Richard Froese
South Peace News
Big Lakes County has joined a group of northwestern municipalities to fight the province’s effort to protect hundreds of hectares of land to save the caribou population.

At its regular meeting Aug. 9, council approved a recommendation by administration to appoint a maximum of two council members and one alternate to represent the county on the Northwest Species at Risk Committee as associate members.

Reeve Ken Matthews and South Sunset House – Gilwood Councillor Ann Stewart were assigned to the committee, while Grouard Councillor Frank Sutherland was appointed alternate.

“At this point, we would just be there to listen,” Stewart says.

The committee is a grassroots organization initiated by six municipalities from Manning to High Level. Associate members can not speak during the meetings, says Jordan Panasiuk, director of community and protective services.

“The NWSARC formed in response to the Government of Alberta’s Action Plan for boreal caribou recovery, which proposes a protection area of 1.8 million hectares becoming new provincial parks,” he says in a report to council.
“The NWSARC’s concern is that these protection areas will limit land use and permanently prevent all natural resource extraction.”

The committee was created to assist the government in its approach to recover the boreal woodland caribou population by providing a local multi-stakeholder perspective in order to minimize the economic impact of impending land-use decisions, which also reflects the overarching recommendation.

“It would be good to know what they are doing because we may also have to do the same here,” Matthews says.

He notes that the committee already has 18 member representatives at the meetings.

“They have had so many requests from other municipalities, it would become unwieldy,” Matthews says.

After it was created, the committee reached consensus to extend associated membership to all interest municipalities.

Founding members of the committee include Mackenzie County, County of Northern Lights, Clear Hills County, the Town of High Level, the Town of Manning and the Town of Rainbow Lake.

“It is essential that the Government of Alberta complements its range- specific assessment for caribou population recovery with range-specific socio-eonominc assessments for localized social and economic stability and prosperity,” says a report from the committee dated July 2017.

Over the summer, the committee is committed to expand research efforts, seeking additional assistance and advice from the scientific community and environmental organizations, as well as working with local stakeholders.

“Our objective is to develop our conceptual recommendations into tangible solutions,” the report says.

County council will also send a letter of support to the committee.