| Even as Canada becomes an increasingly urbanized society our country is still largely defined by its vast, forested wilderness populated by moose, caribou and bears. A place where people can still go on epic canoe or backpacking trips and not encounter another soul.
However, that wilderness is rapidly disappearing, and nowhere is this phenomenon happening faster than in Alberta. Alberta’s boreal forest makes up 48 per cent of the province. The forest of spruce, pine, poplar and birch interspersed with wetlands, muskeg and mighty rivers like the Peace and the Athabasca, extends at its southernmost point to the northern foothills and stretches west, east and north to the B.C., Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories boundaries.
Drive the highways to Peace River in the northwest or Fort McMurray in the northeast and you soon see that much of what was once pristine forest has been carved up by farmland, logging cut blocks, roads, seismic lines and oil and gas well sites. The industrial footprint on the forest is spreading like a cancer as oilsands activity ramps up at a frenetic pace.
Global Forest Watch Canada, a non-profit organization that monitors development in the boreal forest, published a report in 2003 assessing the extent of intact forest left in Canada. Intact forest is defined as a forest landscape that displays no visible signs of large-scale human activity such as agriculture, logging, mining, roads and pipelines and must be large enough to support natural biodiversity and ecological processes. Global Forest Watch Canada defines intact forest in its report as tracts of 50,000 hectares or larger that are at least 10 kilometres wide. Only 16 per cent of Alberta’s boreal forest was found to be intact. The national average is 62 per cent. Comparatively, Ontario has 54 per cent intact forest while Saskatchewan and Manitoba both have 62 per cent. Only Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had less intact forest than Alberta.
"The industrial-caused changes (in Alberta) are extremely dramatic compared to the rest of Canada," says Peter Lee, executive director of Global Forest Watch Canada. "What makes it even more dramatic is it’s occurred in a relatively short period of time – decades – whereas in the Maritimes and Quebec they’ve been working on fragmenting their forest for 150 to 200 years. It’s dramatic on a global scale, not just a national scale."
Lafcadio Cortesi, of ForestEthics, a non-profit environmental group that aims to protect the world’s remaining forest, agrees that Alberta is in a class of its own when it comes to destroying virgin forest.
"In other provinces development hasn’t happened nearly as fast or aggressively," says Cortesi.
In most provinces the biggest threat to the boreal forest is forestry, but Alberta has a unique threat — extremely lucrative oilsands development. The Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank in Alberta, and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) recently completed a report that studied what kind of impact in situ oilsands activity will have on northern Alberta. With in situ projects, steam is injected underground to loosen oilsands deposits too deeply buried to be mined. Although in situ projects are less environmentally damaging than strip mines where the entire forest is removed to get to the sticky bitumen beneath its floor, the report found that in situ projects will still cause widespread environmental destruction. Oilsands deposits underlie 21 per cent of the province and 81 per cent of the oilsands will require in situ technology because the bitumen is deeply buried. The report pointed out that if all oilsands deposits were extracted, the area exploited would be the size of Florida. Oilsands leases now cover an area the size of Vancouver Island.
CPAWS and the Pembina Institute predict that multiple in situ projects will cause "a serious decline in biodiversity" because the roads, well sites and pipelines required by in situ create massive forest fragmentation that reduces sensitive animal species such as caribou to existing on "scattered islands" of undisturbed land.
The report says several species, including caribou, lynx, marten and some forest birds, are at risk of extirpation (local extinction) in northeastern Alberta "under proposed development trajectories."
"If the entire oilsands reserve is developed at the rate we appear to be developing now, we’re transforming the landscape and we’ll be looking at local extinctions of many wildlife species. It will be turned into an ecological sacrifice zone," says Simon Dyer, one of the report’s authors.
"The worst-case scenario is this write-off zone the size of Florida. The best-case scenario is a landscape where we establish significant protected areas and slow the development of oilsands so we get sustained economic development."
Environmentalists are particularly concerned about what the government’s management plans are for the mineable oilsands area. Last fall the provincial government released its draft Mineable Oilsands Strategy (MOSS) that was proposed to manage an area of 2,586 square kilometres in the Athabasca oilsands around Fort McMurray. The strategy has since been scrapped due to significant public outcry but it gave some indication of the government’s attitude towards wildlife preservation and forest conservation in the area. MOSS openly stated that the government’s policy for the area "shifts from managing all resources in the mineable oilsands areas with equal weight to placing higher priority on extracting mineable oilsands." Since MOSS was scrapped the government has created an oilsands consultation panel and is in the middle of holding public consultations around the province to create a new management strategy.
Dyer questions why the consultation is happening so late when oilsands activity is happening at a frenzied pace.
"Consultation processes take a long time and while they’re going on the department of Energy is allocating leases out of control," he says.
CPAWS and the Pembina Institute are calling for a moratorium on the granting of new oilsands leases until a regional land use plan is developed that includes protected areas for wildlife.
"Alberta has an extremely weak land management framework. We really don’t have a good framework that manages cumulative effects," says Dyer, adding that the government’s current approach consists of "disposing of land without considering any other values."
The battle for the boreal has started to heat up with prominent environmental groups such as CPAWS, ForestEthics and the Canadian Boreal Initiative launching campaigns to raise the forest’s profile on a national and international level.
Cortesi says Canada’s boreal forest is a "global treasure" because it comprises 25 per cent of the intact forest remaining in the world.
"What’s very, very rare globally is that it has intact predator prey cycles," he says. "The relationship between wolverine, wolves, cougars, deer, moose, caribou across huge swaths of the boreal forest are still intact. They’re not disturbed by human footprint or intervention."
The boreal forest also has an impact on climate change. When it is logged and the ecosystem disturbed, stored carbon is released into the atmosphere contributing to the greenhouse effect.
"The boreal forest is a very important carbon sink so it’s important for regulating global, continental climates," says Lee. "The boreal forest has huge carbon sinks, particularly in the peatlands and in the bottom of lake sediments. Only eight per cent of the boreal forest is (comprised of) trees. It’s not just the trees that are ecologically important. It’s the whole ecosystem."
The boreal forest also provides an important breeding ground for hundreds of North American bird species. A U.S.-based environmental group called the Boreal Songbird Initiative has begun lobbying for protection of Canada’s boreal forest in order to safeguard the future of the many North American birds that rely on the boreal.
Protecting more of the forest will be crucial to the fate of Alberta’s woodland caribou, listed provincially and federally as a threatened species. Woodland caribou rely on lichen as a food source and the best lichen available tends to be in disappearing old-growth forests. As their habitat becomes more fragmented by roads, seismic lines and logging cut blocks they become more vulnerable to predators.
University of Alberta caribou researcher Fiona Schmiegelow says saving caribou in Alberta "is going to be a struggle."
"I think ultimately it comes down to the level of commitment the government has as a land manager to implement changes to land management practices."
Because woodland caribou are a threatened species, the provincial government is required under the federal Species At Risk Act to come up with a recovery plan to protect them. The government appointed a recovery team, comprised of environmentalists, government and industry representatives, to create the plan. The recovery team recommended that the government impose a moratorium on industrial development within caribou ranges until range management plans for each separate herd could be established. The provincial government rejected the recommendation.
"We are making implicit tradeoffs in prioritizing oil and gas or forestry development above all other things and there are potentially ecological costs associated with that," says Schmiegelow. "It comes down to a societal assessment really of what do Albertans want to see maintained on those landscapes over time."
Dyer says it would be tragic if Alberta ended up losing its caribou.
"The caribou is on the quarter. It’s a pretty significant animal for us in Canada," he says.
Rick Schneider, executive director of CPAWS’ Edmonton chapter, says the economy and the environment need to be better balanced so that species like caribou can continue to exist in the province.
"Government leadership should work on behalf of the people and find that appropriate balance and I think we’re really out of sync. It’s economics against all else," says Schneider. "If we keep that up we’re going to lose species and degrade wilderness. To me, that’s a big loss. CPAWS thinks that’s unconscionable we should write off caribou so we can develop faster and make more money that we don’t know what to do with."
One positive development environmentalists like to point out is that in some cases industry is taking the lead over government in protecting the environment. Alberta Pacific Forest Industries (Al-Pac) received Forest Stewardship Council of Canada certification in September 2005. In order to be certified, a forestry company has to meet strict environmental and social standards much more stringent than those required by the provincial government. Al-Pac is the largest forestry company in Alberta, with control over 5.8 million hectares of boreal forest. However, 300,000 hectares of that forest is in the Athabasca oilsands area and is not included in the certification because the Forest Stewardship Council of Canada recognized that Al-Pac couldn’t meet the stringent environmental standards required for forest management in the area due to oilsands activity.
"There’s holes in the plan, but it’s a really good start. Their objectives and their strategies are good, but what’s killing them is they’re not the only player on the landscape," says Schneider, alluding to the oil and gas sector.
Schmiegelow says in some cases forestry companies have shown "good faith" towards caribou protection and have deferred logging in certain areas to protect caribou habitat but she says Alberta Energy has then issued permits allowing oil and gas development in the same area.
Alberta Sustainable Resource Development spokesperson Duncan MacDonnell says the government has taken some positive steps towards protecting the boreal forest. He says the province has an updated forest management planning standard that forestry companies must follow that is based on "sustainable forest practices." The government is also encouraging industry to conduct integrated land management and share as much infrastructure (e.g. roads) they can in order to reduce the overall industrial footprint. Integrated land management is now voluntary. MacDonnell adds that oil and gas companies have done a good job of reducing the size of seismic lines cut into the forest.
When asked if the government has plans to protect new areas of the boreal forest in the face of unprecedented industrial development MacDonnell says there are no current plans for further protection. However, the province is about to embark on the creation of a comprehensive land-use framework for the province. He says the government will launch an advertising campaign about the land use framework this fall. Consultations will begin in early 2007.
"We’ve launched the land-use framework initiative," he says. "That’s a measure to get consultation and development of an overarching land-use plan for the province and this is in recognition that the amount of activity on the landscape is accelerating quickly."
Cortesi says Albertans need to lobby their government to do more to protect the forest before it’s too late, because the province’s boreal is "in a very precarious position."
"It has some astounding natural ecological and cultural values and they’re on the precipice of getting lost," he says. "Some of my colleagues and I look at Alberta and think let’s not let what’s happening in Alberta happen in other parts of Canada and let’s not let what’s left in Alberta get lost. In the midst of the incredible natural wealth of Alberta there seems to not be political will to protect some of the amazing things, like caribou habitat, that are still left. Can’t Alberta with its newfound energy revenues afford to protect caribou habitat?"
Cortesi says areas of Alberta’s boreal forest with "outstanding ecological value" need to be set aside as protected areas and the government should require a much smaller industrial footprint on other parts of the forest.
Dyer agrees that Alberta still has areas worth protecting before it’s too late.
"Even in Alberta we have significant areas that have never been logged or drilled or disturbed in any way," he says. "But things are happening fast. The main reason we should care is we still have the opportunity to do things right. |
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