Clearcut logging operations like this one in Whiteshell Provincial Park have contributed to the eradication of woodland caribou from the park. Currently forty-seven per cent of the park is open to clearcut logging. Photo credit: Shelley Sandhu
"No woodland caribou bands have ever survived a program of even moderately intensive clearcutting in their vicinity."
Dr. W. O. Pruitt, Jr. – Professor & Senior Scholar
Department of Zoology, University of Manitoba.
Stopping the pattern of destruction
Half of Manitoba's caribou already lost!
Fifty percent of Manitoba’s woodland caribou are already gone from the province’s boreal forest landscape largely because of human developments such as clearcut logging, mining, hydro dams, hydro line corridors and extensive road networks which break and destroy critical caribou habitats.
Clearcut logging is the single largest human caused threat to Canada’s boreal forests and to the future of Manitoba’s woodland caribou. Clearcutting destroys the large, contiguous tracts of old growth forests that the caribou require to obtain the lichens necessary to their diet. Unfortunately, this critical caribou habitat is comprised of the larger, old growth trees that logging corporations like Tembec, a Quebec–based multinational logging corporation, have a big appetite for. Tembec’s paper mill in Pine Falls currently consumes large forested sections in the southern portion of the East Shore Wilderness (see map far right). Sixty-two per cent of Nopiming Provincial Park is in Tembec’s Forest Management License Area. All the caribou ranges in Tembec’s cutting area have been assessed by the Manitoba government, in their 2000 Woodland Caribou Conservation Strategy for Manitoba, as “high risk” and in need of protection.
Mining tailings from smelters and air emissions harm caribou habitat. Lichens, an essential food source for caribou, are extremely sensitive to airborne contamination. Chemicals from the air accumulate in the lichens making them potentially harmful to caribou when digested. Mining activities also negatively affect caribou if facilities are close to, or on, critical habitats such as mineral licks, calving areas, travel corridors, adjacent habitats, or rutting areas.
Local first nations
The East Shore Wilderness Area is home to sixteen First Nation communities which for thousands of years have carried on a tradition of harmoniously living alongside woodland caribou.
Securing the woodland caribou’s future in the East Shore Wilderness requires First Nations assistance. Aboriginal expertise and traditional knowledge related to the caribou within their traditional territories is essential to protection efforts. Together, through meaningful consultation and collaborative efforts, we can ensure the future survival of the woodland caribou.
Hydro transmission line corridors such as the proposed BiPole 3 (see map far right) slice through caribou range, increasing access for illegal hunting, predation by wolves, and deer (which are carriers of a parasitic brainworm that is lethal to caribou). Hydro dams permanently alter and destroy caribou habitat by mass flooding.
Roads to logging operations, hydro dams, and mining sites fragment critical caribou habitat, bringing the same negative impacts as hydro transmission line corridors. The East Shore Wilderness is imminently threatened by the proposed extension of the Lake Winnipeg East Logging Road. This road would result in a network of hundreds of kilometres of all-weather roads that would bring clearcut logging, mining, hydro transmission corridors, dams and other forest-destructive developments to the East Shore Wilderness.
Humans and caribou can co-exist by creating locally managed, non-timber forest locally managed, non-timber forest product economies that do not impact critical caribou habitats. Eco-tourism is one great example. According to recent Manitoba government press releases, the tourism industry produces over four times the amount of jobs than logging does in Manitoba.
