BQCMB TO DEVELOP POSITION ON PROTECTION OF CALVING GROUNDS

By preparing its own position paper now on the protection of Beverly and Qamanirjuaq calving and post-calving grounds, the BQCMB is building on its previous work in advising governments about the importance of protecting caribou habitat.

Yellowknife biologist Leslie Wakelyn, author of the BQCMB’s Protecting Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou and Caribou Range, is writing the position paper with help from BQCMB members. The paper will be based, in part, on the BQCMB submission made to Fred Wiehs (Consilium) and Peter Usher (P.J. Usher Consulting Services) in February of this year. That was a response to a calving grounds management questionnaire that provided input for a consultation report commissioned by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC). The report was INAC’s first step towards developing a policy for federal lands on the management of human activities in caribou calving and post calving grounds. Weihs and Usher produced a final report for INAC in mid-June that includes an analysis and recommendations. INAC is currently reviewing the report and deciding how to proceed.

INAC’s new policy would aim for a balance between maintaining healthy caribou populations and developing economic opportunities in Canada.

In recent months, the Canadian government has taken an anti-development stance with its U.S. neighbour, strongly protesting anticipated oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge is home to the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou, whose range extends from Alaska into Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Calving grounds vulnerable

The Qamanirjuaq calving grounds and most of the Beverly calving grounds are in Nunavut. However, Nunavut doesn’t have a protected areas strategy yet. And while INAC introduced Caribou Protection Measures in 1978 to appease Baker Lake residents worried about the impact of mineral exploration on caribou, funding for the caribou monitoring portion of the program ended in 1991. The Measures impose seasonal controls on land use operations inside Caribou Protection Areas, regions that used to be drawn yearly based on areas used by caribou during calving and post-calving periods in the previous five years. But that exercise no longer takes place, either, so INAC’s Caribou Protection Areas today are based on outdated information.

That’s a big problem. In its submission to Weihs and Usher, the BQCMB pointed out that outdated Caribou Protection Measures are being included in terms and conditions of land use permits, which means that any protection they provide to caribou occurs by chance, rather than by design. Even if they are effective, the Measures were meant to minimize disturbance to caribou, not to provide habitat protection, and to minimize disturbance resulting only from exploration – not development.

Recommendations generally fail to influence

INAC and the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) consult several organizations when screening land use applications and other permits affecting the caribou range. But recommendations have generally not influenced those agencies, and permits have been issued contrary to recommendations. For example:

  • Between 1991 and 1998, 16 applications were processed for activities on Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou traditional calving grounds, including seven applications for exploration camps (government surveys between 1957 and 1994 define traditional calving grounds)
  • Ferguson Lake Lodge, a tourism business, also leases out to mining companies on the edge of the Qamanirjuaq calving ground, close to important water crossings
  • The Geological Survey of Canada has been flying and camping in post-calving caribou areas for the past few years.

“ . . .(O)nce companies are permitted to conduct mineral exploration activities that involve substantial financial investments, it is highly unlikely that they will be prohibited from developing mines,” states the BQCMB submission, “no matter what the potential impacts on caribou or caribou habitat.”

Ironically, in the Weihs and Usher consultation report, INAC staff members interviewed said, “In the case of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds, (caribou management tools) are working quite well. In this case, there is a well-considered process in place.”

USERS CALL FOR CARIBOU SURVEYS

The cash-strapped government of Nunavut will not fund overdue population surveys of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds, leaving the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and NWT to look for other revenue sources to make up the shortfall.

The BQCMB promised to push to get a survey of one or both herds done in 2002 after BQCMB member Jimmy Laban stressed that users were extremely anxious about the absence of up-to-date population survey figures. The herds were last surveyed in 1994.

“It’s way overdue,” Laban said. “We’re here to find a resolution.”

A matter of dollars and cents

Surveying the Beverly herd alone would cost roughly $140,000. Surveying the two herds would cost more than $200,000. (The Beverly herd, competing with other herds now on its range, is priority.) Saskatchewan will contribute up to $35,000 and Manitoba up to $60,000. At Caribou News in Brief’s deadline, it was unknown how much NWT would pay, or where other money would come from.

In the past, the NWT government has conducted caribou population surveys every six years. According to the BQCMB’s Caribou Management Plan – endorsed by governments – surveys for the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds should have gone ahead in 2000. With the division of NWT in 1999, the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq calving grounds fall inside the new territory of Nunavut.

The government of Nunavut was expected to play a lead role in surveying, with the financial support of NWT, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. But in a Jan. 24, 2001 letter to BQCMB chairman David Kritterdlik, Olayuk Akesuk, minister of Nunavut’s Department of Sustainable Development (DSD), said that with the many demands on limited funding, surveys of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds were not a priority at this time, especially when the sustainability of the subsistence harvest was not in doubt.

“This has just got to do with money, from the Nunavut end,” explained BQCMB member Mitch Campbell, the DSD’s regional biologist for the Kivalliq, at the BQCMB’s June meeting. It was unlikely Nunavut would commit money to surveys in 2002, either, he added. On the other hand, the Nunavut government was spending money on other types of monitoring, looking at past survey results, and re-assessing the figures.

Users fearful

The BQCMB’s Manitoba delegates couldn’t make the Black Lake meeting, but Manitoba board member Cam Elliott, wildlife manager for Manitoba Conservation’s northeast region, sent a written summary about discussions he had held with Manitoba community representatives on caribou surveys and harvest allocations.

“While observations by people on the land indicate there are good numbers of caribou, community representatives do not believe that these observations alone support increasing allocations without a new population inventory,” Elliott wrote. “Further, community representatives recommended that Manitoba hold firm on denying requests for additional allocation of caribou hunting, both for resident hunters and non-resident hunters.”

As for Saskatchewan, Laban told BQCMB members at June’s meeting that “the reason we wanted the survey done is because of the new road. It’s having a big impact.” The new 180-kilometre long Athabasca Seasonal Road, which runs between Points North Landing and Black Lake, officially opened in February 2000. There is also an ice road between Stony Rapids and Fond du Lac.

The Final Report: Athabasca Basin Transportation Study, commissioned by the Athabasca Economic Development & Training Corporation and released in November 2000, points out that “a number of potential positive and negative environmental impacts have been identified for the Athabasca Seasonal Road.” It also says that with construction of the new Stony Rapids Hospital starting in 2001, “there will likely be substantial trucking during the summer, using the Athabasca Seasonal Road.”

Pressure from users pays off in northern Quebec

Long lapses between surveys can spell bad news, or worse. In northern Quebec and Labrador, government budget cutbacks have meant that the George River Herd has not been surveyed since 1993, while the nearby Leaf River Herd hasn’t been counted since 1991.

Users observed that the condition of the herd was deteriorating, says biologist Serge Couturier of the Societé de la faune et des parcs du Québec (Quebec Wildlife and Parks), and his own data – ratio of calf to females in the rutting season – suggested a major decline. The Department of National Defence conducted a mini-census on the George River Herd in September 2000. What was once the world’s largest barren ground caribou herd, standing at 800,000 in 1993, was estimated to now be between 100,000 and 250,000.

In July, surveys of both the George River and Leaf River herds went ahead.

“Without users’ public pressure in the last year or so, it would not have been possible to get the budget to do the job,” says Couturier.

“Government budgets are limited and everybody, including caribou users and biologists, agreed that money should be spent first on schools and health,” Couturier adds. “On the other hand, we must find a solution to do a better job on wildlife management. The last years have been very difficult and we are taking more and more risks in our management decisions.
“In Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Fairbanks, or Kuujjuaq, caribou managers need information about the status of the herds to take wise decisions. Without information, we are taking risks.”

FUNDING CLINCHED FOR MONITORING IN NUNAVUT

Money has been found to kick off the BQCMB’s monitoring project in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut this year.

The onset of climate change in the North, twinned with the effects of man-made developments like mines and roads, prompted the BQCMB last year to agree to create a long-term monitoring system that uses local/traditional knowledge as well as science. People need better ways to share knowledge and discuss the impact of change on the land, caribou, and people who depend on caribou. This monitoring project will provide essential information for management of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds.

BQCMB chairman David Kritterdlik had suggested that monitoring in Nunavut begin first in Baker Lake and Arviat, since hunters from Baker Lake harvest from both the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds, and Arviat lies near the spring and fall migration routes of the Qamanirjuaq herd. Kritterdlik traveled to Arviat and Baker Lake in January of this year to explain the BQCMB’s monitoring project to the communities’ Hunters and Trappers Organizations, and obtained letters of support from them.

Since then, financial support has come through. The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board will contribute $30,000, the Northern Ecosystem Initiative (NEI) will kick in $23,300 and the BQCMB will pay $10,000 for the Nunavut portion of the project in 2001/2002. NEI will also provide funding for the second year of this three-year project, as long as what it deems favourable progress is made in the first year.

Yellowknife biologist Leslie Wakelyn is the project’s co-ordinator. She and Gary Kofinas of the Institute of Arctic Studies are to visit Arviat and Baker Lake in early October to discuss the project with area residents. One local project co-ordinator will be hired for each community, likely by September. Wakelyn and Kofinas will hold training sessions for the project co-ordinators, who will be polling up to 40 resident experts for their observations on caribou-related changes.

Meanwhile, Wakelyn was to give a presentation on the proposed monitoring project at the Dene Gathering in Wollaston Lake this month. At the June 2001 Black Lake meeting, BQCMB members and other northern Saskatchewan residents appeared interested in expanding the monitoring project to their communities, and BQCMB Saskatchewan board member Jimmy Laban invited Wakelyn to the Gathering.

If northern Saskatchewan communities give the green light to community-based caribou monitoring, the first step will be to look for funding to expand the project. The Lutselk’e Wildlife, Lands and Environment Committee has indicated its support for the project, too, and may also become involved.

THE FIGHT FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

Saying that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s environmental record “sucks,” biologist and TV host David Suzuki joined a panel of other well-known Canadians in Ottawa June 14 to decry federal government inaction on reversing environmental damage. An open letter to Chrétien drafted as a result of the panel discussion charged that the Canadian government is actively supporting a continental energy plan that encourages greater production and consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power throughout Canada and the United States, yet “these actions are worsening global warming and air pollution, threatening the land with radioactive waste, and compromising the health of the human and natural world.”

The public discussion, which also included former Assembly of First Nations chief Ovide Mercredi, Gerry Barr of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, and Heather Eaton of the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, came on the eve of July’s UN Climate Summit in Germany. Suzuki noted that the Canadian Arctic is especially sensitive to climate change, and urged the almost 1,200 members of the audience to tell their political representatives that climate change is a moral responsibility since Canada is responsible to First Nations, many of whom live closer to the land and already feeling the effects of climate change.

AROUND THE RANGE

Megan Broussie tries her hand at horseshoes, while fellow Grade 5 student Andrew MacDonald leaps with all his might in the high jump competition. The two took part in Sports Day at Black Lake’s Father Porte Memorial Dene School in early June
Species At Risk Act

The BQCMB was among 500 individuals and organizations that spoke out on the federal government’s proposed Species At Risk Act, unveiled in February 2001. The bill aims to help prevent Canadian wildlife from becoming extinct, and to nurture species at risk back to good health. Written and oral presentations were made to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

“Ya gotta lichen caribou”

Learning about caribou and their fragile environment is a good way for children to become acquainted with wildlife management practices. With that in mind, Project Caribou: An Educator’s Guide to the Wild Caribou of North America, has been published. Headed by Remy Rodden of Yukon’s Renewable Resources Department, the ambitious effort garnered contributions from governments in Canada and Alaska as well as non-governmental organizations such as the BQCMB, and others. The teaching guide highlights conservation biology, ecosystem management and traditional knowledge principles that relate to caribou. Stories, songs, role-playing and games like Caribou Bingo capture the young imagination (as do some of the chapter headings – “Bot fly boogie” – and humorous illustrations by Doug Urquhart). The teaching guide built on existing education materials, among them the BQCMB Caribou Schools Program of the 1980s. The BQCMB also produced case studies of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds for use in Project Caribou.

How communities see the BQCMB

The flaws and accomplishments of the BQCMB over the past two decades, placed in the context of opinions of residents in two user communities, were unveiled in a 33-page article published in The Canadian Journal of Native Studies last year (Vol. 20, No. 1 2000). It was written by University of Manitoba PhD student Anne Kendrick, who has received two Caribou Management Scholarship awards in the past. Kendrick canvassed residents of Arviat and Tadoule Lake for their thoughts on the BQCMB.

Hydro line study

Ed Picco, Nunavut’s minister responsible for the Nunavut Power Coporation, told the territorial legislative assembly at the end of May that Nunavut needs to look at alternative energy opportunities. A pre-feasibility study done by Manitoba Hydro and NWT Power Corporation on a possible transmission line from Gilliam, Manitoba to the Kivalliq doesn’t answer many basic facts about alternative energy such as wind, hydro and solar generation, Picco said. As another possible source of power, the minister pointed out that Saskatchewan already has hydro lines directly on the Nunavut border.

BQCMB meeting

Board members travel to Yellowknife, NWT for their next meeting, Nov. 23 – 25, 2001. There, they’ll decide the location of the board’s first meeting of 2002. That choice hasn’t been made yet since the BQCMB’s chairman and the Manitoba board representatives were unable to attend the June 2001 meeting in Black Lake.

STOP THE MISAW LAKE TRAIL, BQCMB URGES

The BQCMB has written to Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management (SERM) to denounce a proposed 75-kilometre winter trail that would run from Hatchet Lake to Misaw Lake, and eventually north to Kasba Lake in Nunavut. A Saskatchewan outfitter has requested the trail.

In a June 18 letter sent to Dianne Allen, Integrated Resources Manager of SERM’s Shield Eco Region, the BQCMB relayed the concerns of Black Lake board member Jimmy Laban and others who want the proposed trail ditched.

BQCMB member and SERM wildlife biologist Tim Trottier was apprehensive, too. “I was concerned it would set a precedent. Then more and more outfitters would want their own trails. There would be more and more trails into the caribou range.”

Several elders agreed with Laban’s position at the BQCMB’s public meeting in Black Lake on June 2.

The BQCMB’s letter pointed out that the proposed trail would cut through important caribou winter range, following an esker system that caribou follow. “(The trail) would provide ready access by snowmobile and possibly other all-terrain vehicles to hunters from the south who might otherwise be limited by their lack of familiarity with the area. More hunting pressure on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds would occur at a time when harvest of the former herd is believed to be close to the maximum sustainable.”

ATHABASCA LAND USE INTERIM ADVISORY PANEL

In June, the BQCMB and the fledgling Athabasca Land Use Interim Advisory Panel met outside Black Lake to talk about common concerns and see how they can work together. The Panel is creating a land use plan for the region surrounding the new Athabasca Seasonal Road, opened last year. Members come from Black Lake, Fond du Lac, Stony Rapids, Hatchet Lake, Camsell Portage and Uranium City. With several community meetings now behind them, the Panel sees that “the primary concern for many communities is the caribou,” says Panel co-ordinator Diane McDonald. Environmental concerns, habitat disturbance, shifts in migration, and competition between users are some of the reasons why people worry. “Southerners hunting along the road corridor is also a serious and complex issue.”

This September, the Panel starts a four-month training program on traditional land use research.

SATELLITE COLLARS LOUDLY OPPOSED AT COMMUNITY MEETING

Any doubt about how Denesuline elders felt about the prospect of putting satellite collars on caribou vanished during the BQCMB’s public meeting in Black Lake in June.

We don’t want them, they, and others, flatly stated.

In an emotionally charged meeting, person after person took the floor to oppose satellite collaring.

The responses followed a presentation by NWT biologist Anne Gunn, who talked about the use of collars on 20 Bathurst caribou. Data received via satellite from the collars helped show how the Bathurst herd has shifted its range south through the Thelon Game Sanctuary, as far as Rennie Lake.

Always considered strictly Beverly caribou range here, Gunn said there was concern that animals from the Bathurst, Qamanirjuaq and Ahiak (Queen Maud Gulf) herds were crowding onto the Beverly range, competing for a food supply that had been made scarcer with numerous forest fires in past years.

Gunn circulated a new lightweight collar among the audience. Such collars are programmed to fall off after two years, so caribou no longer have to be recaptured to retrieve the collar.

Billy Sandypoint strongly disagreed with the collaring, saying Dene know when caribou come and go, and they don’t need collars to tell them this. He indignantly suggested a biologist try wearing a satellite collar to see how it feels.

Modest Bigeye said people don’t know what impact the collars will have on the caribou’s health, and 99 per cent of people in Black Lake don’t want them used. Simon Robillard said the collars were heavy and might drown caribou as they swim across lakes. But he xpressed gratitude to the BQCMB for coming to Black Lake and being honest.

CHAIRMAN: SHARE INFO, WORK TOGETHER

BQCMB chairman David Kritterdlik journeyed on a hectic spring migration of his own this year, attending wildlife management workshops in Kuujjuaq, Iqaluit, and Nuuk, Greenland in the span of a few weeks between April and May.

Each workshop pursued different objectives. The Iqaluit workshop, sponsored by Nunavut’s Department of Sustainable Development, was an exploratory gathering of a half-dozen people who discussed caribou population surveys, and ideas for improving the current method of coming up with population figures.

The Nuuk workshop assembled 15 participants – from users to biology and anthropology/sociology researchers – to describe their area’s wildlife management structures. They hailed from Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia. Put on by the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, the purpose of the workshop was to set management goals for caribou and muskoxen in Greenland.

Kritterdlik elaborated on the sizeable changes that came with the creation of the new territory of Nunavut, explaining government departments and Inuit organizations that deal with wildlife issues. His words, he says, were also to “try and encourage them (Greenlanders) that their aboriginal people also need to be involved in their government. . . . (Aboriginal Greenlanders) are not very closely related to their government when it comes to setting up guidelines and wildlife management plans.

“That was one of the things that we talked about. In order for any government to be able to work, to co-operate with the native people, they need to work together.”

Michael Rosing of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources says Kritterdlik’s speech was well received. “The entire presentation gave an insight into how very different user groups can band together to make a workable system as long as they keep meeting to talk. In Greenland, we also have some herds that cross between several different municipalities, each with different types of hunters. The way that BQCMB seem to have attained consensus was very interesting to us.”

Local knowledge overlooked

The largest of the workshops was the 9th meeting of the North American Caribou Workshop. Almost 200 caribou specialists descended on Kuujjuaq, a largely Inuit community of about 1,300 in northern Quebec. Kritterdlik, though, was disappointed to discover that local residents had little serious input into presentations.

“An elder would be asked to do a story for 10 to 15 minutes and that’s all there was. There was really no question about the elders being asked what they know about caribou, rather than what they have gone through in the past,” says Kritterdlik.

“I found they (the region’s residents) had a lot of information that a lot of people around the world are looking for in regards to caribou protection, habitat, population, health, things like that,” Kritterdlik reflected. “There’s a lot of information in the communities where, especially where the George River Herd is very large and we got a mixture of people down there – Inuit and Innu and other people down there – and they have very similar knowledge of caribou which are not really considered as ‘knowledge.’”

“We need to go out there and tell (professionals) that we need to share that information in order to come up with acceptable management plans for the herds.”

PEOPLE AND CARIBOU

It’s hard to beat hospitality, Saskatchewan Dene-style.

The BQCMB’s June meeting unfurled amid sparkling azure waters and hot summer temperatures at Camp Grayling fishing lodge outside Black Lake. Famed for its northern pike, lake trout, walleye, arctic grayling and white fish, the cozy family-run lodge also endeared itself to lodge guests with mouthwatering home-style cooking.

After the BQCMB’s meeting wrapped up, board member Jimmy Laban and alternate Pierre Robillard, both of Black Lake, took seven board members and visitors out aboard their boats for a beautiful day spent plucking northern pike, trout and walleye from the depths of Cree River and other nearby waterways. Board alternate member Noah Makayak of Rankin Inlet, an avid angler, was in fishing heaven. Laban and Robillard, with the expert assistance of board member August Enzoe and fellow Lutselk’e resident Antoine Michel, also prepared a delicious shoreline lunch of fresh panfried fish, bannock and more.

But before the fun came the work of meetings. Laban chaired both the board meeting and Saturday evening’s public meeting in the absence of BQCMB chairman David Kritterdlik, who was unable to attend for medical reasons. Laban also provided translation to several elders while Yellowknife biologist Leslie Wakelyn outlined progress of the board’s caribou monitoring program . The BQCMB was fortunate to draw various residents from northern Saskatchewan to its sessions at times – among them, Simon Robillard Sr. and Lawrence Adam of Black Lake, August Mercredi and Edward Whitedeer of Fond du Lac, and Alec Dzelius, Baptiste Besskaystare, Paul Denechezhe, and George and Melanie St. Pierre of Hatchet Lake. Some were involved in the Athabasca Land Use Planning Interim Advisory Panel meeting taking place at Camp Grayling the same weekend. Other familiar faces at the BQCMB meetings included alternates Pierre Robillard and Joe Martin, NWT biologist Anne Gunn, and Antoine Michel.