Feature story - October 29, 2010
The Greenpeace caribou caravan migrated from Thunder Bay to the Brampton office of Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey to release a new report today on the status of the province’s last wilderness areas and measures to save the threatened woodland caribou. Fewer than 20,000 caribou remain in Ontario and their forest habitat continues to disappear. This was the fourth stop on Greenpeace’s province-wide tour.
“Minister Jeffrey has the power to save Ontario’s threatened caribou and last wilderness areas and our report outlines how she can do it,” said Catharine Grant, Greenpeace Boreal Forest campaigner. “We are here in Brampton to ask Minister Jeffrey to keep her government’s promise to protect woodland caribou and their habitat.”
The Greenpeace report, “Threatened Wilderness: The Last Intact Forests of Ontario,” is based on a review of the latest scientific literature and new satellite mapping tools and makes recommendations to the McGuinty government on how to best safeguard caribou by protecting conservation hotspots in the province identified in the report. In 2007 the McGuinty government, as part of its election platform, promised to protect woodland caribou.
Highlights of the report show that immediate on-the-ground action is needed because:
- The last large intact forests in Ontario’s southern Boreal Forest will disappear by 2025 if nothing is done to protect them;
- Woodland caribou have already lost half their range to logging and industrial development;
- At least 23,000 kilometres of logging roads – equivalent to two round trips from Saint John, New Brunswick to Vancouver, B.C. – exist in the commercial forest in Ontario.
“Time is running out for woodland caribou and less than 12 months remain in this government’s mandate,” said Grant. “As Natural Resources Minister, Linda Jeffrey can do the right thing for the species before this government’s mandate is up next October.”
The Greenpeace caribou caravan street theatre at the office included a small herd of black silhouette caribou, a seven-foot-high hourglass and a six-foot by six-foot billboard to remind Minister Jeffrey that time is running out to save caribou. Greenpeace also set up a phone station so people could call the Minister. The caribou caravan is targeting the offices of key members of the McGuinty government across the province in the next year to press for action on caribou protection.
Previous stops for the Greenpeace caribou caravan were Thunder Bay (Minister Gravelle), Ottawa (Premier McGuinty) and Queen’s Park.
Read highlights of the Threatened Wilderness report
Download a copy of Threatened Wilderness