| CARIBOU NEWS IN BRIEF | Volume 9 No. 1 · July 2005 |
||
In this issue ...
SPREADING THE WORD TO PROTECT THE HERDS BQCMB WINS AWARD FROM MANITOBA HYDRO MONITORING PRIORITIES PROJECT: LOTS TO CONSIDER AUTUMN 2005 DATE FOR ROAD CONSULTATIONS NEW KIVALLIQ PLAN AT A STANDSTILL PEOPLE AND CARIBOU
SPREADING THE WORD TO PROTECT THE HERDS A colourful plain-language summary in English, Inuktitut and Dene is telling caribou-range residents and others why it’s essential to protect the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds and their important habitats in the face of rapid industrial development, and what needs to be done. Protecting Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou for All Time summarizes the position paper that the BQCMB released in September 2004, Protecting Calving Grounds, Post-Calving Areas and Other Important Habitats for Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou. Having an easy-to-understand summary to distribute to communities is key because the BQCMB wants to know what northerners think of the position paper’s recommendations first before any steps are taken to put them in place. The fifth government responsible for managing the two herds is the federal government. In a March 2005 letter, Indian Affairs minister Andy Scott says that his department will “co-ordinate meetings with regulators in Nunavut to initiate discussions on the paper.” The BQCMB had hoped to meet with stakeholders across the range rather than just from Nunavut, but before considering that, community talks must happen. Hopefully, initial discussions can start with the communities of Arviat and Baker Lake this fall. Churchill has also indicated interest in a presentation by the BQCMB. On the road to urge protection “It was a slam-dunk unqualified success,” enthused BQCMB secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson, speaking of the Canadian Wildlife Directors meeting in Regina where he, chairman Jimmy Laban and vice-chairman Tim Trottier spoke to a group of about 25, including all wildlife directors from across Canada. This quasi-formal group meets yearly to discuss issues and opportunities that span boundaries. Except for a few participants familiar with the North, “I think they were surprised at the amount of activity that we described and the issues,” says Trottier. “We tried to portray it not just as something happening in one remote part of the world, but what we’re doing (in terms of protecting caribou) can be applied to other species.” At Thompson’s invitation, audience members provided comments and advice. Getting caribou surveys done in order to have data to back up claims for the need to protect the herds, initiating talks with major land users, including industry, and promoting the Board to senior government people were just a few of the valuable responses. Constant turnover of ministers, deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers means the BQCMB must put together a briefing paper and meet in person “with higher-ups on a regular basis to remind them of what this organization exists for and why each jurisdiction participates and what’s worthwhile about the organization,” advised Manitoba wildlife director Jack Dubois. With “a million boards and advisory groups,” new ministers and deputy ministers are often overwhelmed. “It’s a lot easier to get response (to an initiative like the BQCMB position paper) if you’ve done the homework of getting minister and senior staff acquainted with your organization ahead of time.” Thompson also spoke to about 30 people at the 2005 Nunavut Trade Mission to Manitoba in Winnipeg, where economic development between the two jurisdictions, especially the proposed Nunavut-Manitoba road, was on everyone’s mind. Potential routes will soon be studied, and Thompson warned that a route threatening the conservation of caribou would be disastrous. Full support at HBNRRT Networking one-on-one, Thompson also met with Prince Albert Grand Council advisor Barry Hunter, and with Gail Whelan Enns, Manitoba Wildlands director, who offered to help distribute the position paper and plain language summary. The position paper and plain language summary are online at www.arctic-caribou.com. Manitoba Wildlands also has the position paper on its site, manitobawildlands.org.
New Management Plan available The next step is developing action plans with specific instructions for what needs to be done. Print copies of the Management Plan are available from the BQCMB’s secretariat (phone 204-467-2438 or e-mail rossthompson@mts.net), or download a copy from www.arctic-caribou.com Low-level flying complaint resolved
Pocket-sized observation cards, with a checklist of questions for hunters and others about disturbances they see caribou suffering from vehicles, aircraft or anything else that may bother them, debuted earlier this year in English. Now 500 copies each of Inuktitut and Dene versions will be sent to caribou-range communities later this summer. As well, an online version of the form can be filled out at www.arctic-caribou.com. As industrial development on the ranges surges ahead, the cards are becoming a way for the BQCMB to bank valuable first-hand accounts about human-caused activities that upset caribou. BQCMB meetings
Fear of a mining boom has prompted four Akaitcho communities in the Northwest Territories – including Lutselk’e – to start mapping out important lands in their traditional territories that they want the federal government to designate as out of bounds to developers while treaty implementation negotiations wrap up, something that’s expected to take at least another five years.
"People in Lutselk'e are feeling a lot of pressure from resource development," especially from the diamond mines that quickly sprang up north of their traditional territories, says Steve Ellis of the NWT Treaty #8 Tribal Corporation. "They see what's going on in the Thelon as just the tip of the iceberg." If action isn't taken to ensure development proceeds wisely and certain areas are off-limits to development, residents believe "that whole piece of land will be taken away from them, just like what happened on the north side," says Ellis. Fears shared by many “The Screech Lake property is located in key Beverly caribou habitat,” says consulting biologist Leslie Wakelyn, who had planned to present on behalf of the BQCMB at the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board hearing. The BQCMB is concerned by “the direct effects of exploration on caribou, such as disturbance from aircraft, especially during the spring migration and post-calving periods.” Another worry is cumulative effects, including impacts from existing and abandoned uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan.
Lutselk’e residents are determined to protect caribou, water and the Thelon barrenlands. Both the Bathurst and Beverly herds are hunted there, and Ellis says that development appears to be harming the Bathurst caribou. While the Thelon River flows into Baker Lake, not Lutselk’e, the Dene and Inuit from that region share a sense of kinship after having met in the barrenlands for countless years. Ensuring polluted water does not reach Baker Lake is important to Lutselk’e. So is preserving the barrenlands, considered a sacred place. "People will often talk about that area as the most beautiful area, and that there’s responsibility on the part of the people that that area is not spoiled," says Ellis. "It's really part of the identity and the culture of the people." The world wants uraniumUranium exploration is heating up in the North. The Thelon Basin is geologically similar to the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan, where five uranium mines churn out almost one-third of the world’s uranium. The price of uranium jumped 40 per cent in 2004 because of increasing demand for electricity. A 2003 report by Cameco (which fully or partly owns four of the five uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan) predicted that consumption of uranium would increase by more than 11 per cent between 2003 and 2013 in the western world, and that there would be a huge increase in demand from heavily populated China and India. Uranium fuel is used to generate nuclear power to create electricity. Unlike coal, oil and gas-fired plants, nuclear power doesn't pollute the air.
However, many people still oppose nuclear energy because of fears of radioactive waste from uranium mines polluting the land and waters. In Lutselk’e, “there’s real concerns about uranium,” says Ellis. "People here have direct experience with what, at that time, was called a small uranium exploration project" that supposedly would have no environmental impact. According to the Northwest Territories Geoscience Office's NORMIN database, the Stark Lake uranium exploration operation, under Ridley Mines Holding Co., did several years of geological mapping, trenching, a geiger survey and x-ray diamond drilling near Lutselk'e starting in 1952 – then departed, leaving behind "a large tailings pile that is highly radioactive in an area people just don't go to" today, says Ellis. Tracking activities across the caribou ranges To get a complete picture of what's happening across both the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq ranges, the BQCMB is attempting to map mineral exploration and other land use activities in order to see how they relate to seasonal caribou ranges, how activity changes each year, and what cumulative effects might be occurring. Information from the governments of Saskatchewan and Manitoba has still not been supplied. Data for the NWT and Nunavut, which are being provided and mapped for the BQCMB by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), show plenty of activity across those portions of the caribou ranges. Wakelyn presented an overview of land use activities on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou ranges in NWT and Nunavut at the BQCMB’s May 2005 meeting, based on a May 2005 map created by INAC and information about mineral exploration and development provided by Fran çois Bernoilles of the government of Nunavut's Department of Economic Development and Transportation. Among the highlights are these facts:
As well, Bernoilles' information indicates that there are also at least 23 mineral exploration companies active in northern Manitoba. This includes DeBeers, BHP, Canstar Resources and Western Warrior, which are hunting for diamonds, base metals, gold and platinum group elements (PGE), and CanAlaska Ventures, which is searching for uranium. Meanwhile, both Manitoba Wildlands and the Prince Albert Grand Council have offered the BQCMB mapping information and GIS assistance in order to fill in some of the blanks for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. UPDATE: For a current picture of companies with prospecting permits, mineral leases and mineral claims on the calving grounds of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds, please see this September 2005 map courtesy of World Wildlife Fund Canada. BQCMB WINS AWARD FROM MANITOBA HYDRO Praising it for safeguarding the caribou herds,
“(Caribou are) the lifeline of those northern communities,” said George Campbell, chair of the volunteer panel overseeing the awards and a northerner himself, originally from Norway House, Manitoba. “It’s their food, it’s their clothing, it’s their everything.” The Spirit of the Earth Awards, now in their third year, bring public attention to aboriginal history and culture in Manitoba. “It recognizes people for good things done, with a very strong environmental focus,” says Manitoba Hydro’s Brendan Carruthers, an environmental education specialist who manages the awards program. The awards evolved from an idea that Campbell and colleague David Crawford had after volunteering with the 2002 North American Indigenous Games in Winnipeg. Wanting to continue the legacy of the Games, which focused on cultural activities as well as sports, the two approached Manitoba Hydro for funding. During a special luncheon for this year’s award recipients, BQCMB Manitoba members Jerome Denechezhe and Albert Thorassie described the Board’s structure and ongoing efforts to preserve the herds, using traditional knowledge and science. The Spirit of the Earth Award is one of the few such awards the BQCMB has ever received. “Well, I think it’s about time,” Thorassie later said. “The Board’s been in existence since 1982.” Government and user members work together, but even when there are disagreements, “at the end of the day they come away with a solution. “The Board does help the community at large, plus the government people. They work hand in hand.” MONITORING PRIORITIES PROJECT: LOTS TO CONSIDER Monitoring Change, a video that captures caribou-range residents speaking out about events that affect caribou in their areas, is now out in separate English, Inuktitut and Dene versions. It’s just one result of an ambitious BQCMB monitoring priorities project that wrapped up last month.
A final report now with the BQCMB for consideration suggests ways to tailor caribou monitoring to regional priorities, and to streamline the 44-page questionnaire and mapping exercise used in the Nunavut pilot project. The project also aimed to create links between traditional and scientific knowledge and tie mapped data from Baker Lake and Arviat hunters in with vegetation and/or satellite-collaring data collected on the Qamanirjuaq range by the Nunavut Department of Environment. At the BQCMB’s May meeting in Rankin Inlet, Kendrick gave the Board 19 recommendations that tackle these objectives as well as broader BQCMB goals, such as cultivating the use of traditional knowledge, public outreach and fundraising. Some initiatives the BQCMB could spearhead include: • finding money or other support for communities so that they can afford to write proposals for starting their own community-based caribou monitoring program, with an eye to getting funding from partners • re-designing community knowledge collections with seasonal interviews, annual workshops and community assemblies • establishing a sampling effort with hunters • publishing a handbook on range-wide research procedures, which differ between jurisdictions. The BQCMB could also play a partnership role by: • linking with universities and non-government organizations to tap into funding and in-kind support • investigating international exchanges with other caribou/reindeer-hunting communities to learn more about caribou monitoring projects happening in other parts of the world • offering scholarships to encourage projects of interest to the Board that combine traditional knowledge with science • setting up a "Friends of the Barren-Ground Caribou" non-profit group to help communicate information about caribou to the public. Since the BQCMB didn't have a quorum at the Rankin Inlet meeting, the recommendations will be voted on at the November 2005 meeting instead, where the Board will decide which recommendations take priority. Meanwhile, the video Monitoring Change is being sent to communities, government departments and others, and will also appear on the Internet on the University of Manitoba’s Natural Resources Institute website. APTN plans to air the video. A broadcast date has yet to be confirmed. AUTUMN 2005 DATE FOR ROAD CONSULTATIONS Community consultations for a Manitoba-Nunavut road route selection study are now slated for this fall, says the consulting firm in charge of the study.
A community liaison officer would be hired from each community, a move Manitoba BQCMB member Albert Thorassie later called “a really good step,” and traditional knowledge is to be incorporated. BQCMB member Daryll Hedman urged that Fox Lake, Nelson House and Split Lake be added to the communities on the consultation list since possible routes cut through their resource areas. It had been hoped that consultations would start in early 2005. But the project’s advisory committee must be formed first, and that’s happening this summer, another member of the SNC-Lavalin Inc. team, Ben Hubert, told Caribou News in Brief. The BQCMB will sit on that committee. One of three possible routes would be chosen, starting either in Lynn Lake, Thompson or Gillam and ending in Rankin Inlet. According to an April 21, 2005 KIA press release, the 1,200-kilometre winter road/summer trail would “progressively develop into a two-lane all-weather road” if the winter road demonstrates “the viability, economic and social benefits of an all-weather road” after a number of years. SNC Lavalin Inc. will provide more news about the study via a newsletter this summer and, later, a website. NEW KIVALLIQ PLAN AT A STANDSTILL With finalization of the West Kitikmeot land use plan the priority in Nunavut, efforts to update the Kivalliq land use plan are at a standstill over the summer. Nonetheless, the first of eight steps necessary to update the Kivalliq land use plan’s content is underway, says Nunavut Planning Commission (NPC) senior policy advisor Adrian Boyd. The Keewatin Regional Land Use Plan, published by the NPC, is the only land use plan in existence on the ranges of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds. It was approved by the Canadian and Nunavut governments in June 2000. In Nunavut, reviews of land use plans are to take place every five years, as a rule. The December 2004 issue of the NPC’s newsletter, Land and Water, reported that the Kivalliq plan is being reviewed again because of regional issues, including a proposed road and power transmission line between Nunavut and Manitoba, and “the use of lands in the southern boundary area of the Keewatin by the Denesuline. NPC Board and staff will be meeting and talking with Denesuline people as part of the review process.” However, it’s not known when these talks would take place, says NPC’s Boyd. Step One has been to identify land use issues and concerns with community residents and others. Remaining steps include identifying the plan’s vision, core values and goals, collecting and analyzing information about the region to put into a computerized mapping system, developing options for land use, drafting a land use plan for public review, evaluating and approving the plan, then implementing and monitoring it. A new Keewatin Regional Land Use Plan is of great importance, in part because of improvements needed for outdated Caribou Protection Measures, conditions added to land use permits for developers to meet. The Measures were introduced by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in 1978. After BQCMB and NPC staff met to discuss an updated land use plan for the Kivalliq Region, BQCMB chairman Jimmy Laban recently wrote to NPC chairman Bob Lyall, urging that the Board be included in land use planning for the Kivalliq Region as a major stakeholder.
Meanwhile, Robert Connelly, acting director for Nunavut’s Department of Economic Development and Transportation, told the BQCMB about his department’s plan to conduct a feasibility study of the commercial processing and export of Qamanirjuaq caribou meat. The BQCMB will be involved in the study, and a report on the study’s terms of reference should be available this fall.
“I really want to get involved (as an) environmental technician with the mines to make sure they’re keeping on track – not ruining the land, running the caribou out,” says the 22-year-old. The BQCMB award, going for the first time ever to a resident of the caribou ranges, was allocated to general educational pursuits this year rather than a specific research project about Canadian barren-ground caribou. Fredlund enters the final year of the two-year diploma program at Aurora College’s Thebacha Campus in Fort Smith this fall. Graduates can also pursue a Bachelor of Environmental Science degree with a further two years of study at Lethbridge University. Fredlund says he may try to get a few years of work experience before pursuing a degree. The application deadline for the 2006 Caribou Management Scholarship Fund is Jan. 31, 2006. Students from a Beverly/Qamanirjuaq range community get top priority. For more details, contact: Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, Suite 405, 17 York St., Ottawa ON K1N 9J6. Phone: (613) 562-0515, fax: (613) 562-0533. E-mail: office@acuns.ca Website: www.acuns.ca Baker Lake Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO) chairman Harold Etegoyok reports that the HTO began moving into its new office in the Jessie Oonark Building in June. Its previous office was damaged when the municipal garage next door to it burned down in November 2004. 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 in microform from Micromedia Limited. All comments and suggestions are welcome, and may be sent to:
< return to the newsletter page |
|||||||||||||||||||
The governments of the Northwest Territories, Manitoba and Saskatchewan support the recommendations in principle, but the BQCMB has still not received feedback from Nunavut. Much of the two herds’ calving grounds are in Nunavut, where money spent on mining exploration jumped from $61.3 million in 2001 to $172 million in 2004, according to Natural Resources Canada. Only Ontario and Quebec have seen more investment in mining exploration than Nunavut recently. 
The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Plan 2005 – 2012, the long-term management strategy that will guide the Board, was published in May. A key priority is boosting community involvement in caribou management programs. So is monitoring and protecting caribou herds and ranges, the environmental assessment of proposed development activities on the ranges, incorporating local and traditional knowledge into caribou management programs, having school programs about caribou ecology and conservation, and communications. 
