Alberta Selling Out Endangered Caribou for Fossil Fuels

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 by Common Dreams

Alberta Selling Out Endangered Caribou for Fossil Fuels

The iconic mammal's numbers are in steep decline, but the oil and gas industry gets the OK to buy their habitat.

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer


The Canadian province of Alberta on Wednesday began selling land critical to the survival of mountain caribou to the energy industry.

The auction of leases, which continues until June 25, comes the same month the iconic mammals were characterized as endangered — facing imminent extirpation or extinction— by the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

That assessment also noted that the mountain caribou's population has declined by 60% over the past decade, that "even in protected areas they aren’t doing well," and that industrial development was a factor in their plummeting numbers.

Over 1,700 hectares are part of the current auction, with the biggest chunk — 1,237 hecatres — coming from the area home to the Narraway herd and that has had over 25, 000 hectares auctioned off since 2012, according to the the Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA).

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/14-8

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. What else is new about Alberta,

or Canada for that matter. The fire-sale is accelerating to assure that everything is gone, before anyone can do anything about it.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Okay, I'm not familiar with how protection laws work in Canada

But couldn't a federal protection law trump Alberta's fire sale of these lands?

[OnlinePoker]

3. You're talking about the Harper government

They've never seen a law (environmental or otherwise) that they aren't willing to ride roughshod over if it suits them. These are the guys who silenced scientists under threat if they gave unauthorized interviews.

http://sciencewriters.ca/initiatives/muzzling_canadian_federal_scientists/

[arthritisR_US]

4. The federal government, here in Canada, has a majority Conservative rule.

Alberta is pretty much 100% Conservative rule and has been such for over the last 30 years. Both provincial and federal governments are bought and paid for by the oil industry. Calgary is the hub of the oil industry and our whoring PM Harper hales from Calgary. Harper's government has shut down so many scientists and research that hope for my province and the innocent species we should be protecting, is rapidly fading.