The caribou. It’s curious, the less there are, the more cumbersome the government finds them. Indeed, their planned disappearance highlights the unsustainable management of our boreal forests.*
The animal is capricious. He would like to be left with his main food that he ingests every day, lichen: a kind of beautiful moss growing in the shade of old resinous forests of fir and spruce. But the massive clearcuts operated on their territories are undermining their food, which takes a very long time to regenerate. And the forest paths facilitate the passage of wolves, predators of our tender animal. (The permit cost to shoot these predators, now classified as “small game,” now stands at $21.)
We have seen the decline of the Val-d’Or herd for a long time. Of about fifty animals listed in 1984, there are only nine left, all penned today.
The causes of this tragedy have also been known for quite some time, the solution has been found, unanimously endorsed by the scientific community here and elsewhere: leave them alone, the caribou, let their survival territories are minimally protected against industrial interventions.
They’ve been grazing here for just 120 centuries…
So what ? Our Ministry responsible for the forest refuses – without saying so – to collaborate in this specific protection, and has always done so. There is not just that.
Three years ago, 83 protected area projects developed by all of Quebec civil society were submerged in the tundra, victims of a veto by the minister.
A historical imprint haunts this institution, convinced that supplying companies with wood is its only reason for living, regardless of the mandates to which it is subject, including that of protecting the resource. The origin of this aberration probably goes back to the time when stumpage fees were the only sources of government revenue, before the introduction of taxes. This absolute recognition towards the industry has turned, over time, into banal servility.
Of course, the department got a little shuffled when the The boreal error 25 years ago and by the remarkable Coulombe commission which sharply reprimanded it afterwards. He simply hunkered down for a few years and then quietly recovered his legendary arrogance.
One public figure, however, has stood out among the slew of low profile ministers who have led the forestry portfolio lately: the late Claude Béchard, a Liberal, the only one who sincerely tried to balance the conservation of nature and its exploitation.
In 2005, he commissioned a significant plan for the rehabilitation of woodland caribou herds in Quebec. After the sad disappearance of the minister, the document was hidden somewhere in the bunker1 of the ministry.
Four years later, L’Action boréal obtained a copy on the sly and made it public. General conclusion of the report: leave them alone, the caribou, that their survival territories be minimally protected against industrial interventions.
Public opinion remaining largely in favor of this proposal, the government drew its exclusive weapon all on its own: to gain time. Allow the cuts to continue on the targeted territories. Postponing protection projects indefinitely by multiplying bogus studies and public consultations, of course avoiding discussions with these regional ecologists who see the forest as something other than a reservoir of cubic meters of wood to be sold at a loss and who are campaigning to bequeath to our children a part of the ecological heritage squandered without restraint and by us and by our elders.
Apart from the forestry industry and a few mayors of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, almost no one wants the woodland caribou to go extinct. In a desperate search for support and credibility, Minister Pierre Dufour created, in 2022, yet another “independent” commission. But he will appoint the members himself. Bad luck, the commission comes to the same conclusion: leave them alone, the caribou, that their survival territories be minimally protected against industrial interventions.
People are nice. They easily grant the chance to the runner. Thus, they will say: “We cut a lot… but we replant!” The problem is that we don’t even know the real result of our plantations undertaken fifty years ago in the clearcuts. First, we planted only flammable resinous trees, spruces. We haven’t reintroduced bird nests, lichen and their caribou, the red-tailed hawk, rare plants, frogs, we’ve upset the soil, all of the existing biodiversity in short, the one that traps the greenhouse gases than the quasi-desert expanses that we see everywhere. And without recourse to carbon taxation…
Countless laws exist to protect endangered species, to ensure a balance between conservation and exploitation of the natural treasure. Boredom: those who write them, these laws, are also the judges of their application.
In the case of the woodland caribou, it is consciously and voluntarily that the authorities have caused and are still causing its eventual disappearance. In short, an ecocide. A crime, therefore. If an international tribunal could rule on this scandal, the Quebec politicians who instigated it would go to prison. And why not, as the main witness, former Prime Minister Philippe Couillard who, candidly, revealed the substance of the government’s thinking on the subject: I will not sacrifice a single job in the forest for the caribou.
Let’s not be nice anymore. No caribou herd should disappear. We must unite immediately to protect the most threatened: Pipmuacan, Charlevoix, Gaspésie, Péribonka and of course Val-d’Or.
Faced with the illegitimate – even illegal – behavior of those responsible for our forests, Action boréale wants the emergence of solid citizen resistance and the holding of actions in the field worthy of a real forest guerrilla warfare. We will encourage any peaceful initiative aimed at putting a spoke in the wheels of these ecocides.
Let the caribou be left in peace, let their survival territories be minimally protected against industrial interventions.
*As these words are written, huge wildfires are engulfing the boreal forest. We are afraid that the forest industry and the government will take advantage of this to suspend and/or abolish the projects in progress for the protection of the territory.
1. Fortress of technocrats allocating wood from their CRTs. It is now headed by the man behind the scenes, Alain Sénéchal.