Woo-hoo, caribou!

How chainsaw toting underwear models helped save America's most endangered large mammal

Posted by Glenn Hurowitz (Guest Contributor) at 4:18 PM on 22 Oct 2007

Read more about: wildlife | endangered species | politics | grassroots activism | Canada

The world's 1,700 mountain caribou can chomp their lichens in peace -- Forest Ethics and a coalition of Canadian environmental groups announced an agreement with the British Columbia government to protect more than 5 million acres of their home habitat in British Columbia's forests.

The victory came after a five-year campaign targeting corporations and the regional government that either logged mountain caribou habitat or used paper from the mountainous, old growth forests favored by the caribou, which are not only the southernmost population of caribou but also the only remaining caribou population in the world in mountainous terrain.

caribou

This isn't just good news for the mountain caribou and the forests, but also predators like mountain lions and wolves who eat the caribou -- the B.C. government had been focused on shooting those animals as a way to protect the caribou; now, they're going to seriously curtail these culls.

The campaign had won a major boost when Limited Brands, which publishes the Victoria's Secret catalog, announced it would no longer buy paper derived from mountain caribou forests. The victory came after environmental activists dressed as Victoria's Secret angels showed up outside stores with chainsaws in hand denouncing "Victoria's Dirty Secret" -- that the company was driving the destruction of pristine forests around the world.

This week's victory is just the latest in a string of major successes for forest-saving corporate campaigns. Forest Ethics, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, Dogwood Alliance and others have gotten Staples, Office Depot, Boise Cascade, Home Depot and many others to stop using wood or paper from endangered forests and start using far more recycled paper (you can thank these campaigns for the relatively high availability of recycled paper in most major office supply chains). What's so remarkable about these campaigns is that they've happened while the rest of the environmental movement has been in defense mode.

And by reducing demand for old growth paper, they could make it easier for legislatively focused environmental groups to pass legislation protecting forests. Indeed, when Rainforest Action Network persuaded former forest villain Boise Cascade to clean up its act, part of their promise was to withdraw from a lawsuit attempting to overturn government protection for 58.5 million acres of roadless forests.

As for the caribou, there's still work to do to get the B.C. government to implement its promises, so thank British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell for his action today.

For story: Woo-hoo, caribou!
7 Comments | Post a Comment

Whoa...

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:19 PM on 22 Oct 2007

"cull"

A shameful euphemism. It sounds like plucking posies for a bouquet.

The photograph of the mountain caribou is wonderful. The colors are so moody and evocative. The forest is as if from an adventure story, opaque and daunting. The animals themselves are in a tight grouping, but confused, as if startled and apprehensive.

I have selected it to replace Joseph Romm's magnificent polar bear with the blue tongue, who has been up for several weeks now.

By contrast, BioD's angel is altogether indescribable. I am thinking of using it for my Christmas card.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 12:22 AM on 23 Oct 2007

Great campaign!

Focusing on the yearning for sexual status. Use the driving force of life to stop the forces of destruction. Why not?

More of these protests are needed. Mass media loves sex.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 7:54 AM on 23 Oct 2007

This greenwash ensures caribou extinction

"The government's announcement focuses on protection of winter mountain caribou habitat," says Pettitt. "That means high-elevation forest of little worth to logging companies. This suggests that a large amount of lush low- and mid-elevation old-growth forest may have been traded off to the logging companies in return for preserving forest that the caribou can use only one season of the year. Without four-season habitat, the mountain caribou will continue to disappear. The mountain caribou has been a victim of planning hoaxes for years," says Sherrod. "That's why Valhalla Wilderness Watch and many other environmental groups need to see the details of this plan, to scrutinize exactly what it means for the caribou. The ten environmental groups that are now in partnership with the government and these collaborating vested interests can't very well provide that scrutiny. "This has come as a real shock because this is the first time that a BC government has decided who will represent the environmental movement."
http://wildernesswatch@netidea.com

The mountain caribou range within an area that's more or less 14 million hectares. With the 2.2 million hectares that the government says it will bring up to protection, that's protecting 15% of the area. As opposed to about 34% that was protected on the mid- and north-coasts and the 50% that scientists say must be protected to maintain species. Now, let's say we get that much protected, and that leaves 85% of the mountain caribou range to continue to be logged. An animal that is now on the brink of extinction because of the degree of logging of its habitat is not going survive having logging go on over 85% of its range. We saw we could no longer afford the luxury of being able, with a sweep of our arm, to point out how much the loggers have left to support their livelihoods. They've logged so much of it that a species like the mountain caribou is on the verge of extinction and its critical imperillment means critical imperillment for a whole list of species connected with old growth. Nor is it any accident that Slocan Forest Products pulled out, that Pope & Talbot is fighting bankruptcy, that the cedar logging outfit up in the Robson Valley went bankrupt. This is no longer about leaving a good whole bunch of forest for logging. This is about the fact we've almost logged it all and we have to decide whether we are really going to kill off our wildlife to strip what old growth remains. We can't escape what we know now: The critical links of the mountain caribou's habitat have to be preserved now or we are going to kill a major species and wipe out a whole constellation of low-elevation old-growth species. 380,000 hectares of new protection is enough only if we don't mind that. And if we don't mind it, we are in a lot of trouble on other fronts. As you know, we are losing 10 million hectares of dry pine forests. Our forests are our carbon sinks, and in the humid forests there are huge trees and ancient soils that hold huge quantities of carbon. By what insanity are we continuing to log our humid forests when that's all we have left to help mitigate global warming? The difficulty that Valhalla experienced, that you experience, at the crossroads where we must try to save or abandon a wide-ranging, old-growth dependent species is the same torpor that could wipe out the human race.
wildernesswatch@netidea.com

by Deane at 8:20 PM on 23 Oct 2007

Santa Claus...

...is comin' to town.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 9:50 AM on 24 Oct 2007
[ Parent ]

I would like to find out,

why these caribou love old growth forests so much. Considering that the rest of the populations don't, and survive perfectly well in second-growth, treeline, taiga or in tundra. Seems dubious, and likely subversive.

by atreyger at 11:38 AM on 24 Oct 2007

Cervidae are flexible

ATreyger,
most deer seem able to pass among ecosystems, in the course of a day, a season or a year, whether by habit or by response to a new pressure. It is well-known that the elk of Yellowstone, back in the days of wolflessness, used to hang out in the open lowlands around streams and eat up the seedlings; but now that the wolves have been restored, the elk must keep out of sight more, staying in the woods longer, with the result that trees at last have a chance to grow.

It would be nice to know more about the evolution of the caribou/reindeer, Rangifer tarandus. (The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder's word for reindeer is "tarandrus.") In North America, there are no less than three forms, the Barren Ground Caribou, inhabiting tundra regions, e.g. our friends the Porcupine herd whose calving ground is the coastal plain of ANWR; Peary's Caribou, a smaller, paler form, on the Arctic islands of Canada; and the Woodland Caribou, aka Mountain Caribou, in the forested slopes of the northern Rockies. The forms are phenotypically distinct (Woodland Caribou are larger and darker), and are physically separated; so, according to evolutionary theory, we can expect them to blossom into full-blown separate species any day now. To say nothing of the Old-World Reindeer!

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:59 AM on 26 Oct 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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