At long last, the Alberta government is taking responsibility for protecting the province’s boreal woodland caribou populations.
Boreal woodland caribou are registered as an endangered species in Canada. According to the 2012 Environment Canada paper, “Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou,” most of Alberta’s herds are declining.
What’s going on? Us. We are the problem.
The paper states that most Alberta’s herds face habitat destruction caused by people. The caribou habitat in the Little Smoky range, for instance, was considered 95 per cent “disturbed” by human activities, leaving only five per cent of forests intact.
Last June, the Alberta government released their first draft range plan, as required by the Species At Risk Act, and they began with the most severely impacted ranges – the Little Smoky and A La Peche ranges.
Now the government is moving on to create draft plans for the remaining ranges in the northeast and northwest parts of the province, which may impact industry in the Athabasca region.
Often, when environmental protection policy comes up, we lose focus on the environment in the name of protecting jobs.
And so, we ask you to not hit the panic button just yet.
The Alberta government is legally required by the Species At Risk Act to take action on protecting the caribou, but they are essentially free to create a made-in-Alberta solution, as long as it involves creating 65 per cent undisturbed habitat over time.
While one job lost impacts one person and their family, an extinct species impacts the world forever.
This is not to say the caribou range plans are going to destroy the local economy.
Of course we want a strong and thriving province, town and county. But we also need to preserve a sustainable ecosystem for generations to come, and that might call for some difficult change.
