| CARIBOU NEWS IN BRIEF | Volume 10 No. 2 · December 2006 |
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In this issue ...
AREVA, BQCMB TO SIGN AGREEMENT MORE BEVERLY COWS TO BE COLLARED CALLING ALL CARIBOU OBSERVERS! RANGE-WIDE MAP OF LAND USE ACTIVITIES STIFF RULES FOR MINING URANIUM IN THE KIVALLIQ WILL WINTER TALKS WARM TO CARIBOU PROTECTION? NUNAVUT CONSIDERS A SINGLE LAND USE PLAN BQCMB FLASHES CAUTION SIGN OVER ROAD BEVERLY HERD SURVEY LOOKS HOPEFUL FOR 2007 Funding from a handful of sources seems promising for a $300,000 calving ground survey of the beleaguered Beverly herd in June 2007. The herd, thought to be close to its sustainable harvest limit, is surrounded by fierce uranium mineral exploration on its range in northern Saskatchewan, NWT and Nunavut. As for the Qamanirjuaq herd, staffing and budget restrictions within Nunavut mean plans to rally for a survey of that herd will be held off until 2008. Caribou have streamed by range communities in plentiful numbers this year, although Kivalliq regional biologist Mitch Campbell notes the last spring composition studying calf production showed a population “that’s in a very slow decline at the moment.” Neither the Beverly or Qamanirjuaq herd have been surveyed since 1994, when the Beverly herd was estimated at 276,000 and the Qamanirjuaq at 496,000. Where are the Beverly caribou? In March 2006, satellite collars were placed on Beverly cows to gain insight into the herd’s current calving ground, a necessity for flying an accurate calving ground survey. Due to herd mixing, the majority of 20 collars deployed later proved to be on non-Beverly animals. Distribution data shows the Beverly herd’s whereabouts are still a mystery because “we have total overlap with collared animals from the Beverly herd and two other herds, possibly three other herds,” says BQCMB member and Saskatchewan Environment wildlife ecologist Tim Trottier. “We’ve got Beverly animals that are located pretty much with a bunch of Ahiak collared animals and they’re on what we think of as Bathurst range.” Qamanirjuaq caribou are also roaming the centre of the Beverly range. “Not only are we not sure what the (Beverly herd) population size is, we’re not even sure where they’re at.” Added to that concern is frenzied mineral exploration (“Northern Saskatchewan is the hottest place for uranium exploration in the world,” Cameco sustainable development director Jamie McIntyre told Caribou News in Brief earlier this year) and improving road systems that will likely bring all-weather roads, and more southern hunters, to most Athabasca communities within the next two years. Funding in new fiscal year How much governments kick in won’t be clear until the new fiscal year in April, but Saskatchewan has been approached for $80,000, and NWT and Nunavut (which includes the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, or NWMB) have been asked for $90,000 apiece. Of that, the Government of Nunavut has already provided $30,000 worth of fuel. WWF-Canada has pledged $20,000 and donations are also coming in from mining companies. The survey’s price tag, estimated earlier at $250,000, has risen to $300,000. Most of that pays for “air charter, which has gone up,” says NWT South Slave regional biologist and BQCMB member Deb Johnson, who is leading the project. Since fewer satellite collars were deployed on Beverly caribou this year than planned and less location data have trickled back, “we’re using two planes (instead of one) to do reconnaissance” in order to demonstrate that a large area has been covered. Plane-pooling to save dollars Cutting travel costs is where the Nunavut Planning Commission (NPC) would like to step in. Many Nunavut organizations need aircraft to do everything from environmental monitoring to search and rescue, sovereignty patrols and more, so this past summer the NPC leased a Canadian-built Found Brothers bush plane, outfitted it with a camera and began proving its viability by doing aerial photography work for groups such as the Kivalliq Inuit Association (see chart.nunavut.ca). The concept, known as the Canadian Holistic Arctic Reconnaissance Team, aims to get partnerships to make it possible to buy the $350,000 plane as a common resource for Nunavut organizations. Peter Wilson, NPC’s director of informatics and communications, says the plane is much cheaper to purchase and run than a helicopter, estimating the cost of a four-hour round trip from Arviat by helicopter at $6,000 compared to $1,000 for the bush plane. The NPC is in talks with the BQCMB now about the possibility of using the Found Brothers aircraft in the Beverly herd survey. AREVA, BQCMB TO SIGN AGREEMENT
AREVA has interests in five Saskatchewan uranium mines and mills (a sixth, Cluff Lake, is being decommissioned) and owns the Kiggavik-Sissons uranium deposits in Nunavut. “Our company, and many modern mining companies, have sustainable development policies that require no negative impact on the environment from the mining activity,” says Barry McCallum, AREVA’s manager of Nunavut affairs. “To protect the caribou from activities, we have to first understand them better and we believe decisions should be made on sound science and the best way to get that sound science is to work co-operatively with the (BQCMB), which has similar goals.” Through a separate initiative, AREVA channelled $10,000 into satellite collaring of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou in 2006 and will add another $10,000 to the 2007 collaring of more Beverly caribou.
The director of forest management of NWT’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) says her division plans to fund satellite collars on Beverly cows and study the resulting data in order to understand how important habitat south of Lutselk’e – thought to be among the last unburned strips of land – is to the herd. Working with the department’s wildlife division and the BQCMB, Susan Corey says her division wants to find out if these corridors are lost to fire, “is there going to be a gap in there being nothing available . . . until another area comes on stream again? “Our policy is such that we consider fire natural but at the same time, we’re trying to look at, where there are values, trying to provide protection of those values.” BQCMB member Earl Evans of Fort Smith says the large burn areas have altered the Beverly herd’s migration patterns and more head to the Abitau River area of Saskatchewan these days. “There’s a few green areas southeast of Snowdrift (Lutselk’e) and southwest, there’s a little bit of green in there, around Gagnon Lake.” There are also some green patches around Thuben Lakes and along the Great Slave Lake but caribou have a tough time getting to those areas because of burn patches. What’s more, many of their well-travelled corridors are heavily eaten out now. When caribou are forced to feed in burn areas, “there’s not much for them to feed on except a few willows and grass and a few sedges . . . and that’s not their preference for food. “They’ll eat it if it’s there but the food value is pretty minimal.” Evans, who collected samples last winter for an ENR study on caribou conditions, noticed that the fetuses were “so tiny compared to what they used to be” and wonders if the combined effects of fires, climate change and resource development are taking their toll. Speaking out for the herds BQCMB meetings MORE BEVERLY COWS TO BE COLLARED
In March, 20 collars were deployed on what were believed to be Beverly animals. But South Slave regional biologist and BQCMB member Deb Johnson later discovered that when the animals migrated to their calving grounds, only six were Beverly cows. Twelve were Ahiak animals and one was a Qamanirjuaq cow. The 20th animal died in late March, and one Beverly cow has also since died. At least one mining company has offered to let the satellite collaring team stay at one of their exploration camps. Johnson says companies with camps located even closer to the collaring area will be approached, too. “That will definitely help us do the work a lot quicker, more efficiently, too,” she says. “Excellent” Qamanirjuaq CDMaps of collared Beverly animals can be found on the GNWT wildlife division website with a two-week delay on locations (see www.nwtwildlife.com). Nunavut’s Department of Environment, meanwhile, has tracked the entire history of satellite collaring on the Qamanirjuaq herd (from 1993-2006) as well as the Lorillard and Wager Bay herds with a CD showing their animated movements colour-coded by seasons and the caribou life cycle. BQCMB secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson declared it “excellent” after BQCMB member and Nunavut Department of Environment wildlife manager Dan Shewchuk presented it at the Board’s November meeting. Kivalliq regional biologist Mitch Campbell, who was instrumental in creating the CD, says it will be updated annually, and data from the Beverly and Ahiak herds will be added to the next version, along with vegetation maps. Two hundred copies of the CD have already been distributed. Watch for an online version on the BQCMB’s website (www.arctic-caribou.com) in early 2007. CALLING ALL CARIBOU OBSERVERS! There’s lots of hustle and bustle on the caribou ranges. As of September, companies and individuals held almost 500 mineral rights on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds’ calving grounds alone. The BQCMB, and people working on the land, need to find out how caribou react when humans are around, and if caribou have, or have not, been bothered by human activity. Of special concern are activities on calving and post-calving areas, and near important water crossings. Research has found that when caribou are disturbed, they move away from the disturbance. This increases stress, activity and possible separation of calves from cows, all using up more energy. Caribou are upset by things like low-level flying and loud noises, and are especially vulnerable to disturbances during calving and post-calving. Cows need to feed for an uninterrupted period in order to produce milk until calves can forage themselves about three weeks after birth. People who spend a lot of time outdoors, like hunters, pilots and mineral exploration staff, may want to pick up some of the BQCMB’s Observation Cards to fill out. Answering questions such as roughly how far the caribou were from the site of human activity, and how the caribou reacted, will help efforts to change the way developments take place on the caribou ranges so that the herds can continue to live undisturbed. Cards (in English, Inuktitut or Dene) are available from the local offices of territorial and provincial environment departments, from BQCMB members and from BQCMB secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson (phone: 204-467-2438). Mail completed cards to the addresses on the back of the card. Cards can also be printed from the BQCMB’s website at www.arctic-caribou.com/caribou_form.html, or fill in the online submission form. RANGE-WIDE MAP OF LAND USE ACTIVITIES The BQCMB, with the help of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), has compiled a map of mineral rights and other land use activities permitted by governments across the ranges of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds in Saskatchewan, NWT, Nunavut and Manitoba (soon to be available from www.arctic-caribou.com). Exploration continues to be intense, particularly for uranium. The number of mineral rights on the Beverly calving ground, for example, has jumped by 150 per cent since February 2006, with 163 new mineral claims issued by the federal government to a single uranium mining company. Meanwhile, the future of mining in Nunavut should soon become clearer. The Nunavut Mineral Exploration and Mining Strategy is tentatively due to be released in late January, says Gordon MacKay of Nunavut’s Department of Economic Development and Transportation. STIFF RULES FOR MINING URANIUM IN THE KIVALLIQ
The formula, created by the NPC, states that for any uranium development or mining proposal to conform to the land use plan, the Kivalliq Inuit Association must pass a motion in favour of it. Baker Lake – in the heart of the region’s uranium deposits – plus three or more other Kivalliq communities representing half of the remaining population must also all pass hamlet council motions backing the proposal. Kivalliq hamlets, Hunters and Trappers Organizations (HTOs) and Community Land and Resource Committees will get information to help them carry out Term 3.6, as the requirement is known, when they and others attend a workshop in Baker Lake that will allow the NPC, NIRB, the Nunavut Water Board (NWB) and the NWMB to review the social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects of uranium exploration and development, as required by Term 3.5 of the land use plan. These organizations will merge information gathered into their responsibilities. Tentatively set for Feb. 27 to March 2, the workshop is also inviting community representatives, uranium exploration and development specialists, and other interested parties to make presentations and join talks. NTI policy a separate issueElsewhere, a third and final version of the draft uranium policy penned by the Lands Policy Advisory Committee of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) is expected in March 2007, says Carson Gillis, NTI director of lands and resources. The document goes to the boards of NTI and Regional Inuit Organizations in April or May for final approval. The BQCMB has registered many concerns over the pro-uranium policy with NTI, but has received no response or copies of further policy drafts. Gillis spoke to BQCMB members about the policy at their November meeting but was unaware of the Board’s complaints, and did not address them. A Nov. 17 letter sent to NTI first vicepresident James Eetoolook by BQCMB chairman Jerome Denechezhe took issue with the fact that the BQCMB wasn’t being included in consultations or a review of the second draft. “The issue of uranium mining in Nunavut is highly relevant to the BQCMB,” writes Denechezhe. “Our past involvement . . . has included participation in environmental assessments of proposed uranium mines in Nunavut and Saskatchewan, and reporting on the impacts of Saskatchewan uranium mining.” NTI is responsible for subsurface Inuit-owned land (IOL), amounting to just two per cent of Nunavut’s land mass. Yet its draft policy favours uranium mining for the entire territory. However, NPC director of informatics and communications Peter Wilson says that his organization’s current uranium-related conformity requirement work is independent of the NTI policy. “The NTI policy only applies on IOL.” The North’s A-bomb linkIn November, RBC Dominions Securities Inc. boosted its uranium price forecast for 2007 to $100 a pound from $55 following a flood at Cameco’s majority-owned giant new Cigar Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan that has delayed production for two years. Global demand for nuclear power-fuelled electricity is being led by the exploding middle-class economies of China and India. Canada is the world’s largest producer of uranium and its biggest customer is the United States. That relationship stems back to the Second World War, when refined uranium from the Port Radium mine in NWT was sold to the U.S. government to build nuclear bombs – a fact not mentioned in the history of the Port Radium mine in NTI’s draft uranium mining consultation document. Flanking moral questions about the use of uranium are health concerns about the radioactive material. The recent Indigenous World Uranium Summit, held in early December in Window Rock, Arizona, called for a ban on uranium mining, processing, enrichment, fuel use, weapons testing and deployment, and nuclear waste dumping on indigenous lands. Its ban was based on what the Summit termed “disproportional impacts” of the nuclear fuel chain on the health, natural resources and cultures of indigenous peoples. WILL WINTER TALKS WARM TO CARIBOU PROTECTION?
The BQCMB’s new Nunavut members, Thomas Elytook of Baker Lake and Laurent Angalik of Arviat, have expressed interest in having BQCMB consulting biologist Leslie Wakelyn meet, or follow up, with their HTOs. Wakelyn met with the Baker Lake HTO in October 2005 but not all board members were present. Former BQCMB member David Aksawnee, a guest at the BQCMB’s November meeting, also suggested the BQCMB speak to the Kivalliq Wildlife Board, of which he is chair. That board next meets in February or March. Meanwhile, the cancellation of a NWMB regular meeting in November iced the plans of BQCMB secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson to highlight the Board’s recommendations there. Still, the BQCMB reached a large northern audience when, with the help of WWF-Canada and above&beyond magazine, it placed a full-page colour ad in the magazine’s September/October 2006 issue, encouraging readers to contact their elected leaders to support protection of the herds and their habitat in light of increasing resource development. The governments responsible for caribou and land management across the ranges (Nunavut, NWT, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Canada) received the BQCMB position paper in late 2004, yet have not implemented caribou protection recommendations. The BQCMB is issuing follow-up letters to once again urge that action be taken – soon. NUNAVUT CONSIDERS A SINGLE LAND USE PLAN Plagued by the time-consuming and costly endeavour of consulting on, creating and then continually updating six regional land use plans for Nunavut, the Nunavut Planning Commission (NPC) is looking at switching to a system that produces a single territory-wide land use plan with regional components defined more by activities than administrative boundaries. Timelines will be developed as the process is scoped out with government and Inuit organizations, says NPC director of policy development Adrian Boyd, and may not be finalized until the summer of 2007. Groups such as the BQCMB will have several chances to get involved in identifying planning issues, the provision of research, and the development of options to manage the land use planning issues. Athabasca Stage I planning Meanwhile, with input from the BQCMB, consulting biologist Leslie Wakelyn provided extensive comments to Saskatchewan Environment in November on the Athabasca Stage I Draft Land Use Plan. This planning stage, the first of three, covers a 50-kilometre wide corridor encompassing the Wollaston Lake winter road to Black Lake, Stony Rapids and Fond du Lac. Saskatchewan Environment is a key partner in the Athabasca Land Use Planning Process. The Stage I Draft Land Use Plan is slated for submission to Saskatchewan's Cabinet for review in 2007. Comments from the BQCMB addressed wide-ranging recommendations in the Plan that touched on barren-ground caribou protection, cumulative impacts, the effects of wildfire on caribou, road and trail construction, conservation land use zones and more. The Beverly herd is vital to Athabasca communities: residents there harvest more Beverly caribou than their counterparts in NWT, Nunavut and Manitoba combined. The BQCMB pointed out that the most effective way to apply an ecosystem-based land use planning approach would be to conserve and, where necessary, legally protect caribou habitat, since barren-ground caribou is a keystone species of ecosystems in northern Saskatchewan. The BQCMB supported the management policies and actions for protecting caribou and caribou habitat recommended in the Plan, but concluded that "a land use plan for the entire Athabasca planning region is required to effectively implement (these) policies and actions." The Stage II/III planning area runs from Saskatchewan's borders with Alberta, NWT and Manitoba south to the Athabasca Sand Dunes and Cree Lake area. Work on the Stage II/III Land Use Plan has been severely curbed by the fact that Saskatchewan Environment has not provided any funds to the Athabasca Interim Land Use Planning Advisory Panel for the past two years. The BQCMB called for adequate funding from the government of Saskatchewan to complete Stages II/III of Athabasca's land use planning. The BQCMB also supported recommendations made in the Plan to prohibit new roads (including the Wollaston Lake road) and new resource development in the Athabasca region until Stages II/III land use planning is completed. The interim withdrawal of Crown minerals should also be extended. With new roads come increased threats to the Beverly herd. "Proposed upgrading of the Athabasca seasonal road to an all-weather road would substantially increase the impacts of the road on barren-ground caribou and caribou habitat," the BQCMB stressed. One major issue not addressed in the Stage I Draft Land Use Plan was specifying development limits, which was identified as an objective for the planning process during consultations. The BQCMB recommended that cumulative impacts of development on caribou and their range should be assessed in order to determine these limits. Joint support for conservation in the Thelon watershed Finally, a coalition (of which the BQCMB is a member) working with the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and the NWT Treaty #8 Tribal Corporation still plans to send the ministers of appropriate federal and territorial departments a joint letter that calls for research on the Beverly caribou herd, protection of Beverly calving and post-calving areas, implementation of the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary Management Plan and support for the Akaitcho’s claims for controlling development on their traditional lands in the uranium-rich Thelon Basin. Implementing the management plan for the Thelon Sanctuary has been a decade-long effort, with the Plan being approved by the Nunavut government, but not by its NWT counterpart. BQCMB FLASHES CAUTION SIGN OVER ROAD
An environmental assessment would be held before any route gets the green light. Hunting, wastage would rise In a Nov. 14 letter to route selection study project manager Tim Stevens, the BQCMB says a winter road would have negative impacts, including increased hunting pressure, poaching, wastage and more. An all-season road more than doubles these threats. It would also affect all seasonal ranges, including calving and post-calving areas. “Select a route with the least impact, with caribou as the prime indicator species,” the BQCMB urged. It also recommended developing an enforcement plan, reviewing ways to control access to caribou at critical times and in critical habitat, re-investigating rail, and monitoring all impacts carefully. How roads affect caribou in northern Quebec and around Yukon and NWT's Dempster Highway should be investigated, long-range assessments should assume the winter road becomes an all-weather link, and a land use plan should be developed. Communities want more infoAll three routes link to Churchill and arrive at Rankin Inlet. The western route begins at Lynn Lake, the central route starts in Thompson and the eastern route in Gillam. All cut through Qamanirjuaq herd habitat, although mixing between the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq winter ranges means the western route may also affect Beverly animals. BQCMB member Laurent Angalik of Arviat says when consultants visited his community in March, few people attended, including Angalik, because “we didn’t hear about that and they weren’t here for a long time in the spring season,” a busy hunting period. He also heard that the translation didn’t explain a lot of the information. “If the road is put through our community, what about the fishing, the caribous, if they get all depleted from people down South?” asks BQMCB member Albert Thorassie, whose community, Tadoule Lake, is on the western route and was the first community consulted. “Is there going to be any compensation for stuff like that? “They (SNC-Lavalin Inc.) said they were going to give us an answer coming back but nobody came back.” “I can understand why people would wonder what’s been happening,” says Stevens. Due to bad weather, consultations that started in January 2006 didn’t finish until October. More public meetings are planned for February 2007 but Stevens says they won’t be in all 16 communities affected by the road. The BQCMB will be invited to a Project Advisory Council meeting in February. Will prices truly drop?As the route selection study winds up, Tadoule Lake’s Thorassie worries that the promise of a road lowering prices won’t happen, and that private sector monopolies will continue to charge high prices. “When the Manitoba (winter) road was built from Lynn Lake to Tadoule, we were guaranteed that all the prices of the store, gas prices (would decline) but who lobbies for us to the Northern Store? Do you know how much we’re paying for gas right now? Fifty-seven dollars for five gallons. “They’re always saying things are going to go down (but) the necessities like milk, Pampers, stuff like that is really outrageous.”
The Grey Cup match that followed the BQCMB’s meeting in Winnipeg last November drew a few more people – but the Board maintained its own crowd of enthusiastic spectators until the clock ran down. In the stands were Lynn Lake conservation officer Gord Dumas, NTI’s Bert Dean and Carson Gillis, mayor David Aksawnee and teacher/ pilot/caribou supporter Orin Durey, both from Baker Lake, and SNC-Lavalin Inc.’s Tim Stevens and Mike Patterson, providing an update on the Nunavut-Manitoba Route Selection Study. Also on hand was Ray Griffith of WWF-Canada, updating listeners on his organization’s efforts to link the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary and the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary with adjacent proposed special management areas. AREVA’s Barry McCallum and Cameco’s Julia Ewing were also present, as were research consultant Brett McGurk of Intergroup Consultants and Josephine Smart of the University of Calgary. The BQCMB approved McGurk’s proposal to do an economic evaluation of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds, and to determine the cultural and social importance of the herds to those who rely on them. The last economic evaluation was conducted by the Government of the Northwest Territories in 1990, and that looked only at the domestic harvest. This study, to be completed by May 2007, will examine the domestic harvest and resident licensed hunting harvest (determining value through a replacement such as beef) as well as outfitting and the commercial sale of caribou meat (using the market values of those products). Harvest estimates will be used from sources such as the NWMB, BQCMB annual reports and territorial/provincial wildlife managers. “It’s high time that the BQCMB touted the total economic importance of the herds to illustrate the annual resource value compared to other resource uses or activities which might put them in jeopardy,” says BQCMB secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson. “The costs of replacing or recovering the herds, or their protein, by-product and cultural value to the communities would be astronomical.” Smart, an anthropology professor, spoke to BQCMB members about a proposed two-year pilot study to develop an early warning system for Chronic Wasting Disease, a neurological disease that has affected farmed and wild mule deer and elk in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and is expected to move north, possibly infiltrating the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds. Funding for the project is pending, and Smart expects to know if it gets the green light by spring 2007. Students: don’t forget that Jan. 31, 2007 is the deadline for applications to the annual BQCMB Caribou Management Scholarship Fund. Find out more about applying to the Scholarship Fund here. Caribou News in Brief is funded by the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board. It is produced twice a year by M.E.S. Editing and Writing Services. ISSN 1489-3436. Opinions expressed are those of the editor and contributors. Back issues available at www.arctic-caribou.com and in microform from Micromedia Limited. All comments and suggestions are welcome, and may be sent to:
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