Caribou still at risk under historic forestry deal

Industry, environmentalists band together for sustainability

By Hanneke Brooymans, edmontonjournal.com May 19, 2010

Area of suspended timber harvest in boreal caribou range. EDMONTON Environmentalists and the forest industry in Canada announced a historic agreement Tuesday that is meant, in part, to save endangered species. But caribou experts in Alberta fear it may not be enough to halt the iconic animal's precipitous decline in this province. The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement is expected to lead to more sustainable harvesting practices and protection of habitat in 72 million hectares of forest across the country. There will also be a suspension of new logging and road building on nearly 29 million hectares of boreal forest while the signatories develop conservation plans for endangered woodland caribou. At the same time, the "do not buy" campaigns by ForestEthics, Greenpeace and Canopy will be suspended. Many of these campaigns have held the woodland caribou up as their poster animal, suggesting that the species would be wiped out if further logging occurred. In Alberta, signatory companies have committed to no harvesting or road building in almost 4.4 million hectares of caribou range for three years. But Stan Boutin, a University of Alberta biologist and a member of the Alberta Caribou Committee, said this alone will not be enough.

"If we already have some pretty extensive oil and gas development, in terms of exploration and things of that nature, and already some roads in there from previous logging and stuff like that, then stopping any further stuff for just three years will have little to no effect on the caribou in those areas. It's just a start, but it has to be recognized as a start. We would just be kidding ourselves if we thought this was going to lead to a reversal of the downturn in the caribou in these areas." Woodland caribou are by nature elusive and difficult to count, but there are approximately 3,000 of them remaining in Alberta, Boutin said. That's about 20 per cent of what existed in the mid1990s, he said. "It's really frightening how rapidly they are dropping." Boutin added that though it was hard to make out the exact caribou areas set aside in Alberta in the agreement map, he's willing to bet that there is pretty substantive development there already and that there is no merchantable timber in many parts of the forest inhabited by the caribou. Helene Walsh, who has long campaigned for the protection of woodland caribou in Alberta, is cautiously optimistic about the deal, which involves 21 member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) and nine major environmental organizations. "It's good the forestry industry is committed to working in a positive direction here," said Walsh, boreal campaign director with the northern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. "One can only hope the government will follow. But unfortunately ... there are a lot of companies that aren't FPAC companies that log in critical parts of the caribou range." Boutin added that it's not just the forestry industry affecting caribou habitat, but also the oil and gas sector. "Pressure in the future is going to come to bear on the energy sector stepping up and becoming involved in the same process." The signatory companies in Alberta to date are Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries, Canfor, Tolko Industries, West FraserTimber Co. and Weyerhaeuser. Companies that are not members of FPAC had not yet had a chance to see the agreement, said Brady Whittaker, president and CEO of the Alberta Forest Products Association. "The others may wrap their arms around it, (or) they may not ... Having said that, the sustainability of our industry and our forests is the priority of all of our members." Richard Brooks, forest campaign co-ordinator with Greenpeace Canada, called the agreement the largest of its kind anywhere on the planet. He highlighted the importance of protecting the forest, which is home to 600 First Nations communities across the country. It is also the largest storehouse of carbon on the planet, banking more than 200 billion tonnes in its soil and trees, and is the source of freshwater for half of the country. "This is the way everyone hoped the world could work," a buoyant sounding Avrim Lazar, president and CEO of FPAC, said during a teleconference Tuesday. "Instead of fighting and having polarized discussions and trying to solve problems with win-lose, meaningless debates, we have agreed that tomorrow depends upon our ability to find solutions."

Lazar said everyone knows the forest industry has had a difficult time over the last few years. "We plan to turn this into a competitive advantage. We hope the customers will say to the illegal loggers, to the people whose products aren't certified, to the people who can't trace their products, to the suppliers of wood and paper that haven't addressed climate change, we hope they're going to say to those competitors of ours, 'You're at the back of the line.' And those products that are world class in terms of the environment are at the front of the line." Brooks said environmentalists have tried many tactics over many years, from marketplace engagement to public education to creative confrontation and science research. "We've been fighting this fight, the environmental community, for many years now, and we have had some victories along the way. But we haven't been able to achieve the results that we've all been hoping for. And this agreement really is going to achieve those results, and that's why we're behind it. "This is our best and last chance to save woodland caribou in the boreal forests over a vast area that is twice the size of Germany," he said. "It is our last chance to permanently protect large areas of forest that will be durable in the face of climate change." It is estimated there are 36,000 woodland caribou left in Canada's boreal forests. hbrooymans@thejournal.canwest.com BY THE NUMBERS The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement in Alberta's boreal forest: - -In total, Alberta is home to 49,508,709 hectares of boreal forest. - -16,963,909 hectares of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) member tenure lands in Alberta fall under the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. - -The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement applies to 4,421,335 hectares of caribou range within the FPAC member tenure lands in Alberta. - -Alberta has 20,649,531 hectares of commercial forest within its boreal zone. - -The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement commits to no harvesting or road building in 4,373,171 hectares of caribou range in Alberta. Source: Forest Products Association of Canada Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Caribou+still+risk+under+historic+forestry+deal/ 3042518/story.html#ixzz1EuSQTwSl