superior herd, have a vast but shrinking range stretching through forests across nine provinces and territories, all the way from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia and the Yukon. They have long been important for Indigenous people, who hunted them sustainably since time immemorial. 

“They’re our relatives,” Tangie said of the caribou. “I think that’s one of the most important things to remember. Just like we would not harm our aunties and uncles or our brothers and sisters, we wouldn’t harm them knowingly.”

For the last few centuries, settlers have been pushing them towards extinction. Just 14 herds in Canada are healthy enough to sustain themselves. Another 37 are hanging on with human help. In B.C., complex caribou conservation efforts have involved helicopters and 24-hour security. 

Even protecting big chunks of land isn’t a guarantee caribou will survive: in Alberta, Jasper National Park is looking to boost its dwindling population by capturing and breeding some caribou before releasing them back into the wild. One herd in the park died out in 2020 and two others are too small to survive on their own. Just to the south, Banff National Park’s last five caribou were wiped out in an avalanche in 2009. 

At the time, an expert warned that if caribou could perish in Banff, they could be wiped out in other protected areas too. The grim prediction appears to have come true in Pukaskwa National Park on Lake Superior, a two-hour drive northwest of Wawa. In a paper published in 2015 in the journal Écoscience, scientists concluded that the Pukaskwa herd was likely gone for good. 

“The numbers just got to a point where they weren’t going to go anywhere but down,” said Brian McLaren, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of wildlife biology at Lakehead University’s department of natural resources management.

The Pukaskwa caribou had been one of a few scattered herds left on Lake Superior, where not too long ago they were abundant. They used to live on the southern shore, too. The places named after them are still there — a river, a trail and even an American coffee chain.

“If we turn the clock back, say 150 years, the distribution of caribou did go well into Minnesota, into Wisconsin, and there were caribou in Algonquin Park,” McLaren said. “They were well established, even in the middle range of the Great Lakes.”

That began to change in the late 1800s. Over time, roads, agriculture, railways, mining and logging cut the Lake Superior herd off from their relatives to the north, leaving a gap of about 100 kilometres between them by the 1970s. The Ontario government now calls this the “discontinuous distribution” area. 

The first problem was years of unchecked hunting by settlers. The second was the clearing of habitat. Not only did it cut off the Lake Superior herd, the southernmost caribou in Canada, it also made places where caribou live more appealing to moose, which thrive in the young forests that spring up after logging. Where the moose went, wolves followed. (Years of heavy snow inland from Lake Superior likely also drove moose towards the shore.)

There had always been some wolves in the area, which was alright since caribou space themselves out in their habitat to avoid predators. But soon there were too many. And as settler development sped up, so did the imbalance between predator and prey. By the 20th century, wolves were able to use human-made corridors like roads and hydro lines to catch them even more effectively. 

‘All of a sudden, they’re trapped’ as climate change reduces ice on Lake Superior

By winter 2013-14, a handful of individual caribou were making do on the shoreline. But the real strongholds were Michipicoten Island, a lush oval-shaped haven formed by volcanoes, about 80 kilometres southwest of Wawa, and the Slate Islands, an archipelago created by a meteorite, about 130 kilometres northwest of Michipicoten. 

Then, those fateful ice bridges formed. Just as importantly, they didn’t form frequently in the winters that followed.

More of Lake Superior used to freeze over more often, allowing caribou and wolves to move freely between the mainland and islands just off the coast. Wolves could pursue the caribou, but caribou were also able to escape. Or, once the number of caribou got too low to support the wolves, the predators would move back to the mainland to find more abundant food. 

But with Lake Superior warming the fastest of all the Great Lakes, ice bridges are less predictable. And though caribou on the Slate Islands used to swim some distance out into the lake, maybe even as far as the mainland they now seem to have forgotten how. McLaren said scientists aren’t sure why — one hypothesis is that the individuals who held that knowledge were killed by wolves.

In any case, in the winter of 2013-14, the two species got stuck together on the tiny islands. 

“All of a sudden, they’re trapped,” Eason said. 

Christian Schroeder has a camp on Michipicoten Island and used to watch caribou of all ages at his backyard salt lick the way some people watch bird feeders. But in the years after the ice bridge, he said, the calves disappeared and the number of caribou visitors shrank. He and his partner stopped visiting the island, worried that the wolves would run out of prey and hunt humans instead. 

Feeling powerless, he started working with Eason to advocate for the caribou. For years, locals, including Michipicoten First Nation, pushed the province to act but were “just dismissed as loonies,” Schroeder said. As the herd’s numbers plummeted, the Ontario government studied interactions between caribou and wolves, but for a long time didn’t do anything more. 

“It’s a story of disaster and mismanagement and lack of prioritization,” Schroeder said. “If we couldn’t save them here in what represented an opportunity for some pretty straightforward solutions … it does not bode well for conservation of any species at any place.”

Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment — which is responsible for endangered species, including woodland caribou — didn’t respond to questions from The Narwhal about whether it feels officials responded quickly enough in the face of those concerns. 

In early 2018, the total population of caribou on the islands had fallen from almost 1,000 to under two dozen. About 15 remained on Michipicoten Island. Two males were left on the smaller Slate Islands. Unable to reproduce, they were essentially extirpated, or locally extinct. “I can’t watch things like that happen,” Tangie said. “It’s my responsibility and a responsibility that Creator gave me … I have to become involved in ensuring that our relatives are at peace.”

At the last minute, the province worked with Michipicoten First Nation to arrange airlifts. Provincial staff led some, dropping a net over caribou from a helicopter and sedating them, covering their eyes and bundling them up for the flight. Michipicoten moved the others without tranquilizers — Tangie said the drugs made the caribou stagger and get icicles in their fur. Instead, she said, they used net guns to capture the caribou, bound their legs, covered their heads and gently stroked them to make the airlifts possible. They stayed calm until they reached Caribou Island. “It was done in a way that was gentle and respectful,” she said. 

All told, nine caribou were moved from Michipicoten to the Slate Islands, which wolves had abandoned by then due to lack of prey. The rugged, rocky archipelago just offshore is covered in boreal forest that supports the lichen caribou like to eat. Another six went to Caribou Island, which is so far into Lake Superior that it would be impossible for wolves to reach it.

Part wetlands and part golden sand dunes, the forlorn isle has shimmering cerulean waters that could easily be mistaken for the Caribbean if they weren’t so cold. It’s far from danger, too. Michipicoten Island is just visible from its north end, as is the mainland, far off to the east. To the south and west, there’s nothing but waves, the horizon and the occasional boat breezing by. 

Still, despite its name, it’s not actually ideal for caribou. They don’t usually live in sandy habitats, though the island does have enough forest for a few caribou to persist. Like the Slate Islands, it’s too small of an area to support more than a modest herd. 

“We think its carrying capacity is, you know, probably getting close to it right now. Probably 30 animals, something like that,” Eason said. 

So far, this batch of airlifted ungulates is doing okay. Exact tallies are hard to come by, caribou being elusive and all, but Eason said it looks like the number on the Slate Islands is now in the high 30s, and the mid to high 20s on Caribou Island. Their survival is especially important because he hasn’t heard of any caribou sightings on the mainland in several years — the last provincial survey was in 2016 — and advocates now fear the island caribou are the only ones left.

This wasn’t the first time Ontario tried moving the caribou around: the government also coordinated airlifts in the 1980s, when Eason was working there. It worked for a time, but without proper support, those herds mostly winked out within a few decades.

‘Are we guardians, or are we gardening?’ Not everyone thinks these intense efforts will pay off

The Lake Superior caribou can’t stay on the small islands forever. Even if the islands could sustain more of them, it starts to get weird, genetically speaking. Inbreeding is risky for the health of the herd.

“You’re starting off your population with just five Y chromosomes,” Eason quipped. He said the individuals who’ve lasted this long are likely the fittest and most clever of their kind — with traits that could be useful if they’re ever to re-establish a self-sustaining population near Lake Superior. 

Those fit, clever genes are the subject of work by EcoGenomics, a national caribou monitoring project funded by several groups, including the research non-profit Genome Canada. Its long-running work is meant to improve wildlife monitoring practices across the country, with a team led by Paul Wilson, a professor of conservation genomics at Trent University’s biology department, and Environment and Climate Change Canada research scientist Micheline Manseau.

Over the past two years, the team has received provincial funding to study caribou in Ontario, in partnership with Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry ecologist Jeff Bowman. They analyzed samples of DNA left behind in blood from wolf kills and roadkill, as well as fecal matter, and used them to sequence genomes. 

“We try to be as minimally invasive as we can when there’s so few caribou left,” said Kirsten Solmundson, a PhD student at Trent who’s focused her work on Lake Superior caribou.

The team has been able to distinguish between the genomes of Lake Superior caribou and herds in other parts of Ontario, a key piece of information for future conservation plans. “If effort’s put in, we can get the genomes of all these individuals, and really help drive the decision making,” Wilson said. 

EcoGenomics’ dataset includes different regions of Ontario. It has some historical data, too, which allows researchers to see how caribou have adapted over time, and how they might adapt to climate change. It could even give hints as to which of the Lake Superior caribou would be most likely to survive and breed, should they be moved somewhere else again.

And more moves certainly seem to be in the cards. A year after the caribou were moved to the islands, wolves from Michipicoten Island were trapped and sent to Isle Royale National Park on the American side of Lake Superior, to keep its moose population in check. If the predators are truly gone, Ontario could eventually move the caribou back to Michipicoten Island, which the province said was its goal back in 2018. 

But that possibility raises complicated questions: what happens the next time the lake freezes over? Would wolves have to be culled, or moved themselves? Or would the caribou be relocated yet again? What are the long-term impacts on animals being constantly airlifted from place to place?

As for Wells, the tour operator, he says that not only does he want the caribou to survive, but his business benefits from them being around. At the same time, he worries that more human intervention isn’t helping. 

“Are we guardians or are we gardening?” he said. “Every time we do something, it affects something else. So how far do we meddle in nature?”

Opinions on intense conservation efforts also differ among the region’s First Nations. 

Michipicoten First Nation would like to bring caribou from both Caribou Island and the Slate Islands back to Michipicoten Island to restore some genetic diversity. There’s no word on whether the government wants that as well. “They’re not listening,” Tangie said, despite treaty provisions that require sharing the land, and respecting Indigenous jurisdiction. 

In the long run, Michipicoten wants to bring caribou back to protected areas on the mainland like Pukaskwa in partnership with other First Nations. 

Biitigong Nishnaabeg, on the northeast coast of Lake Superior, has said it has a “strong aspiration” to re-establish a strong, healthy caribou population on the mainland, and that it’s taking that goal into the community’s own hands due to the Ontario government’s “lack of progress.” (Chief Duncan Michano wasn’t available for an interview by deadline.)

On the other hand, the Ojibwe community of Red Rock has opposed caribou restoration efforts since at least 2019, when the nation raised concerns about how the corridors could affect forestry and mining.

In an interview, Chief Marcus Hardy told The Narwhal the community is against reconnecting Lake Superior caribou with northern herds because it would involve creating corridors that would infringe upon his community’s right to use its territory for hunting, gathering traditional medicines and building. He added that elders in the community, on the mainland northwest of the Slate Islands, say there were never caribou in their territory anyway. 

“The Canadian and Ontario governments have a real long history of trying to play God, even with our people, and it never works,” Hardy said. “We’ve never ever had an issue with conservation or management. We’ve always lived with the land.”

The Ontario government, for its part, consulted the public on different approaches to managing the Lake Superior caribou in 2018 but hasn’t yet announced a decision. 

“The ministry continues to focus efforts on monitoring and securing the island caribou populations, specifically the Slate Islands population,” Environment Ministry spokesperson Gary Wheeler said in an email.

Sometimes, Lakehead biologist McLaren worries the writing was on the wall long ago. But when he remembers seeing caribou on the Lake Superior coast in decades past, he finds it hard to believe they truly can’t come back. “They’re kind of magnificent animals,” he said. “They make a good sort of canary in the coal mine … if they can remain it means that we’re managing habitat well, but I think we’re still many years from that.”

In mid-August, Tangie, Eason and a crew of caribou enthusiasts crossed the choppy waters to Caribou Island to check on the herd. 

All seemed calm. Though the caribou stayed hidden, a salt lick left for them had long since been polished off. A trail camera had captured 95,000 images of them passing through. And among the hooved footprints lining the beach, the group found a few tiny tracks: a little bit of hope, showing this year’s calves are alive and well. 

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.

B.C. is failing to protect nature and has missed international targets for conserving wildlife and biodiversity, according to a report card released on Thursday that gives the provincial government a failing grade in four out of five key categories. 

“Biodiversity is the backbone of life,” said Charlotte Dawe, conservation and policy campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, which co-published the report with environmental law charity Ecojustice. “Yet B.C. governments, past and present, somehow remain ignorant to this reality. Their dismal actions prove they don’t understand the severity of the biodiversity crisis.”

The 22-page report calls B.C. a “poster child” for the global biodiversity crisis because it has both the greatest biodiversity in Canada and the most species — more than 1,300 — at risk of extinction. 

“It’s disappointing to see that the province still has far to go to implement the necessary measures to protect biodiversity and habitat for species at risk,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said in a statement. 

Grades in the report card are based, in part, on whether B.C. has met 2020 international targets to conserve the planet’s wildlife and biodiversity — targets which Canada committed to in 2010 at an Aichi, Japan, meeting of signatories to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

“We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis on par with the climate crisis, and all governments need to step up to meet this challenge,” says the report, released two days before the International Day for Biological Diversity. “At the end of the Aichi decade, it’s time to evaluate how B.C. did.” 

In the category of protection and recovery of species at risk, B.C. earns an “F” for being one of the few Canadian provinces without an endangered species law. 

The NDP government promised to enact such legislation during the 2017 election campaign — a pledge upheld in Premier John Horgan’s first mandate letter for Environment Minister George Heyman. But, once elected, the party reneged on its commitment. Heyman’s 2020 mandate letter does not mention endangered species legislation. 

The report notes the province hasn’t met the requirements it agreed to in the 1996 Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk in Canada. Shortfalls include failing to provide immediate protection from harm and long-term habitat protection for threatened and endangered species and preventative measures to keep species from becoming at-risk. 

The report uses the fisher, a furry animal the size of a cat but stretched out like a limo, as a case study. Even though interior fisher populations were red-listed last year, meaning they are endangered, and boreal populations remain blue-listed, meaning they are vulnerable to extinction, the B.C. government approved winter trapping for fisher, the report points out, saying “it is not typical for red-listed species to be harvested.”

Ecojustice and Wilderness Committee are calling on B.C. to enact a stand-alone endangered species law or an overarching biodiversity law to protect and recover species, underscoring in the report that “habitat protection is the ultimate test of whether a species or other biodiversity law is likely to be effective.” 

B.C. gets ‘F’ for ecosystem protection and recovery

The report also debunks the B.C. government’s claims that it protects and recovers species at risk through “complex” ecosystem approaches, noting, “It doesn’t,” and giving the province a “F” for protection and recovery of ecosystems. 

“When paired with effective endangered species laws, protecting ecosystems can be a good way to protect and recover biodiversity,” the report states. 

To protect and recover ecosystems, the province would generally need to protect 50 per cent or more of each ecosystem or region for this approach to save most of B.C.’s wildlife, according to the report. “B.C. protects far less than this, with many endangered habitats receiving well under 10 per cent protection.”

The report uses the example of B.C.’s coastal Douglas-fir zone, found on low elevation areas on parts of the mainland coast, the Gulf Islands and the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island. The zone is one of the smallest and rarest biogeoclimatic zones in B.C., covering only 0.3 per cent of the province, and is one of Canada’s most endangered ecosystems. It’s also home to the highest number of species at risk in B.C, including Garry oak trees, northern goshawk, marbled murrelet and the Vancouver Island screech owl. 

But despite its rarity and importance, the Douglas-fir ecosystem is the least protected zone in B.C. and has the lowest number of protected areas greater than 250 hectares, most in “small, isolated parcels surrounded by development,” the report notes.

Another Aichi commitment requires the province to reduce the loss of all natural habitats by 50 per cent from 2010 levels. “B.C. failed to achieve this,” the report says, assigning another “F” and noting that B.C. does not have the laws necessary to achieve this target.

For example, the province’s forestry laws prohibit the government from reducing the industrial timber harvest by more than one per cent, “even when much greater reductions are needed to protect biodiversity,” the report says. Yet it also notes B.C. has an opportunity to make up for lost time by protecting significant proportions of native ecosystems and ensuring habitat loss is reduced by more than 50 per cent from 2010 levels.

In a fourth category, called “other laws to protect biodiversity,” B.C. also scored an “F.” B.C. claims to protect biodiversity through several different laws that regulate specific industry sectors, such as forestry or oil and gas. “It doesn’t,” the report bluntly states.

The B.C. government’s sector-specific approach “has created a patchwork of rules that do not effectively or consistently protect all species at risk or their habitats from all types of human-related impacts across all types of land use,” the report observes.

It points to an old-growth strategic review panel established by the NDP government which proposed that the province enact a new, overarching biodiversity law to prioritize ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation across all sectors. 

“B.C. has not made any progress towards enacting such a law,” the report says, noting B.C. could become a world leader in the protection of the natural world if it developed a strong, innovative biodiversity law in cooperation with Indigenous groups. 

B.C. scores slightly better on parks and protected areas, though still falls short

Only in the area of parks and protected areas did B.C. achieve a passing grade, scoring a “C-.” The Aichi biodiversity targets required that Canada protect at least 17 per cent of its land-base by 2020 and the province came close to the goal, protecting 15.5 per cent.

B.C.’s grade was not higher in this category because it received poor marks for the transparency and reliability of claims about the amount of land covered by what the province calls “other conserved” areas and for the “poor connectivity and representativeness” of protected areas. 

The B.C. government says almost 20 per cent of the province has been protected, but the report says that claim is based on “dubious provincial accounting.” 

B.C. is the only province to make significant use of a category called “other conserved areas,” which the provincial government says adds an additional four per cent to the protected areas tally. But most of the four per cent has not been set aside for long-term protection and falls into areas where considerable industrial development is still permitted, Ecojustice and Wilderness Committee note.

According to standards accepted by B.C., areas should only be considered protected or conserved “if all industrial development incompatible with biodiversity conservation is prohibited, and if protections are intended to be permanent,” the report notes. 

It says B.C. must develop and implement a strategy for meeting future Canadian and international targets for its legitimate protected areas, including 25 per cent by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030. 

Wilderness Committee and Ecojustice are also calling on the B.C. government to promote Indigenous-led conservation in order to meet Canada’s targets for protected areas and commitments in keeping with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. 

A UBC-led study that analyzed data from Australia, Brazil and Canada found the total numbers of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles were the highest on lands managed or co-managed by Indigenous communities.

Grand Chief Phillip said it is “well past time” for the province to prioritize biodiversity conservation and work with First Nations to establish protected areas in accordance with their own conservation commitments and the Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples Act.

The report card comes as scientists around the world warn we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction event in the planet’s four-billion-year history. As many as half of all species on the planet may be headed toward extinction in the next 30 years, largely due to habitat destruction.

Ecojustice executive director Devon Page said the B.C. government has a window of opportunity to take strong, innovative action in partnership with Indigenous groups to protect and restore the province’s species and natural systems. 

“Without that action, we stand to lose much of what makes B.C. a beautiful and healthy place to live,” Page said. “To borrow a phrase from Premier [John] Horgan, ‘do not blow this for the rest of us.’” 

Updated April 27, 2021, at 10:46 a.m. PT: This article was updated to clarify that B.C. isn’t the only province to have a category of “other conserved areas” but is the only province to make significant use of such areas.

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.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) watered down a scientific report to downplay threats to endangered Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead, documents obtained by the B.C. Wildlife Federation through access to information legislation reveal.

The nearly 2,700 pages of internal documents and emails show DFO scientists, as well as their provincial and independent counterparts, were caught off guard by edits the DFO Assistant Deputy Minister’s Office made to a report regarding the potential for the two declining steelhead populations in B.C.’s Fraser River watershed to receive special protections.

The report, which was meant to inform the DFO’s decision on whether to list Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead under the federal Species at Risk Act, was weakened to downplay the risks to steelhead, to the dismay of scientists involved in the process, the documents show. (The documents in their entirety are available at these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)The emails shed new light on a July 2019 decision made by Jonathan Wilkinson, then minister of Fisheries and Oceans, to not list the steelhead populations under the act, which would have given policy makers more leverage to manage for their decline in the Fraser River.In October 2018, a month before the altered report was eventually published, the chair of the Canada Science Advisory Secretariat’s steelhead review warned the changed document was undermining the scientific credibility of the process. The secretariat conducts peer review of science advice for DFO.

“The ongoing involvement by people who were not part of the process, who have not been involved in the development of the materials or the advice, continues to compromise our ability to meet the deadlines as well as the scientific integrity of the process,” Sean MacConnachie, a DFO scientist who advises on the species at risk program, wrote in an email contained within the released documents.

One month later, after the report was made public, Jennifer Davis, provincial director of fish and aquatic habitat for the B.C. Ministry of Forests, warned DFO the altered wording in the report did not reflect the scientific consensus. But DFO did not act on these concerns.

The published report summary, Davis wrote, was “inconsistent” with the joint science team’s conclusion that immediate action was needed to reduce steelhead mortality, including changes to commercial fisheries, in order to give the fish a chance at recovery.

“The report, as published, downplays the threats associated with salmon fisheries bycatch mortality,” members of a B.C. science team warned in another email.

Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead spawn in tributaries of the interior Fraser River, where both species have experienced population declines of about 80 per cent over the past two decades. Last year’s numbers were the second-lowest on record for Thompson steelhead and third-lowest for Chilcotin, with 180 Thompson steelhead and 81 Chilcotin counted. In 2019 numbers showed the lowest returns for both populations in history.

Steelhead are trout that behave much like salmon and share a similar pink meat. Like salmon, steelhead are anadromous, meaning they hatch in fresh water, live in the ocean as adults and return to where they hatched to spawn. Unlike salmon, which die after they spawn, it’s possible for steelhead to spawn more than once and live to a ripe old age of about eight years (though some exceptional fish may survive more than 10 years).

Jesse Zeman, director of fish and wildlife restoration for the B.C. Wildlife Federation, said the fact scientists had their findings unilaterally altered by DFO officials raises questions about the process of getting species protected under the Species At Risk Act.

“If DFO cannot do this [process] with integrity and do it properly based on science, this will domino into all of the runs of salmon that are headed for endangered status,” he said. 

“The Fraser is dying … If DFO will edit the science, we have no hope.”

In 2020, the Fraser River experienced historic lows in the sockeye salmon run. In November of 2020, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada listed more than half of the 12 chinook salmon populations in southern B.C. as endangered, threatened or of special concern. Only one population is not at risk, while three populations could not be assessed due to deficient data. 

Zeman said he believes the trouble in getting fish listed under the Species at Risk Act stems from problems with management at DFO and not scientists, who he believes are “not listened to.”

He added that DFO still hasn’t made the Canada Science Advisory Secretariat’s steelhead peer review proceedings public, even years later.

In an emailed statement, a DFO spokesperson said Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead will be considered for listing under the Species At Risk Act again, because the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has reassessed the populations as endangered. 

The spokesperson also said DFO plans to continue rolling closures for salmon fisheries this year. DFO is also considering additional measures to reduce steelhead bycatch, which will be released in early July within the Salmon Integrated Fisheries Management Plan.

“The Government of Canada understands the importance of these two steelhead trout populations to British Columbians and shares the concern about the decline in steelhead trout returns,” the spokesperson said.

‘Every fish counts’

Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead migrate in the Fraser River at the same time as Pink and Chum salmon, two commercially valuable fish. Listing Fraser River steelhead populations under the Species At Risk Act would likely mean curtailing those salmon fisheries. 

The problem is steelhead end up as bycatch of the major salmon fisheries, which makes it less likely as many will survive and return to spawn, Zeman said. 

Even if just 10 fish are bycatch, that could be a tenth of the spawners returning that year, he pointed out.

“When numbers are that low, every fish counts,” he said.

The documents corroborate assertions made by the B.C. government in 2019 that DFO was burying scientists’ concerns about the endangered steelhead. B.C.’s then-deputy minister of the environment, Mark Zacharias, wrote a letter to his federal counterpart in which he said DFO changed conclusions in the report to “support status-quo commercial salmon harvesting.”

The newly released documents reveal how these conclusions were changed. Notably, the original report summary recommended that “the lowest possible allowable harm should be permitted at this time” and that “ … exploitation be reduced below current levels of exploitation wherever possible.” That was changed by DFO to read “allowable harm should not be permitted to exceed current levels.”

“Allowable harm should not be permitted to exceed current levels?” asked one scientist in an email. 

“So I guess the [report] concludes that continued decline in the abundance of the [Designatable Units] is OK because that is what is happening under current exploitation rates?”

A DFO scientist agreed it was a “big change from the language that was settled on at the meeting.”

Another DFO biologist, Scott Decker, said that the body of the report was “much more in agreement” with the science team’s assessment, but the summary allows the reader to conclude current exploitation rates are acceptable and that “exploitation doesn’t really have much influence on recovery probabilities.”

Davis also emphasized how important it was to acknowledge the impact of fisheries on steelhead.

“With two years of lowest-ever returns, what we have been doing isn’t working … we need to immediately take actions to stem any further declines to the extremely low numbers in order to have a chance to recover,” Davis wrote in a 2018 email.

But further protections didn’t come, and another two years of record-low returns followed.

DFO ‘cannot be objective,’ says expert

In 2019, DFO decided not to protect the Thompson and Chilcotin populations under the Species At Risk Act, despite the recommendation to do so by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

In its decision, DFO estimated listing the species would lead to a $90.7 million loss in profit for commercial fisheries, Indigenous commercial fisheries and seafood processing over 20 years, plus an additional $16.2 million in losses for the recreational fishing sector over the same period. 

Eric Taylor, professor with the University of British Columbia’s Department of Zoology, said the federal government often emphasizes the cost of shutting down fisheries, but doesn’t measure the benefits.

“Maybe [scaling back fisheries] would result in higher returns for steelhead trout in the Central Interior. Maybe it can resuscitate the Interior fishery. Maybe it could lead to longer-term benefits,” said Taylor, who served as chair of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada when it recommended listing Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead under the Species At Risk Act.

Another part of DFO’s rationale for not listing the species under the act was the fact the province and the federal government share management responsibilities of Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead. Fish could be protected under existing provincial and federal legislation outside of the special provisions of the act, DFO said.

DFO launched a Steelhead Action Plan in partnership with the province in 2019, but just a few weeks after it was released, fisheries were opened and not much has changed since, B.C. Wildlife Federation’s Zeman said.

Zeman said DFO is prioritizing fisheries over fish conservation, a view echoed by Taylor. 

“I continue to be shocked by the deliberate mismanagement,” Taylor said.

Taylor said because of its conflicted mandate to advocate for fisheries and conserve fish at the same time, DFO “cannot be objective.”

“DFO needs to be broken up, and have some responsibility taken away,” he said. “Aquaculture should be in agriculture.”

“That doesn’t mean tweaking. The entire ministry needs to be reconfigured.”

Taylor also emphasized the intrinsic value of protecting these fish. Steelhead are unique, and many people value them simply for existing, he said. 

“When you drive through the landscape, you can’t help but think of the rivers and the fish,” he said. “It’s like polar bears in the Arctic… they reflect the landscape, and people’s connection with the landscape.”

“They are not just any other fish.”

Updated May 17, 2021, at 11:38 a.m. PT to include comment from DFO. Updated May 19, 2021, at 4:12 p.m. PT: This story was updated to clarify that steelhead do not reside in the Fraser River as previously written, but rather spawn in the tributaries of the interior Fraser River. As a friendly scientist pointed out, Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead technically reside in the Thompson and Chilcotin Rivers, the Fraser River and the ocean throughout their lives.

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.

B.C. is falling short on its commitment to protect fish and wildlife habitat, according to a report released by the province’s auditor general on Tuesday.

The audit of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development’s Conservation Lands Program identified several deficiencies, including: a lack of strategic direction ensuring government collaboration with Indigenous communities; a failure to sufficiently monitor and enforce rules on conserved lands; and a need to update management plans for species and habitat.

“Overall, we concluded that the ministry has not effectively managed the program,” Michael Pickup, auditor general, said in a statement. 

Pickup noted the program — which was developed over half a century ago to provide a framework for the province to work with non-profit organizations, federal agencies and First Nations — has not revisited its goals or strategic planning for over 30 years. He also found the program lacks clarity of purpose, leaving government staff working on local or regional conservation programs without clear directives.

The report noted that even on conserved lands, the province isn’t doing enough to regulate public use, stating that “hundreds of unauthorized activities had occurred on conservation lands” between 2009 and 2020. Infractions ranged from motor vehicle use in prohibited areas to illegal harvesting activities.

The auditor general outlined a series of recommendations, including cementing a strategic plan for the program and addressing the need to be more transparent with the public. The Ministry of Forests acknowledged its shortcomings and told The Narwhal in a statement it is already working on a number of initiatives to address the audit’s findings.  

“Ministry staff are currently working on a strategic plan for the Conservation Lands Program that will detail our actions to fully address the auditor general’s 11 recommendations,” a ministry spokesperson wrote in an email. “The new strategic plan will include input from the existing Conservation Lands partners, the minister’s Wildlife Advisory Council and the First Nations-B.C. Wildlife and Habitat Conservation Forum.”

As for when the public can expect to see the ministry implement the recommended changes, Pickup said at a press conference that decision is at the discretion of the province.

“Most of the responses to these recommendations indicate what they are going to do but they don’t actually indicate a specific timeline to have things done,” he said.

B.C. conservation management ‘outdated’ as species suffer declines

The report comes as steelhead and salmon populations in watersheds across the province struggle to survive, caribou herds are extirpated and numerous species suffer from habitat fragmentation and the impacts of climate change. As The Narwhal recently reported, there are thousands of species at risk in B.C. and, despite this, the current government reneged on its promise to enact species-at-risk legislation. 

Read more: B.C. stalls on promise to enact endangered species law

One of the Conservation Lands Program’s key tools to address the needs of at-risk species and important habitats is the designation of wildlife management areas, but the audit flagged a number of problems with B.C.’s management of those areas, noting around 70 per cent of the plans have not been approved and the average age of the plans is almost 20 years. 

The audit noted current plans need to reflect current risks, which include the ever-evolving risks associated with climate change.

The report also pointed out that the province did not maintain an accurate inventory of its conserved lands, including non-administered conservation lands, which are areas designated for conservation purposes under the Land Act.

“The ministry needs an accurate inventory of conservation lands to monitor and report on progress and to make informed program decisions,” the report said.

B.C. working to align conservation with Indigenous values

The ministry said one of the ways it is addressing the auditor general’s recommendations, while working to meet provincial conservation commitments, predates the report. The Together for Wildlife Strategy, announced last summer, is the province’s plan for conserving B.C.’s biodiversity. The strategy outlines five goals and 24 actions to achieve those goals, which involve working closely with First Nations.

But according to the audit, the ministry “has not supported staff to collaborate with Indigenous Peoples when securing and managing conservation lands.” It added that while the ministry is working to provide training and guidance to its staff, there is a lack of specific direction to collaborate and engage with First Nations.

In an interview conducted prior to the audit’s release, George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, told The Narwhal the province is working to align its conservation strategy with Indigenous Rights and community interests.

“We’re working hard to find a way forward that respects First Nations culture and values, that acknowledges and respects the importance of maintaining biodiversity and protecting species at risk, but doing it by developing an approach that doesn’t provide only one path.”

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.

B.C. and Ottawa have struck a deal to defer logging in two Fraser Canyon watersheds that provide habitat for the last three spotted owls left in Canada’s wild — the first step in a bilateral nature agreement announced by the two governments on Thursday.

The nature agreement, aimed at strengthening conservation efforts in B.C., features pilot projects that will deploy “new approaches to protecting species at risk and enhancing biodiversity,” starting with immediate action to support efforts to recover the spotted owl, a chocolate brown raptor with distinctive white flecks. 

That action includes logging deferrals for at least one year in the old-growth Spuzzum and Utzlius watersheds near Hope, in the territory of Spô’zêm First Nation, which last year asked the province to cease all logging activities in its territory to give the highly endangered owls a chance at survival.

“Spô’zêm First Nation stands proud as we have further shown that, with the right intentions, collaboration and productive dialogue great things are achievable,” Spô’zêm Nation Chief James Hobart said in a statement.

“This monumental step forward in assertion of our nation’s own title and rights could only have been achieved with government representatives who smashed through the status quo, tore down walls of mistrust, rolled up their sleeves and in the end were true to their word….” 

Chief Hobart said the logging deferrals also reflect the provincial government’s commitment to 2019 legislation to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The nature agreement will be developed over the next year, with the federal government providing an initial $2 million in matched funds for various, and as yet unnamed, conservation actions in B.C. 

The two governments “will explore new ways to protect and restore habitat and strengthen ecosystem resilience to climate change,” according to a news release that also promised a long overdue updated Canadian recovery strategy for the northern spotted owl, a species found only in B.C., Washington, Oregon and northern California.

“This is something to celebrate,” Wilderness Committee protected areas campaigner Joe Foy told The Narwhal. “These are all really good, hopeful signs.” 

The announcement follows a petition to federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson from the environmental law charity Ecojustice, acting on behalf of Wilderness Committee. 

Ecojustice demanded that Wilkinson issue an emergency order under Canada’s Species at Risk Act to halt impending logging in the Spuzzum Valley, where three logging cutblocks had been auctioned off by the provincial government agency BC Timber Sales. Another five cutblocks were slated for impending auction. 

One cutblock was logged prior to the petition, and BC Timber Sales built roads into two more cutblocks to facilitate harvesting. 

Joe Foy from the Wilderness Committee stands beside felled old-growth trees in the Spuzzum Valley, where B.C. government biologists discovered Canada’s last breeding pair of spotted owls in 2019. Wilderness Committee only found out about the owls in 2020. Photo: Wilderness Committee

Under the Species at Risk Act, Wilkinson can ask the federal cabinet to issue an emergency order on the grounds that spotted owls face imminent threats to their survival and recovery. An emergency order would allow Ottawa to make decisions to protect spotted owls and their habitat that are normally within the jurisdiction of the B.C. government, such as whether or not to allow logging in the Spuzzum Valley.

“I’m super relieved that we have a reprieve in the Spuzzum Valley and Utzlius Valley,” Foy said. “But we’re absolutely not out of the woods yet.” 

Following decades of industrial logging in the spotted owl’s old-growth habitat, the raptor was presumed extinct in Canada’s wild until government biologists found a breeding pair with chicks in the Spuzzum Valley in 2019. Wilderness Committee only learned of the discovery last year, after Foy travelled to the valley to document the impact of logging. 

Read more: Canada’s last breeding pair of endangered spotted owls found in valley slated for imminent logging

Recovery measures for the spotted owl, which nests only in old-growth forests, preying on flying squirrels and packrats, will include a strategy for the reintroduction of captive spotted owls to the wild, according to the news release. 

For more than 10 years, the B.C. government has funded a breeding centre for the owls in the Lower Mainland city of Langley, where eggs are hatched in incubators in a laboratory while a soundtrack of forest sounds plays in the background. 

Dante, a spotted owl chick hatched in a laboratory incubator at a B.C. government-funded spotted owl breeding centre. Dante is three to five days old in the photo. Photo: Northern Spotted Owl Breeding Centre

Two chicks hatched by the wild spotted owl pair were captured by government biologists and taken to the breeding centre, where 25 owls are housed in outdoor aviaries. Government biologists also planned to capture the third wild chick to raise it at the centre, which seeks to augment genetic diversity in the captive owl population. No captive birds have been reintroduced to the wild, despite repeated assurances from the B.C. government that it intends to release them.

Read more: Keepers of the spotted owl

According to a joint federal and provincial news release, the three spotted owls known to remain in the wild are nesting within wildlife habitat areas the B.C. government has designated for the species.

The news release also said there are more than 281,000 hectares of legally protected spotted owl habitat in the province of British Columbia, enough to support a population of 125 breeding pairs. 

“They are making the argument that enough habitat has already been protected,” Foy said. “Wilderness Committee and Ecojustice say that obviously it hasn’t. It’s why species in southwestern B.C. that rely on old-growth forests are in such rough shape. Too much has been cut.”

 “We need to stop cutting old-growth forests. Period. And then look at how we can repair the mess that’s been made.”

Logging in spotted owl habitat in the Spuzzum Valley in 2019. Photo: Joe Foy / Wilderness Committee

The B.C. government allows logging in 108,000 hectares designated as wildlife habitat areas for the spotted owl, as long as those areas are managed to ensure two-thirds of the land base retains suitable habitat.

It also permits timber harvesting in 75 per cent of the 51,000 hectares it has designated as “managed future habitat areas” for the owl, even though it could take hundreds of years for suitable habitat to re-grow. 

It’s not clear how many hectares of current or future habitat areas for the spotted owl are included in the Spuzzum and Utzlius watershed logging deferrals.

Ecojustice lawyer Kegan Pepper-Smith said the nature agreement is “a step in the right direction” to ensure the spotted owl has a chance of survival and recovery.  

But he said much more must be done to address the urgent threat to B.C.’s endangered species and the continuing loss of their habitats, noting that other species face extinction in the absence of provincial endangered species legislation. 

B.C., with more biodiversity than any other province, has more than 1,300 species at risk of extinction. Unlike six other provinces, B.C. does not have legislation to protect endangered species.

The BC NDP promised to enact endangered species legislation during the 2017 provincial election campaign — a pledge upheld in Premier John Horgan’s first mandate letter for Environment Minister George Heyman. But, once elected, the party reneged on its commitment. Heyman’s new mandate letter does not mention endangered species legislation. 

The B.C. government’s about-face on legislation comes as scientists around the world warn we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction event in the planet’s four-billion-year history. As many as half of all species may be headed toward extinction in the next 30 years, with habitat destruction a leading cause of their demise.

The spotted owl has since 2003 been listed as endangered under the federal Species at Risk Act, a designation that requires Ottawa to take action to recover the population. 

A 2006 federal recovery strategy for the spotted owl committed to producing an action plan within a year to identify the raptor’s critical habitat and activities likely to destroy it. 

But B.C., which is responsible for developing the habitat action plan, hasn’t produced one. 

Foy said the next year will involve hard work and will be fraught with dangers for the spotted owl in B.C. 

“We’re down to three adults of this species,” he said. “Other species that live in the old-growth forest of southwestern B.C.  haven’t had nearly the research that spotted owls have had. There are a number of species that are in dire, dire shape because of logging of old-growth forests. What happens next is really important.”

“The devil will be in the details.”

Oregon, a northern spotted owl, in his aviary at the Langley captive breeding facility. Photo: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Wilkinson said the nature agreement will build on collaborative measures already in place, including the Pathway to Canada Target 1 — a collaborative federal, provincial, territorial, Indigenous and local government forum which seeks to protect and conserve more of Canada’s nature — and the 2018 Pan-Canadian Approach to Transforming Species at Risk Conservation in Canada, which focuses on joint efforts to conserve multiple species and ecosystems rather than focusing on one species at a time. 

“Now is the time for concrete action to protect natural ecosystems and halt biodiversity loss,” Wilkinson said in the statement. “We are working towards protecting 25 per cent of Canada’s lands and oceans by 2025 and supporting Indigenous leadership in conservation to get there.” 

The nature agreement announcement follows a fall election campaign promise by the BC NDP to implement all 14 recommendations made by a strategic old-growth review panel, which called for a paradigm shift in the way the province manages old-growth and said all recommendations should be implemented within three years. 

Among other findings, the panel said old forests are not a renewable resource and should be managed for ecosystem health. 

Foresters Al Gorley and Garry Merkel, who headed the panel, recommended the B.C. government immediately defer development in old forests “where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.”

Read more: British Columbia’s looming extinction crisis

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.

Endangered caribou in northeast B.C. have been “sacrificed” for the economic benefits of coal mining — benefits that turned out to be “grossly exaggerated,” according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“Habitat-destroying coal mining projects are approved because decision-makers believe financial and economic benefits outweigh the cost of caribou loss,” states the Who Benefits from Caribou Decline? report, written as part of the Corporate Mapping Project, an academic and community-based research partnership.

The report’s authors examined the promised economic benefits of three mines owned by Conuma Coal Resources in the Peace River region, where scientists have connected habitat-destroying coal mining to the disappearance of caribou.

Report co-author Robyn Allan, an independent economist, said project proposals promise economic benefits — such as tax revenue, job creation and coal production — which are weighed against potential effects on caribou and efforts to mitigate damage to the environment. 

However, Allan said those purported economic benefits aren’t tracked and there is no mechanism for regulators, such as the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, to ensure promised benefits are delivered. And when people go looking for those benefits — as Allan and her co-authors did — they come up short.

“When it comes to actually critiquing the cases presented by the proponent and making sure the promises are delivered on, that doesn’t happen,” Allan said in an interview with The Narwhal.

“We need good information upon which we can make good decisions, and we don’t have that.”

Promises to minimize harm to the environment are also often misleading, Allan added.

“Caribou in the northeastern region of B.C. are under serious stress and will likely go extinct,” Allan said. “We need to stop kidding ourselves that the environment is being protected.”

Fewer than 240 caribou remain in the Peace River region.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation (recently renamed by the returning NDP government) told The Narwhal “we can’t speak to the report at this time but look forward to reviewing it and take the protection of our environment and building a sustainable economy that works for people very seriously.”

The spokesperson added the province has committed $47 million in public funds over five years to aid caribou recovery, “using a comprehensive, science-based approach.”

Coal mines only paid 34 per cent of promised taxes over two-decade study period

To determine the true economic benefits of the three mines — Willow Creek, Brule and Wolverine — the report authors conducted an analysis of publicly accessible data for the past and present owners of the mines from 1999 to 2019, including quarterly and annual reports, bankruptcy proceedings and credit rating reports.

Conuma Coal acquired the mines in 2016 after the previous owner, Walter Energy, went bankrupt. 

The analysis found the mines delivered 34 per cent of the promised corporate tax revenue, 59 per cent of the promised jobs and 37 per cent of the promised coal.

During the study period, the owners of the mines promised $250 million in corporate taxes, but only $86 million was paid. Up until 2016, zero corporate taxes accumulated because the previous owners were able to get their taxes refunded due to business losses. In the Canadian tax system, corporations that experience losses can reclaim taxes paid in the preceding three years.

Conuma Coal acquired the mines in 2016 and paid the $86 million in tax from 2017 to 2019, but those taxes aren’t secure either, according to Allan, because if the company has an unprofitable year, some or all of those taxes could be refunded.

Corporate taxes promised (orange line) and paid (green line) from the Willow Creek, Brule and Wolverine coal mines. Graph: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Over the same time period, the proponents also promised to employ 583 people but provided just 346 jobs.

In regard to jobs, the Ministry of Energy’s spokesperson told The Narwhal the mining sector provides more than 30,000 jobs in the province, with each job at a mine supporting at least two more jobs in supply or services.

“We are dedicated to making sure this industry creates good jobs for people now, and into the future,” the spokesperson said.

Mines cost companies and taxpayers millions in businesses losses, subsidies

To the question of who benefits from caribou decline, the researchers found a specific answer: a “small and select group of international investors.”

People in that club saw significant returns because they sold their shares at the right time. But between 1999 and 2016, the companies that owned the three mines lost more than $1 billion, leading to losses for many investors, too.

Taxpayers helped foot the bill for these mines through subsidies of at least $1.4 million between 1999 and 2006. The report states this is a low estimate since it does not include government expenses in servicing the mines, nor the reclamation liabilities that often fall on the taxpayer when mining companies go bankrupt.

British Columbians are on the hook for more than $1 billion in cleanup costs from all the province’s mines. The chief inspector of mines estimated in its 2018 annual report (which is the most recent data) that reclamation of B.C. mines will cost $2.8 billion total, while the province has secured only $1.6 billion in reclamation bonds from mining companies.

According to that report, the Willow Creek, Brule and Wolverine mines have reclamation liabilities totalling $73.8 million combined, while $26.9 million in bonds has been secured by the province thus far.

In order to build a mine, “you should have cash, you should have bonds, you should have insurance,” Allen Edzerza, member of the B.C. First Nations Energy and Mining Council, previously told The Narwhal.

“It should be a hard commitment.”

Conuma Coal also recently received $120 million from the Canada Development Investment Corporation, a federal Crown corporation, through a fund for employers experiencing difficulty due to the pandemic.

A map from the report showing existing and approved coal mines in central mountain caribou habitat. Herd boundaries identified by the B.C. government are in dark green and habitat identified by the West Moberly First Nations is in light green. Map: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

‘Poor accounting and flawed economic models’ justify industrial projects: expert

In what the report’s authors call “a perverse and disturbing outcome,” public money “helped to fund extinction of caribou by subsidizing exploration and development.”

As for employment, Allan said the high number of promised jobs was based on the owners’ forecasts that the mines would be operating steadily. In reality, jobs fluctuated with the “boom and bust” of the market, as mining jobs often do.

“ … we are making trade-offs that we can never reverse.”

“We were shocked regulators would accept these scenarios of full production without any interruption,” she said. “You really ask the question about whether or not the regulator is just rubber-stamping approvals without any detailed digging.”

On average, the three mines have been shuttered for almost a third of their lifetime. It’s unclear how many jobs went to people from local communities and how many went to workers flown in, according to Allan.

Tara Martin, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s department of forest and conservation sciences, said detailed analyses like this report are “crucial” to “reveal the poor accounting and flawed economic models that lie beneath these large industrial projects.”

“Whether its mining, Site C dam or the Trans Mountain pipeline, the number of promised jobs and revenue relative to the cost of these projects don’t add up,” she told The Narwhal.

“But even more devastating is that we are making trade-offs that we can never reverse.”

Call for moratorium on mining in caribou habitat where populations are plummeting

Allan and her co-authors recommend placing a moratorium on new mine approvals in central mountain caribou habitat.

Across the province, caribou populations have plummeted, largely due to loss of habitat and migration disruption caused by mining and other industrial activities like logging. The Quintette herd of the Peace Region dropped from about 173 to 74 animals between 2008 and 2018. As well, five herds in the Kootenays have become locally extinct since 2006. 

Only three of the 48 caribou herds in B.C. have stable populations, according to 2020 data from the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The NDP government also backpedalled on its promise to enact an endangered species law. 

The Saulteau First Nations and West Moberly First Nations have taken matters into their own hands, building a pen for pregnant cows and providing 24-hour armed security to ensure calves are born and not eaten by wolves. They brought a herd from 36 caribou in 2014 to 95 caribou this year.

Saulteau First Nations guardian Julian Napoleon prepares to catch a two-day-old calf. Caribou are known as “followers,” according to wildlife biologist Scott McNay. “Pretty much, caribou calves will get up and follow their mums right away.” Deer, on the other hand, are known as “hiders.” They will stash their fawns and leave to feed. Photo: Ryan Dickie / The Narwhal

“One hundred animals is still not anywhere out of the woods in terms of stabilizing that herd, but it’s definitely going in the right direction,” Roland Willson, Chief of West Moberly First Nations, told The Narwhal in July. The first nations signed a partnership agreement with the province in February to guide caribou recovery.

Read more: Up close with B.C.’s endangered baby caribou — and the First Nations trying to save them

The authors also recommend a public inquiry into the economic impact of B.C. mines, policy reforms to ensure accountable tracking of economic impact and a full accounting of all subsidies paid to any industry in the province that can be linked to habitat loss and species extinction.

Martin agrees more investigation is needed.

“We need teams of forensic accountants to work alongside conservation scientists to track the true costs and benefits of these major developments, including the cost of lost species and lost opportunities to future generations as a result of species extinction,” she said.

Allan believes other industrial projects would show similarly lacklustre economic returns if financial information was available. A report published in October found that although BC Hydro has already spent $5 billion on the Peace River Site C dam project so far, the public utility would still save money if the project was halted.

“There are so many areas where we are seeing negative impacts,” Allan said.

“They may not be priced yet, but we know the cost is huge.”

Updated Dec. 3, 2020, at 1:45 p.m. PST: A previous version of this story misstated the number of jobs that were promised and created by the owners of the mines. 

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.

A legal challenge launched to protect critically endangered southern resident killer whales from increased tanker traffic has reached the end of the line, but opponents of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion say the years-long effort to stop the project is far from over.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the legal challenge launched by Ecojustice, on behalf of its clients Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Living Oceans Society, which argued the decision to re-approve the Trans Mountain expansion violated Canada’s Species at Risk Act.

The Supreme Court also refused to hear a case from Tsleil-Waututh First Nation challenging a Federal Court of Appeal decision to limit the scope of a judicial review hearing into the pipeline approval.

Despite these legal losses, opponents of the project say another legal challenge, mass protests, civil disobedience, and efforts through the ongoing regulatory process to force the Crown Corporation to re-route certain segments of the pipeline could cause further costly delays to the project, which is now expected to cost $12.6 billion. 

“Most of that money has yet to be spent so there’s still a chance for the federal government to put that money to better use,” said Sven Biggs, a climate and energy campaigner with the environmental organization Stand.earth.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion involves the construction of a second 1,150-kilometre pipeline from Strathcona County, outside of Edmonton, to Burnaby, B.C. The project is expected to nearly triple the flow of diluted bitumen and other petroleum products to the coast and result in a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet to the Westridge Marine Terminal. 

Opponents of the pipeline, which has been a major source of political turmoil, have repeatedly raised concerns about the project’s environmental impacts ­— from an associated increase in greenhouse gas emissions to the risks of a diluted bitumen spill on the coast.

Environment and Climate Change Canada estimates the upstream emissions from the additional oil produced and processed by Trans Mountain would release 13 to 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. The climate impacts of the expansion were not considered by the National Energy Board in its review of the project.

Supporters, meanwhile, highlight job creation and the need for additional pipeline capacity to bolster Alberta’s oil industry. There are more than 2,900 people working on the project currently and more jobs are expected in the coming months, according to Trans Mountain Corporation. 

The route of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Portions of the pipeline expansion are already under construction in B.C. and Alberta, however 32 per cent of the route still needs approval from the Canada Energy Regulator. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Trans Mountain review failed to consider impacts on endangered killer whales

During the initial review stage of the Trans Mountain expansion the National Energy Board excluded the marine shipping element from consideration of the project’s environmental impacts. 

That exclusion, alongside the federal government’s failure to adequately consult First Nations, ultimately led Canada’s Federal Appeals Court to rule the project review was flawed.

The project was re-approved following a reconsideration process, a decision that could have serious consequences for an endangered population of whales that frequent the Salish Sea.

Misty MacDuffee, a conservation biologist with Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said the project increases the risk of extinction for the southern resident killer whales. The pipeline’s expansion would increase the number of tankers in the Burrard Inlet and Salish Sea from five to 34 each month.

As of July 1, 2019, the population of southern resident killer whales had dropped to 73, the lowest it’s been since the 1970s, according to the Centre for Whale Research. A whale named L41, missing since the summer, could bring that total number down to 72 individuals.

Trans Mountain vs. killer whales: the tradeoff Canadians need to be talking about

Added noise from the increase in tanker traffic to the Westridge Marine Terminal could make it more difficult for the whales to communicate and affect their ability to forage for food, MacDuffee explained.

The federal government has taken steps to reduce the pressures on these whales, including measures to reduce noise by reducing the speed of marine vessels. But MacDuffee said she’s concerned the noise levels from added tanker traffic could still be too high for the southern residents, even if they’re travelling at lower speeds.

It’s “tremendously disappointing,” said Margot Venton, one of the Ecojustice lawyers on the case, of the Supreme Court’s decision.

“I was disappointed and then, of course, quite frustrated that the important question of whether Canada complied with the requirements of the … Species At Risk Act in the reconsideration process is actually just never going to be answered,” she said. 

“Obviously, this isn’t an issue that we or anybody else is going to abandon,” Venton said. “Now, we have to shift our focus to ensuring that the government complies with the Species At Risk Act as the project goes forward.”

The court’s decision, meanwhile, was welcomed by both the Trans Mountain Corporation and the federal government, which purchased the existing pipeline and expansion project in 2018.

“The [Trans Mountain] project will create good jobs for Canadians, help us gain access to new markets for our resources, and support our transition to a cleaner future, generating revenue to help fund clean energy and climate change solutions,” Ian Cameron, a spokesperson for Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, said in a statement.

Desperately seeking sanctuary

On Indigenous consultation, the fight continues

The Supreme Court of Canada’s Thursday decision also denies the Tsleil-Waututh Nation the ability to appeal a previous decision that limited the nation’s say on impacts to killer whales as well as how the pipeline’s expansion affects Aboriginal rights and title.

That previous ruling meant the Tsleil-Waututh could not make arguments related to the impacts of marine shipping, compliance with the Species At Risk Act, or the federal government’s failure to consider Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s “Aboriginal title and rights by refusing to justify infringement of rights or obtaining consent,” according to a statement from the nation.

Now, Tsleil-Waututh Nation is launching a new appeal, challenging the Coldwater decision, which found consultation with First Nations to be adequate in the pipeline expansion’s approval. 

“We took this issue to the Supreme Court of Canada not only to stand up for our inherent and constitutionally protected rights, but also to make sure that Canada follows their own laws when making decisions,” said Tsleil-Waututh Chief Leah Sisi-ya-ama George-Wilson in a statement. “We are disappointed in this result, but our opposition remains unchanged.”

“This isn’t over by a long shot,” she said.

Participants gathering in canoes during a Tsleil-Waututh Nation water ceremony in 2017. The Westridge refinery can be seen in the background. Photo: Zack Embree / Tsleil-Waututh Nation Sacred Trust

“That’s the big one,” said Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, of the Tsleil-Waututh’s new legal challenge.

“What I’m waiting to see is what happens after that. That would be the moment where I think things could shift potentially more towards the kinds of blockades and civil disobedience that we have seen in the past on Burnaby Mountain … and that we have been seeing with the [Coastal GasLink] pipeline.”

In the past, thousands of people have made their way to Burnaby Mountain to protest the project and more than 200 have been arrested for blocking access to Trans Mountain sites in violation of a court injunction. 

Biggs, the climate campaigner with Stand.earth, said he thinks “it’s very likely that there will be protests and renewed civil disobedience when construction starts in earnest in the spring.”

Thirty-two per cent of the pipeline route still not approved

Trans Mountain plans to have the new pipeline in service by 2022 and project construction is already underway in some areas of B.C. and Alberta.

On Thursday, dump trucks were moving in and out of Trans Mountain’s Burnaby Terminal, where the drone of construction work from inside the chain-link fence could be heard above the pitter-patter of the rain. The number of tanks used to store crude oil and refined petroleum products at the Burnaby Terminal will double to 26 with the pipeline expansion.

Just a few kilometres away, work is also underway at the Westridge Marine Terminal on Burrard Inlet, where three new shipping berths will be constructed to accommodate additional tanker traffic.

While construction of the pipeline itself has begun in the Edmonton area, 32 per cent of the route still needs approval from the Canada Energy Regulator.

Thirty different detailed route hearings will take place this spring and summer during which the regulator will consider objections to portions of the pipeline route from Burnaby to just north of Kamloops, B.C.

“There are a number of spots that are super controversial,” said Biggs. And, if Trans Mountain is ordered to find a new route for some segments, it could further delay construction and drive up the costs, he said.

“Costs are mostly driven by delays.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Trans Mountain said the corporation has included a $500 million contingency in its cost estimate to cover the costs of delays caused by protests, weather, or other factors. 

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.

In an historic deal, two First Nations from B.C.’s Peace region and the federal and provincial governments today signed a partnership agreement that aims to pull six caribou herds back from the brink of local extinction. 

The agreement includes the eventual creation of a new 206,000-hectare provincial park — two and a half times the size of Manning Park — and places interim protections on another 550,000 hectares in the mountainous area east of Mackenzie and west of Hudson’s Hope and Chetwynd. 

It also rolls out an Indigenous Guardians program to be led by West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations, who five years ago initiated costly and elaborate efforts to save the imperilled Klinse-za southern mountain caribou herd through a maternal penning project. 

“It’s a big deal,” West Moberly First Nations chief Roland Willson told The Narwhal. “It’s exciting that we’re getting this done.” 

Conservation groups lauded the agreement, calling it a blueprint for southern mountain caribou conservation in other areas of B.C. where waning herds are also at great risk of local extinction.

“We are over the moon,” said Tim Burkhart, manager of the Peace region for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. “This is the first expansion of the protected areas network in the Peace in almost 20 years.” 

Only 4.2 per cent of the biodiverse Peace landscape is currently in a protected area or park, far less than the provincial average of 15 per cent. 

The new park — an expansion of the existing 2,700-hectare Klin-se-za Provincial Park  — will bump up Peace area protections to 6.7 per cent of the landscape, which includes increasingly rare old-growth boreal forest and a tapestry of rivers, lakes and wetlands. 

Unlike in most of the rest of the Peace region, which is ground zero for resource development in B.C. — with industrial forestry, extensive fracking operations, conventional oil and gas development and mining — forestry is the only active industry in areas slated for protection, although there are also coal tenures.

West Moberly chief Roland Willson at a caribou maternity pen project in the Peace. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

Burkhart said the areas covered by the agreement will provide robust protection for 36 provincially endangered (red-listed) and threatened (blue-listed) species in addition to caribou. 

Those species include fisher, grizzly bear, white sturgeon and bull trout, birds such as the Canada warbler and olive-sided flycatcher, and plants like the small white water lily and birdfoot buttercup. 

Willson said he is relieved the partnership agreement has finally been signed, after a backlash of racism and misinformation last year threatened to derail it. 

“It’s by no means going to cure everything but it’s a step in the right direction,” Willson said. “Our members and Saulteau members deserve a round of applause … We were able to come together and work through this.” 

Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson commended the nations for taking a leadership role in protecting caribou, which he called an “iconic” and “umbrella” species. 

“If the caribou in the forest are in trouble many other species are as well,” Wilkinson said during a Vancouver press conference at which the partnership agreement was signed. 

The minister pointed to a 2019 United Nations report which warns nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history, with one million plants and animals globally threatened with extinctions that will have grave impacts on people around the world. 

Wilkinson said “we need to do things differently” and ensure that environmental sustainability underpins development. He cited the partnership agreement as an example of what can be achieved through collaborative partnerships.

“This agreement is a model for caribou recovery efforts across this country.”

A map showing new protected areas in B.C.’s Peace region, announced in a new partnership agreement between B.C. and the West Moberly and Saultau First Nations. Map: Province of B.C.

Caribou, which are engraved on the Canadian quarter, are in sharp decline across Canada, with habitat destruction the principle reason for their demise. 

Only a few decades ago, First Nations elders described caribou in the Peace region as “like bugs on the landscape” because they were so plentiful. 

Caribou numbers dropped sharply following construction of the W.A.C. Bennett dam in the late 1960s. The dam cut off a migration route and precipitated other industrial development that fractured caribou habitat, facilitating predation of herds by wolves. 

Today, all six caribou herds in the Peace region are at risk of local extinction, with a total of only 230 animals remaining. 

At last count in 2018, the Quintette herd had 74 animals, down from 200 in the early 2000s. The Narraway herd had only 26 animals left, a decrease from 150 in the early 2000s. 

A seventh Peace caribou population, the Burnt Pine herd, became extirpated in 2011 after its last surviving member fell into a coal exploration pit.

In 2013, with only 16 animals left in the Klinse-za herd — named after the Klinse-za or Twin Sisters mountains, which are sacred to First Nations — the West Moberly and Saulteau nations decided to take matters into their own hands following inaction from the provincial and federal governments. 

They launched a maternal penning project that, in tandem with habitat restoration and wolf culls, has seen the number of animals in the herd rise to more than 80.

Willson, who held up a caribou antler at the press conference, said he is hopeful the herd will top 100 animals this year and caribou populations will eventually recover enough for the Dunne-za people in northeastern B.C. to once again hunt the animal on which their ancestors depended.

“We’ve got signatures on paper right now but we have to put action to those words,” Willson said. “The work starts now. We have to roll up our sleeves and get going on this.” 

The 30-year partnership agreement promises long-term support for caribou recovery efforts, including multi-year funding for maternal penning, habitat restoration and an Indigenous Guardians program.

It also includes federal funding to address impacts on tenure holders in the new protected areas, said Doug Donaldson, B.C.’s Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. 

“Today is a joyous day, an historic day,” said Donaldson, who joined Wilkinson in commending the two First Nations for their leadership. “It shows that three governments working together in respectful dialogue can achieve tremendous results.”

Charlotte Dawe, conservation and policy campaigner for Wilderness Committee, said the agreement is the “first plan of its kind” in B.C. that puts endangered caribou needs as the top priority. 

Wilderness Committee has documented the number of new cutting permits the provincial government has issued in endangered caribou critical habitat, calling for an immediate halt to clear-cutting in those areas.

“We must hold this plan as the gold-standard going forward on the caribou file and follow the leadership of First Nations on protecting wildlife and wilderness areas,” Dawe said in a statement.

She said B.C. should look to other interested First Nations for partnership on agreements to protect wildlife under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA), which enables Canada to enter into agreements with First Nations and provincial governments to benefit species at risk. 

“This is a rare example of SARA being used and implemented in the way it was meant to be — to save species at risk,” Dawe said. 

The signing of the agreement marks a turning point in an often bumpy road to protection for the central population of southern mountain caribou. 

When the draft partnership agreement was announced last April, local communities said they had not been adequately consulted and hundreds of people flocked to public meetings that were often acrimonious.

B.C. Premier John Horgan subsequently appointed Dawson Creek city councilor Blair Lekstrom, a former south Peace MLA and energy ministry for the BC Liberals, as a community liaison. The premier extended deadlines for community consultation, expressing hope that Lekstrom’s appointment would help to reduce the rancour and find common ground to protect caribou.

Lekstrom, whose report to the government was criticized by scientists for showing “extreme bias,” resigned last month, saying the government had not implemented the vast majority of its recommendations or altered the draft agreement.

B.C. government delays endangered caribou plan as herds dwindle

Had B.C. not taken action to protect endangered caribou herds, the federal government was poised to step in and issue an emergency protection order under the federal Species at Risk Act. 

That would have allowed Ottawa to make decisions that are normally within the jurisdiction of the B.C. government, such as whether or not to grant logging permits and close backcountry access.

Horgan, in a January letter to the Peace River Regional District, noted that more than two years had elapsed since the federal government ordered the creation of a caribou recovery plan. 

“In a recent meeting with the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, I heard directly from the minister about the urgency and importance he places on this file,” Horgan wrote to the district.

Ken Cameron, chief of Saulteau First Nations, said the past few weeks — which have seen protests and blockades across the country in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline through their traditional territory — have left people wondering if if there is anything real about the word “reconciliation.”

“Today is an example that we can achieve reconciliation,” Cameron said at the press conference, thanking Horgan for his work on the partnership agreement. 

“We can make this dream come true and save a species from extinction.” 

The federal and provincial governments also signed a second, far less detailed caribou agreement that covers the remainder of B.C.’s imperilled southern mountain caribou herds. That agreement does include any habitat protections or proposed restrictions on industrial development.

Instead, the bilateral agreement focuses on measures such as continued wolf and moose kills and keeps the door ajar for new B.C. government logging approvals in critical caribou habitat. It makes a commitment to developing plans “to reduce habitat disturbance” for 21 caribou herds but without any fixed timelines.

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.

It’s that time of year when caribou, commonly known as reindeer, are everywhere. In addition to the usual ornamentation, which has never lacked in abundance during the holiday season, the advent of inflatable lawn displays has brought a whole new perspective on the creature mythologized as the workhorse of Santa’s sleigh. 

There are inflatable reindeer stuffed into the sidecar of Santa’s motorcycle and inflatable reindeer riding in festive trains. Inflatable reindeer wear scarves to pilot Santa’s helicopter and jackets to balance on a teeter totter with jolly ‘ole St. Nick. There’s even an inflatable reindeer — best not to think too deeply about this one — perched on top of an oversized Santa lying belly down on a sled. 

If larger-than-life garden displays aren’t your cup of gingerbread tea, at the Capital Iron hardware store in Victoria, B.C., you can buy a plush caribou for $1,700 — only slightly smaller than Canada’s real thing, with antlers like antennae and a shaggy snow-white neck ruff. It’s for sale in a winter wonderland complete with icicles, a starry sky and penguins romping on an ice slide, next to the Christmas lights and across from reindeer placemats, reindeer stockings, reindeer pillows and reindeer door mats. 

But amidst all the shopping blitzes, jingle-jingle of sleigh bells and generous glasses of holiday cheer comes a sobering paradox: we have never been surrounded by so many reindeer, yet never have there been so few. 

In 1935, when author Farley Mowat first journeyed to the Arctic, his train was stopped for a full hour as a brown river poured across the landscape: “a river of life,” he wrote, “perhaps the most tremendous living spectacle that our continent knows — the almost incredible mass migration of the numberless herds of caribou — the reindeer of the Canadian North.” 

In the early 1980s, the George River caribou herd in Labrador and northern Quebec was the largest in the world, with up to one million animals migrating 1,000 kilometres in a dazzling, hoof-clattering mass. On the other side of the country, caribou in B.C.’s Peace region were so plentiful only a few generations ago that First Nations elders remember them as like “bugs on the landscape.”

The Porcupine Caribou on the Dempster Highway in northern Yukon. The herd has rarely used its traditional wintering grounds on the east side of the highway, since its completion in the late 1970s. Photo: Peter Mather

State of caribou is ‘worrisome’ for scientist

But today the ungulate that evolved over millions of years — an animal central to the culture, spirituality and survival of many Indigenous peoples — is in precipitous decline right across the country. As 2019 shone a spotlight on the unfolding global biodiversity crisis, it brought no glad tidings for caribou.

“All caribou in Canada are at risk of extinction,” says Justina Ray, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, a non-profit group dedicated to scientific research and policy action. 

“It doesn’t mean that every population is doing poorly … But if you look across the board through the range of types of caribou — from those that are dwelling in the southern mountains of British Columbia up to the highest mountains of Labrador, all the way up to the high Arctic islands and down to southern Ontario and Quebec — the picture overall is a worrisome one.” 

Ray, a biologist who focuses on large mammals in northern landscapes, observed caribou over seven winters while conducting winter aerial surveys in northern Ontario’s boreal forest to track wolverines, whose habitat often overlaps with caribou. 

Ray, who has been surveying populations of caribou for years says “all caribou in Canada are at risk of extinction.” Photo: WCS / Flickr

Justina Ray preparing for an aerial survey of Ontario’s boreal forest in 2012. Photo: WCS / Flickr

“You’re flying across expanses of boreal and then you’ll start to see extraordinary signs of [caribou] activity through tracks, and then all of a sudden you’ll look around and they’re hundreds of them where ever you look,” recalls Ray, a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and adjunct professor at two Ontario universities.

“I often hear elders say if the caribou disappear then surely the Innu will too.”

Those days, much to the scientist’s abiding concern, are gone. After witnessing large herds multiplying during calving season, with females giving birth before her eyes, today Ray’s caribou math focuses mainly on subtraction and division. 

At last count, more than two years ago, only 5,500 animals remained in the once mighty George River caribou herd, which has declined by 99 per cent since 2001.

It’s one of two endangered migratory herds on which seven Indigenous groups in Labrador and northern Quebec have traditionally depended, says Valérie Courtois, director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative.

“It’s quite alarming to see a herd where in the 70s and 80s people described the mountains as moving, because there were so many caribou on those hills, to now really, really having to look for them,” says Courtois, a professional forester who is a member of the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh on the shore of Peikuakami, or Lac Saint-Jean. 

“From an Innu perspective, caribou and its spirit are central to our identify. I often hear elders say if the caribou disappear then surely the Innu will too.”

B.C. First Nations announce new caribou hunting ban

In British Columbia, a caribou herd with 5,500 animals can only be dreamed of now. Almost 30 of the province’s 52 southern mountain caribou herds are at risk of local extinction, with fewer than 25 animals left in each of a dozen herds. 

In the province’s northeast Peace region, two First Nations are raising money for a penning project high on a mountaintop that captures pregnant caribou cows and feeds them until newborn calves are strong enough to stand a chance in the wild.

Last January, two more caribou herds became locally extinct in southeastern B.C. as the provincial government dragged its feet, once again, on meaningful protections. Provincial biologists tranquilized most of the survivors, transporting them by helicopter and truck to a pen near Revelstoke, from which they were later released to join another herd, itself endangered.

A sedated caribou cow is relocated to the Revelstoke pen. Photo: B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations

The extirpation of the South Purcell herd and the transboundary Gray Ghost, or South Selkirk herd — the last caribou herd in the contiguous United States — erases the southernmost boundary of caribou in Canada. It pencils in a new boundary near Nakusp, hundreds of kilometres to the north, where caribou herds are also in considerable danger of winking out.

To the west, the Tsilhqot’in and Ulkatcho nations have just announced an emergency hunting ban on mountain caribou in their traditional territories in the Chilcotin region due to “drastic and devastating population declines.” 

“Hunting will cease immediately and until further notice, for all caribou including bulls, cows and calves to protect the few remaining caribou in the Itcha-Ilgachuz, Rainbows and Charlotte Alplands herds,” the nations said in a December 13 announcement that noted all caribou in the Chilcotin could disappear in the next seven years if the downward trend continues.

The Itcha-Ilgachuz herd, by far the largest of the three herds, has declined by 86 per cent and continues to drop in numbers, with only 385 caribou remaining at last count in June, 2019. 

“Once again it is our people who have to make the sacrifices because of the government’s mismanagement of wildlife, resources and industry,” says Joe Alphonse, Tribal Chief for the Tsilhqot’in National Government. “They put profit over sustainability and now the caribou are paying the price for that.”

Chief Joe Alphonse of the Tl’etinqox Nation stands outside the band office in Anaham, B.C. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Habitat loss is the main culprit in decline

More often than not, the grim reaper for Canada’s caribou is the loss of habitat from industrial development such as forestry, mining and oil and gas extraction.

Networks of roads and other disturbances increase stress levels and decrease breeding while creating easy access for wolves and other predators within fractured landscapes that give caribou, a species that evolved to spread out, no room to escape.

Caribou also rely on disappearing old-growth forests for nutrient-rich lichen — frequently their sole winter food — that grows only on mature trees.

Lichen, which only grows on old trees, feeds mountain caribou in the winter. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

In just one example, B.C.’s new 650-kilometre Coastal Gas Link pipeline will destroy and fracture habitat for three caribou herds at risk of local extinction. They include the Hart Ranges herd, in whose critical habitat the B.C. government also recently issued 78 new permits for industrial logging, covering a total area almost three times the size of the city of Victoria.

While sanctioning the continued destruction of caribou habitat, the B.C. government proposes to shoot more than 80 per cent of the wolf population in the habitat of three at-risk herds this winter, including the Hart Ranges herd. 

But wolf culls and penning projects are only short-term, band-aid steps that will have no impact on the persistence of caribou herds unless sufficient habitat is protected, Ray and other scientists say.

“All this intensive management is not going to be good for caribou in the long-term,” Ray observes. “You have to bring back habitat and protect it.”

A view of the endangered Hart Ranges herd’s critical habitat in the Anzac valley north of Prince George. The B.C. forests ministry recently issued 78 new logging cut block permits in the herd’s critical habitat, including six cut blocks in the Anzac valley. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The George River herd population has always fluctuated and, in the 1930s and 1940s, it was also very low, Courtois notes. But the difference, she says, is that Labrador had virtually no industrial development at the time, allowing the population to naturally rebound.

“Now we have the largest iron mine in the world in western Labrador which has a system of railroads associated with it. We’ve got the largest nickel mine in the world in Voisey’s Bay, which is very near the grounds where they’re wintering. We’ve got heavy mineral exploration because, of course, where you find the largest nickel mine and the largest iron mine in the world it breeds other interests.” 

It’s not uncommon to have more than 1,000 active mining exploration camps in the region, Courtois says, ranging from “two guys with a hammer” to camps with airstrips and drill pads.  

“All of these activities generate noise and dust and caribou avoid those things as much as possible.”

Military activities in Labrador, such as low-level flying and a bombing range, are also thought to have contributed to caribou declines. 

And last August, Labrador’s controversial new Muskrat Falls hydro dam flooded more than 100 square kilometres of the lower Churchill Valley, destroying habitat for three caribou populations that include the George River herd and the critically endangered Red Wine Mountain caribou herd.

“Labrador and the northern parts of Quebec are amongst the most rugged environments to survive in,” Courtois says. “And, certainly, my people would not be here if it wasn’t for caribou.”

Derrick Pottle, an experienced Inuk trapper and hunter whose diet is 95 per cent sourced locally, carries sealskin boots and a caribou jacket from the loft of his shed while preparing for a hunting trip in Rigolet, Labrador. Pottle’s diet of wild game, salmon, berries, trout and seal would have been similar to his ancestors living in Hamilton Inlet roughly 8,000 years ago. The traditional way of life among Labrador’s Inuit has been under siege for several generations. “There are many things that dictate our lives that we don’t have control over … Our whole way of life of is changing. Everything we did used to be connected back to the spirit world. A lot of those old habits are gone now,” Pottle said. Photo: Darren Calabrese

“That relationship with caribou is fundamental to our very identity. It certainly is something that we consume, and use in everything from our clothing to our tools to some of our habitations on the land. But the most important aspect of it [is that] it’s central to how we understand what our place in the world is. In the Innu concept of the world, that relationship and the responsibilities that come with the relationship with caribou — reciprocity, care, respect — are manifestations of our cultural relationship with the land.”

Climate change, too, is having an impact on caribou populations across the country. A proliferation of pestering bugs at lower elevations keeps caribou away from their fall breeding grounds in Labrador — a place the Innu call the Caribou House — for weeks after they would normally arrive, Courtois observes.

Melting and freezing snow packs also create ice crusts that prevent caribou from pawing for lichens with their snowshoe-like hooves. “You have weather events that have caused high mortality in certain cases,” Ray says. “There’s also dynamics that we don’t quite understand that are in play. The quality of winters is certainly causing some extra stress on animals.”

No more research needed

According to Anna Baggio, director of conservation planning for Wildlands League, Ontario’s caribou populations are “hammered,” with only about 50 per cent of their original ranges still intact. 

“The habitat disturbance is just going up and up and up,” Baggio says. “When you can start to count the caribou, because there are so few, that’s not a good thing. It means they’re probably going to wink out.”

Even though Ontario has had an Endangered Species Act for the past decade — unlike B.C., where the NDP government has backtracked on a campaign promise to introduce endangered species legislation — “we still don’t have any protection of caribou,” Baggio notes.

Decades of forestry in northern Ontario have led to a network of roads, pull outs, pits and staging areas that have dramatically inhibited the health of the boreal forest. Photo: Trevor Hesselink

So what can be done, other than to put on our reindeer antler holiday hats and hope for the best in the age of the Sixth Mass Extinction? 

“This is one area we don’t need more science on,” says Ray, who co-chaired the terrestrial mammals subcommittee of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada from 2009 to 2017.  

“We just need to act.”

Boreal caribou, Ray points out, were listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act in 2004. It took eight years and litigation to get the federal government to come up with a recovery strategy, as required under law. But the long-awaited federal strategy only pushed responsibility over to the provinces. 

Unwilling to upset the federation applecart, Ottawa is “very differential to the provinces,” Ray notes.

For instance, the federal government has put forward what Ray calls “a very good blueprint” for boreal caribou recovery but hasn’t enforced it anywhere in critical habitat. 

“At this point, I think provinces are relaxing because they know they don’t have to do it.”

In May 2018, as B.C.’s southern mountain caribou herds teetered on the brink of local extinction, former federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna declared that the caribou faced “imminent threats” to their recovery and said immediate intervention was required. 

If Ottawa is not satisfied that B.C. has a suitable action plan to protect endangered herds, the federal Cabinet can approve an emergency order under the federal Species at Risk Act. That would allow Ottawa to make decisions that are normally within the jurisdiction of the B.C. government, including whether or not to grant logging permits. 

Almost a year later, B.C. released two draft caribou agreements, a comprehensive agreement for the Peace region’s six highly-endangered herds and a far weaker agreement, lacking any habitat protections, for the province’s other imperilled caribou populations, including for the Itcha-Ilgachuz, Rainbows and Charlotte Alplands herds. 

Mountain caribou above the treeline in winter, Hart Ranges, B.C. Photo: David Moskowitz

In the Peace, an interim logging moratorium now prevents new cutting permits from being issued in critical habitat, yet clear-cutting continues because the provincial government issued almost four dozen logging permits before the moratorium took effect. 

But one-and-a-half years after McKenna’s declaration, B.C. has still not unveiled final caribou recovery plans, renewing calls for immediate federal intervention. 

“They’ve given B.C. more than enough space and B.C. hasn’t done anything useful with that space,” says Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon. 

“It’s just another version of talk and log. They’ve been ‘working on it’ since the 1990s and … it hasn’t done anything to help caribou.”

On December 17, Nixon, on behalf of five conservation groups, wrote a 10-page letter to newly appointed federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, calling the condition of B.C.’s southern mountain caribou dire and “worsening by the day.”

“If the federal government wants to prevent the extinction of southern mountain caribou and provide for the species’ recovery, we see little alternative other than for the federal government to step in to do what the province has been unwilling — or unable — to do,” said the letter, which set deadlines for federal government action. 

“If we don’t hear something meaningful from the federal government before those deadlines, the groups we’re working with will definitely be looking at litigation,” Nixon cautions.

Baggio says a federal order to protect caribou in one or two of Ontario’s boreal caribou ranges would send a strong signal that Ottawa has both the desire and the gumption to protect caribou instead of silently observing their demise. 

“It’s been way too long that the provinces have dragged their feet on this.” 

An order could be devised in a way that wouldn’t put people out of work in industries such as logging, Baggio says, noting jobs would also be created through habitat restoration initiatives. 

“We don’t have any interest in shutting down industries. We care about people. We’re here to see our society function, just in a different and better way that makes room for nature.” 

Governments failing to protect caribou

The decline of caribou has significant impacts for Indigenous groups in northern Quebec and Labrador, where food prices are among the highest in the country. A voluntary caribou hunting ban, instituted in 2014 due to plummeting herd numbers, has eroded food security for the collective population of 60,000 in the seven Indigenous groups, including for Labrador’s Innu, Courtois says.

“You love what you eat and you protect what you love.”

Hunting, she says, encourages a precautionary and conservation-based approach to a relationship with animals.

“You love what you eat and you protect what you love.”

To reverse declining herd numbers, Courtois says governments need to relinquish decision-making power for caribou to Indigenous peoples.

“We’ve found that Crown governments are often in conflict in terms of their decision-making with caribou, having to balance both economic interests as well as caribou interests. And, unfortunately, caribou often don’t have a voice whereas mining companies certainly do, and other industry.” 

Leaving Crown governments to make decisions about caribou means “we see very little success” from caribou management approaches, Courtois observes. 

“We think that an Indigenous-led approach, because of the fundamental nature of those relationships with caribou, hopefully would lead to a much more comprehensive and careful approach to management.” 

Ray says the first step to saving Canada’s reindeer is for governments to acknowledge that ‘business as usual’ will only push caribou closer to extinction. 

“I think the big act would be actually acknowledging that our pattern of primacy of natural resource extraction in caribou country is going to have to change if caribou are going to be on the landscape,” she says. 

“Right now, they’re still saying we can do everything.” 

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.