To Protect or Not?

July 30, 2025

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• Boreal Forest
• Caribou
• Little Smoky
• Oil and Gas
• WLA Archive

 

By Pamela Narváez-Torres

Read the PDF version here.

 

If you ask me, the answer is simple: of course, we should be working to protect caribou. These animals are a symbol of wilderness, a key part of Alberta’s ecosystems, and hold deep cultural and ecological significance — especially for Indigenous communities.

If you ask the Alberta government? Well, their answer might sound similar, at least on paper. They’ll say caribou matter. Alberta’s own Woodland Caribou Policy even states: “The Government of Alberta is committed to achieving naturally sustaining woodland caribou populations.” But that’s not what we’re seeing in the government’s recently published draft Upper Smoky Sub-Regional Plan.

This plan, which applies to a section of mostly old coniferous forest in west central Alberta, is one of eleven plans Alberta committed to with the federal government under the 2020 Agreement for the Conservation and Recovery of the Woodland Caribou. It was supposed to be published in 2022. Only three of these sub-regional plans have been released so far, and this one is the first to address southern mountain caribou. It covers the Upper Smoky region, located north of Jasper National Park in west-central Alberta. This area is home to two of the last remaining southern mountain caribou populations on provincial land: the Redrock-Prairie Creek herd and the Narraway herd.

According to the province, this plan is meant to “support caribou recovery while also supporting a broad range of land uses and values.” It’s supposed to reflect the input of multi-stakeholder task forces — including Indigenous representatives, industry, municipalities, environmental groups, and others — that met in 2019 to 2020. The goal of these task forces was to identify land-use approaches that could support both responsible development and the recovery of caribou populations.

But that’s not what ended up in the plan.

After its release in March 2025, AWA worked alongside CPAWS Northern Alberta and the Alberta Chapter of The Wildlife Society to analyze what this plan would mean for caribou. Our conclusion? The draft Upper Smoky Sub-Regional Plan does not support recovery. It’s a plan for extinction. Instead of preserving what little critical habitat remains, it accelerates its destruction.

Here are some key findings from our review of the Upper Smoky sub-regional plan:

• The plan would allow the last winter range areas still occupied by caribou to be completely clear-cut, eliminating the ability for caribou to winter in the forested foothills.
• Caribou would be relegated to mountainous terrain year-round, reducing their survival, including catastrophic mortality events due to avalanches.
• The plan would enable the rapid destruction of caribou critical habitat.
• The plan does not set limits on new development, and it does not provide a forecast of future critical habitat for caribou.
• The plan would push the two caribou populations towards extinction.

The government’s own data confirms our assessment. More than 40 years of caribou radio-collar data clearly show where caribou travel and winter. Government habitat modelling also shows how much critical habitat is left, and how much will be lost if the plan is approved. In fact, these projections were shared during two public webinars, showing that critical habitat will drop steeply with the implementation of the sub-regional plan. And yet, instead of changing course, the plan doubles down on industrial development.

I attended both Upper Smoky sub-regional plan public webinars in April and May, and it was obvious that the government understands the consequences. They know the planned timber harvest zones overlap almost entirely with the winter habitat still occupied by these caribou populations. And they still propose to let Weyerhaeuser — a U.S.-based forestry company — clearcut through it.

Most of the questions asked during the webinars revolved around caribou and the recovery of their habitat. “Why did the plan have no meaningful content to enable caribou conservation and recovery?” we asked. The answer? Leadership directed the plan to focus on economic development. Not caribou conservation or recovery. Not habitat conservation or wise management. The focus is on economic development.

The consequences will be severe. The foothills forests provide the mature and old forests that these caribou depend on to survive. The removal of those forests will continue to push caribou into higher elevations where snow is deeper, food is scarcer, and avalanches are a constant threat.

Meanwhile, the province is still culling wolves. Every year, dozens are killed to keep caribou populations from collapsing. But wolf control alone cannot save caribou, not without habitat. And under this plan, most of the remaining critical habitat would be gone before any restoration efforts could even begin to make a difference.

Sub-regional planning was supposed to be the turning point for woodland caribou in Alberta. Under Alberta’s provincial caribou policy and the agreement between the province and the Government of Canada, sub-regional plans were supposed to create a path to achieve caribou recovery. But the Upper Smoky draft plan weakens that commitment. It doesn’t limit future destruction of caribou critical habitat. It doesn’t protect the last winter range areas that caribou still use. It doesn’t even seem to acknowledge what the data demonstrates. The draft plan would allow even more intensive clear-cutting than what was outlined in Weyerhaeuser’s current forest management plan, right in one of Alberta’s most sensitive landscapes. The plan would assure the loss of two caribou populations. If we’re serious about preventing that from happening, Alberta must take its own policies seriously.

And while the government insists that “nothing is final,” it’s important to ask: if they already know this plan would wipe out the last winter habitat for two caribou populations, why propose it in the first place?

As this issue of the Wild Lands Advocate goes to print, the public comment window is closing. If you haven’t spoken up yet, now’s the time. The deadline to complete the government’s public survey is June 25, 2025. You can also email the province directly and say this plan is unacceptable.

We can’t save caribou with policies that sound good but plans that do the opposite. It is key to tell the provincial government that the draft Upper Smoky Sub-regional Plan must not be adopted.

So, to protect or not to protect? That’s still the question. And if we want caribou to remain in Alberta, there’s only one right answer.