A woodland caribou shot with a telephphoto lens by Ted Simonette for CPAWS Wildlands League 

By Cameron Smith

There’s a mystery going on in the north. Three years ago, the Buchanan group of forestry companies had ten mills operating, and was Ontario’s largest lumber-producing organization.

Now, due to the downturn in lumber markets, it has one mill operating at only half capacity, and it is supplying that mill from old-growth trees in the 10,876-square-kilometre Ogoki Forest, 250 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

Cutting this old growth means destroying habitat for woodland caribou. Why, one wonders, does the Ontario government tolerate this? Why doesn’t it require Buchanan to log in one of the other areas where it has a licence to cut — in an area where the forest is second growth, and habitat for caribou was largely destroyed a long time ago?

Cutting in the old-growth is more desirable for Buchanan, because the farther north you go, the more uniform is the spruce forest. There aren’t as many of the unwanted, low-grade hardwood trees that slow down cutting of the spruce. The Ogoki Forest is the farthest north of any area in Ontario where logging is allowed.

Queen’s Park would be perfectly justified in telling Buchanan to cut elsewhere because it has been formally alerted to the threat posed to caribou. An Independent Forest Audit, completed two years ago, said, “...the Ministry (of Natural Resources) must provide strong objective evidence that the projected decline in habitat (in the Ogoki Forest) will not further endanger caribou.

“The audit team recommends that the Ministry conduct an objective assessment of the viability of the caribou population in the forest, and that the results of the assessment be incorporated into subsequent forest management plans.”

No objective assessment was done, and nothing was incorporated into the current plan, which came into force several months ago.

Independent Forest Audits are required every five years under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act as a means of determining whether forestry companies are living up to the terms of their licence, and to the terms of the forest management plan where they are operating.

But there’s more to this mystery than government delinquency. There’s active complicity. Queen’s Park has been providing subsidies to build logging roads into the Ogoki. The audit on the Ogoki says that caribou habitat will be reduced by 57 per cent by the time all the old-growth is cut, and logging of second growth is slated to begin. Logging roads alone will reduce habitat by at least 6 per cent.

Altogether aside from the audit report, research suggests that caribou don’t return to areas that have been clearcut, even after second growth trees have matured. There is simply no solid research material establishing that they will return — even though, as the audit suggests, mature second growth would provide habitat.

Some caribou have been fitted with radio transmitters so they can be tracked. But from all appearances, the effort has been minimal, and monitoring has been inadequate.

There seems to be a pattern that points to the government bending over backward to accommodate Buchanan:
•    It has ignored the audit recommendation to prove caribou won’t be further endangered by logging in the Ogoki.
•    It approved a new forest management plan that ignores the impact on caribou.
•    It isn’t monitoring caribou movements adequately.
•    It has provided subsidies to build logging roads into the Ogoki.
•    It hasn’t told Buchanan to log elsewhere, under one of its other licences.

The question is: Why? The Boreal’s woodland caribou are listed as a threatened species.