Send a Letter: Act Now for Alberta’s Caribou

June 30, 2026

Alberta’s woodland caribou are running out of time.

For decades, scientists, Indigenous communities, conservation organizations, and even the Government of Alberta’s own biologists have reached the same conclusion: woodland caribou cannot recover without protecting and restoring the mature, undisturbed forests they depend on. Yet those forests continue to disappear through logging, oil and gas development, and other industrial activities.

Sub-regional planning was supposed to change that.

In 2020, Alberta and Canada signed an Agreement under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) to develop sub-regional plans that would conserve and recover woodland caribou by protecting and restoring their critical habitat. Instead, the plans that have been released move Alberta in the opposite direction.

The completed Upper Smoky sub-regional Plan and the nearly –finalized South Athabasca Sub-regional Plan prioritize industrial expansion while providing no credible pathway to caribou recovery. Neither plan commits to achieving the habitat conditions required for recovery, and both allow for the continued destruction of critical habitat in landscapes where caribou are already struggling to survive.

Even more concerning, the Government of Alberta has eight additional sub-regional plans still to come. This is a critical turning point for caribou in Alberta.

The decisions being made today will determine whether future generations inherit a province where caribou still exist in our forests, or one where their disappearance was planned despite decades of scientific evidence clearly showing what was needed to prevent it.

Join us in calling on the Government of Alberta to put caribou recovery back at the centre of sub-regional planning.

Send a Letter: Act Now for Alberta's Caribou

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I am deeply disappointed by the direction the Government of Alberta has taken with the Upper Smoky and South Athabasca Sub-regional Plans.

These plans were originally intended to recover Alberta’s caribou populations and their critical habitat. Instead, they prioritize industrial expansion while offering no credible opportunities for caribou recovery. They fail to incorporate measurable recovery objectives and present no commitment to achieving the habitat conditions known to support self-sustaining populations. Additionally, they present no evidence that the proposed level of development is compatible with the survival of Alberta’s remaining caribou.

Caribou are one of Canada’s most iconic species. Their continued decline is not inevitable, but rather the result of government land-use decision-making. By continuing to approve policies that allow the destruction of caribou critical habitat, the Government of Alberta is making a conscious choice about caribou’s future.

If this approach continues across Alberta’s remaining caribou ranges, the extirpation of caribou populations will no longer be an unfortunate possibility; it will be a foreseeable outcome of government policy. The responsibility will rest with the ministers who approved these plans despite decades of scientific evidence identifying what caribou need to survive and recover.

The Government of Alberta appointed multi-stakeholder Task Forces to develop recommendations that would maintain socioeconomic outcomes within each sub-region while protecting and restoring the critical habitat needed for caribou populations to survive and recover. However, those recommendations were not reflected in the completed plans. The plans also fail to uphold the intent of Alberta’s own A Woodland Caribou Policy for Alberta (2011) and obligations under the Species at Risk Act (SARA).

I urge the government to change its course.

Please revise the Upper Smoky and South Athabasca Sub-regional Plans — and all future sub-regional plans — to make caribou conservation and recovery clear and measurable objectives. These plans must protect remaining critical habitat, restore disturbed landscapes, and establish measurable commitments to achieve the habitat conditions required for self-sustaining caribou populations.

The decisions made today will determine whether Alberta is a province where caribou can recover, or one remembered for knowingly allowing their disappearance. I urge you to choose a different path while there is still time.

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