This is a follow up to Goodbye Caribou, which explains why this forest is important for caribou migrations.

One of the many ecological catastrophes due to the fossil fuel industry and Prime Minister Harper’s blindness to its effects on Canadian environment is the deforestation of Alberta, and consequently the severe decline in the province’s caribou herds.

In the Northwest of Alberta, in the foothills where the boreal forest used to flourish and provide a corridor for the migrating caribou, the tar sands and industrial abuse of the land is such that satellite data shows deforestation at a rate outpacing that of Brazil’s rainforest!

Back roads into the bush reveal a patchwork of clear cuts, well pads, branching access roads and seismic lines cutting through the forest—all so extensive that gravel is more present than grass, conifers or anything green!

The fossil fuel industry has cut more than 16,000 kilometers of the seismic lines alone (used to study underground geology) in a study area of 13,000 square kilometers.

Thus only five percent of range for the Little Smokey and a la Peche caribou herds remain—a long way from the Progressive Conservative government’s very own target of 65 percent.

Harper should more accurately rename his party Progressive Destruction!

And Canadians, please adopt Newfoundland’s ABC cry in our next election—vote Anything But Conservative!

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Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Wikimedia Commons