Quebec yields to pressure from Ottawa and agrees to do more to save the endangered caribou, but the progress announced by the two governments leaves experts unsatisfied.
Posted 9:00am Updated 11:06am
Jean-Thomas Léveillé The press
The Legault and Trudeau governments have made “progress” in their negotiations aimed at increasing protection for forest and mountain caribou in Quebec territory, they announced in a joint press release on Monday, but there was no specific announcement.
The Quebec government “requests significant additional action” to “work toward long-term self-sufficiency for all caribou populations,” the text reads.
These measures will make it possible to reduce the rate of disturbance of forest and mountain caribou habitat to 35% “in each of their ranges”.
This threshold is scientific consensus as the minimum required for a flock to have a 60% chance of survival.
Quebec aims to achieve this by using various “territorial protection” tools, such as designating legal wildlife habitats, biological sanctuaries, and clearing forest roads.
Protecting “large masses of intact habitats is vital to sustaining populations” of caribou, but last fall reiterated the literature review commissioned by Quebec Minister of Forests, Wildlife and Parks Pierre Dufour to highlight caribou declines to understand better.
Quebec’s proposed measures, which will be planned “in collaboration with caribou-affected indigenous nations,” will be funded in part by Ottawa, the document said.
Quebec also commits to publishing its final forest caribou conservation strategy “by the end of June 2023.”
The two governments say they have high hopes of reaching a formal deal at some point, but the risk of unilateral Ottawa intervention has not been ruled out for good.
Meanwhile the caribou are dying
Quebec’s desire to do more is seen as “a step in the right direction” by the caribou experts consulted by La Presse, but all remain unsatisfied.
“They say they want to do more by aiming for the minimum threshold,” says Fanie Pelletier, a professor in the Department of Biology at Université de Sherbrooke and a specialist in animal ecology who works on, among other things, the mountain caribou the gaspesia.
She points out that the goal of limiting caribou habitat disturbance to 35% is a minimum that ensures only a 60% chance of survival for the species.
We agree: It’s not huge, 60%. There is still a 40% chance that this threshold is insufficient.
Fanie Pelletier, professor in the Department of Biology at Université de Sherbrooke and specialist in animal ecology
Mathematically, this means that such measures will not be enough to save all caribou herds, says Daniel Fortin, full professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Laval.
“A good part of the populations are expected to decline anyway,” he said.
Fanie Pelletier also regrets that Quebec will wait almost another year to publish its caribou rescue strategy.
“These animals, while it takes us months and years to make plans, are dying,” she said.
Nature Québec also believes that “the provincial government has dawdled enough with the caribou file” and that the time is no longer for “doing things by halves to please the forest industry,” explained Biodiversity and Organizational Forest project leader Marianne Caouette.
campaign
Caribou protection promised to become part of Quebec’s election campaign, which was due to officially begin in less than a week, notably with the Innus of Pessamite’s threat to go to court to force the passage of protection measures.
The Legault government has “won” and calmed down, says biologist Alain Branchaud, director general of the Quebec section of the Society for Nature and Parks (SNAP).
“There is no concrete progress on the announcements,” he regrets, reiterating that the “short-term” protection of about 35,000 square kilometers (km2) of critical caribou habitat forestry “must remain the priority.”
However, CPAWS Quebec welcomes “the willingness of the two governments to work together and with indigenous peoples to find solutions to a complex conservation problem,” stated Alain Branchaud.
Nature Québec and CPAWS Québec are calling for a concrete and speedy settlement, accompanied by legal protections to ensure the survival of all forest and mountain caribou populations, such as: B. the creation of protected areas.
The Innus of Pessamite proposed to Quebec the creation of a protected area in the area of the Pipmuacan reservoir, which stretches across the north coast and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, to protect the herd living there, including the risk of isolation and disappearance very high.
The Innu Council of Pessamite, which was renewed at elections last week, had not responded at the time of writing.
Distinguish the different caribou
The caribou has several subspecies, only one of which lives in Quebec: the wood caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). There are three “ecotypes,” that is, varieties that have genetically adapted to the specific conditions of their environment: the migratory caribou of northern Quebec, the forest caribou (designated by the government as boreal) north of the St. Lawrence River, river and mountain caribou in Gaspésie and in the Torngat Mountains on the border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. The woodland caribou and mountain caribou are on the Canada List of Threatened Species and on the Quebec List of Threatened or Vulnerable Species.
Learn more
5252 Quebec woodland caribou population estimate
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON WOODLAND AND MOUNTAIN CARIBOU