STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.
By Curtis Galbraith/with files from the Canadian Press

Alberta suspends caribou protection plan same day a petition is presented

Mar 20, 2018 | 5:30 AM

Alberta is suspending portions of its draft plan to protect threatened woodland caribou, saying more research needs to be done and Ottawa needs to help out.

This comes after a petition signed by 9400 people from the Peace looking for a different approach to protecting caribou was presented in the Alberta legislature Monday.

The petition was presented by UCP leader Jason Kenney on behalf of the Northwest Species at Risk group in the legislature Monday.
 
Chair Lisa Wardley says the petition asks for two things. The first is no additional protected land in the northwest. The second is a detailed study on what the social and economic impacts would be on communities.
 
“It’s not really an opposition, per se. What we want to see are actual strategies that increase caribou population numbers and not be strictly land-based recommendations. Currently, in the plan that came out in December 2017, it was pretty much, at least for the northwest corner, pretty much focused on land conservation.”

She adds what people who live in the area know about caribou is not being considered. “You talk to the locals in our area, none of their knowledge is actually being put forward as far as how and what can be put together as strategies for caribou population recovery and (that) you have to be able to add a multi-species approach in there.”

Wardley says ideas from her group were also ignored. “We did put together a recommendation plan, so there are 10 recommendations in there we put forward to the provincial government as well as to the federal government and none of those were included in the range plan that came out in December. A lot of it is based on the lack of data. Some of it is based on the definition of disturbance, what is actually a disturbance.”

Environment Minister Shannon Phillips told the house during question period that the province is acting on concerns from thousands of residents who have said they are worried about the economic impact of caribou range plans on jobs and industries.

Phillips says more time is needed to understand the full impacts of caribou protections. She is urging the federal government to help Alberta come up with a workable solution rather than have Ottawa impose an environmental protection order.

Phillips says she has sent that message in a letter to her federal counterpart, Catherine McKenna.

Representatives from the Towns of High Level, Rainbow Lake, and Manning, along with Clear Hills, Mackenzie and Northern Sunrise counties make up the Northwest Species at Risk group.
 
9400 signatures represents almost half of the adult population that live in these municipalities.

by Curtis Galbraith/with files from the Canadian Press