The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, established in 1963, has played a leadership role in creating over two-thirds of Canada’s protected areas. CPAWS’ long-term vision is that at least one-half of Canada’s public lands, freshwater and ocean environments will remain permanently wild for future generations. As a national charity with 13 chapters, nearly 200,000 supporters and hundreds of volunteers, CPAWS works collaboratively with Indigenous, federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments, local communities, industry and indigenous peoples to protect our country’s amazing natural places.
CPAWS has been working to protect boreal caribou habitat for decades. Our public outreach campaigns have made the declining caribou populations a well-known issue and a priority among Canadians. Our “Caribou and You” campaign influenced the public release of the national boreal woodland caribou recover strategy in 2012 included a complete map of identified caribou habitat of threatened herds. We have worked with the forestry industry and other ENGOs through the Canadian to develop caribou range plans that would protect key habitat. In the absence of government reporting on the progress to protect caribou habitat CPAWS conducted annual reviews of progress by federal, provincial and territorial governments to protect and recover Canada`s remaining boreal woodland caribou populations since 2013. In 2017, CPAWS sued the federal government under SARA for a lack of action and reporting on the progress of caribou habitat protection. The lawsuit resulted in a commitment by the federal government to track and report unprotected critical habitat for all species at risk on federal and non-federal lands.
And yet, as this government reporting confirms, caribou habitat remains largely unprotected in Canada. Government reports indicate provinces and territories are slow and, in some cases, resistant, to implementing effective conservation measures to ensure self-sustaining herds of boreal woodland caribou identified under SARA. Disappointingly, the provincial and territorial jurisdictions are failing to protect essential habitat for most identified species at risk in Canada.
Protecting Canada`s remaining boreal caribou habitat is one of the most important means we have of maintaining fully functioning ecosystems within boreal forests and wetlands for generations to come. The biggest threat to caribou`s survival today is habitat fragmentation, primarily due to industrial activity. Boreal caribou are estimated to occupy 2.4 million km2 of Canada’s boreal forest – less than half of their North American range in the 19th century. Scientists consider boreal caribou as bellwethers of the health of the boreal forest, which also cleanses our air and water, and stores vast amounts of carbon within its soils, moderating climate change.
We need to increase the profile of this species; we need to better engage Canadians and pressure governments to fulfill their requirements under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA).
CPAWS has been tracking and aiding caribou conservation efforts for more than a decade. Reports from 2013-2017 tracked the implementation of the recovery strategy objectives by provinces and the federal government. These have generated media attention every year they were released, with at least one major national media story and up to 5 more local stories. The Species at Risk Scorecard project is an evolution of CPAWS’ Annual Caribou ‘Report Cards’ and will build on our existing involvement in caribou conservation across Canada. We have extensive local expertise of CPAWS chapters, the SARA expertise and public reach of CPAWS’ national conservation staff, and the coordination capacity of CPAWS’ national office in Ottawa.
CPAWS chapters from Alberta to Newfoundland and Labrador have caribou conservation projects ongoing with indigenous peoples, forestry companies, provincial governments and other NGOs. CPAWS has been involved in range planning initiatives at the local level and working with the Federal Government to implement the Species at Risk Act. The unique institutional design of CPAWS allows us to work across all relevant levels of governments to deliver results. Our structure is also perfectly suited to produce a jurisdictional analysis such as the one developed within this project. CPAWS has decades of experience in shaping caribou protection measures and establishing new parks and protected areas in the boreal forest.
