Is Alberta going to help save woodland caribou?

News stories today are confirming that the terms of reference provided by the Alberta Cabinet to the first Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) established under its new Land Use Framework direct the RAC to identify in excess of 20% protection for the Lower Athabaska. This decision breaks a deadlock on the establishment of new protected areas in Alberta and opens up the likelihood that the advice of the Woodland Caribou biologists - the Alberta Caribou Committee -will be heeded. Could Alberta be the first province to implement new protected areas to respond the new science of Woodland Caribou critical habitat? Is it snowing anywhere unlikely?

Read early news coverage, Alberta opens door to wilderness conservation in oilsands region

Kimberly-Clark joins the crusade for conservation of woodland caribou habitat

Well, the momentum grows. Thanks to the encouragement of Greenpeace, Kimberly-Clark has agreed to implement a purchasing policy that will support the growing momentum for conservation of the Boreal forest and the woodland caribou's home. Here are some highlights from the policy:

• "By the end of 2011, Kimberly-Clark will stop purchasing non-FSC certified wood fiber from the North American Boreal region."
• "Kimberly-Clark will support programs for the identification and mapping of Endangered Forests and High Conservation Value Forests to ensure that such areas are designated for appropriate protection."

Read the policy on-line, Kimberly-Clark's Commitment to Sustainable Forestry

See 'Bou dance in joy

Caribou running out of space in Ontario

In the first attempted application of the recent scientific advice on how to identify critical habitat of local populations of woodland caribou in the Boreal (following Environment Canada 2008), CPAWS-Wildlands League in Ontario has employed Ontario government proposed local population range units and more recent data to illuminate the fact that the southern-most populations of caribou in Ontario are, perhaps unsurprisingly, at greater risk than previously appreciated.

• "...local ranges for boreal Caribou along the northern limit of commercial logging in Ontario are already highly disturbed. Based on this extensive disturbance, only 2 of the 9 ranges of this sensitive threatened species are likely to be self-sustaining populations, while 6 of the 9 ranges exceeding the threshold related to the decline of other studied Canadian populations, and the last range well into the zone of risk"
• "Further industrial disturbance cannot be permitted until we confirm these findings and better understand the implications for each local population."

Read the report from Trevor Hesselink at CPAWS-Wildlands League, Caribou Range Condition in Ontario, and refresh yourself on Environment Canada's recent science for critical habitat identification, CA - Scientific review for critical habitat (June 8, 2009)

Coverage of Caribou Declines Continues

Researchers at the University of Alberta continue to get coverage of their research on the global decline of caribou populations. In a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, they again emphasize the plight of woodland caribou.

• "In the vast Canadian forests, the authors suspect industrial development – roads, logging, and oil and gas exploration – has a greater impact on caribou than changing climate. Caribou prefer old-growth, coniferous forests. They shun roads and other human development."

Read the article on-line, Caribou populations fall sharply (Christian Science Monitor, Jul 23, 2009).

Logging and the loss of old-growth woodland caribou habitat

Two new forthcoming publications describe the old-growth forest attributes of the Boreal forest - home to woodland caribou.

Boreal forests are fire-dominated ecosystems but what these studies demonstrate is that they are old-growth forests in the Boreal, particularly in eastern Canada where the fire-cycle is long and perhaps getting increasingly longer (Cyr et al 2009). Short-rotation logging operations applied across the Boreal are putting biodiversity at risk (Bergeron and Harper 2009). In particular, as the critical habitat science review demonstrated, these logging operations in woodland caribou critical habitats are causing local extirpations of the Boreal forest's flagship species - woodland caribou (Environment Canada 2008).

• "Protecting a proportion of the remaining old-growth in the Boreal forest is urgently required" (Bergeron and Harper 2009: 297).

Cyr, D., S. Gauthier, et al. (2009). "Forest management is driving the eastern North American boreal forest outside its natural range of variability." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment In Press. and Bergeron, Y. and K. A. Harper (2009). Old-growth forests in the Caandian Boreal: the exception rather than the rule? Old-Growth Forests: Function, fate and value. C. Wirth, G. Gleixner and M. Heimann. Berlin, Springer Berlin Heidelbrg: pp. 285-300.

The Draft Recovery Strategy and Woodland Caribou's Critical Habitats

According to two participants in the draft recovery strategy, the then National Woodland Caribou Recovery Team defined “critical habitat” for boreal woodland caribou as, “equivalent to caribou ranges and their components” where “range refers to historic and current distribution of boreal woodland caribou and is defined as a geographical area partially or fully occupied by a defined local population of caribou” (Racey and Arsenault 2006: 31).

• “Critical habitat has been biologically defined as a perpetual supply of large, contiguous areas of suitable summer and winter habitat, allowing self-sustaining viable population(s) to disperse at low densities over a large area to avoid predator” (Racey and Arsenault 2006: 34).

Read the article on the draft Recovery Strategy, Racey, G. and A. A. Arsenault (2006). "In search of a critical habitat concept for woodland caribou, boreal population." Rangifer 17: 29-37.

Adapting BAU

The Canadian Forest Service (CFS) has put out its latest assessment of what is required of the forest sector to adapt to the climate crisis and yet again it has missed the elephant in the corner. Hey folks, what we need is action to preserve forest biodiversity - we need an ecosystem survival strategy! We need to reduce our direct human-caused forest disturbance to accommodate the elevated levels of disturbance we are causing to our forests as we warm the planet. We need to protect forests to enhance the resilience of our ecosystems and ensure the survival of Canada's biodiversity! We need new protected areas.

In contrast to the CFS study, in a review of all of the recommendations in 22-years of studies (113 peer-reviewed studies), Heller and Zavaleta summarized the top 10 academic recommendations for biodiversity adaptation action as (I'm summarizing and paraphrasing):

1. Increase connectivity [between protected areas]
2. Integrate climate change into planning
3. Mitigate other threats [i.e. logging, road-building, further degradation of intact forest landscapes, etc]
4. Study response of species
5. Increase the number of protected areas
6. Address scale problems in modeling, management and experimentation
7. Increase and maintain monitoring
8. Create and manage buffer zones around protected areas
9. Create protected areas networks
10. Adopt long-term and regional perspectives

Read the reports, Williamson, T. B., S. J. Colombo, et al. (2009). Climate change and Canada's forests: from impacts to adaptation. Edmonton, AB, Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre: 112 pp. and Heller, N. E. and E. Zavaleta (2009). "Biodiversity management in the face of climate change: A review of 22 years of recommendations." Biological Conservation 142: 14-32.