Partnership Agreement for the Central Group of Southern Mountain Caribou

A review of the potential environmental impacts of the Partnership Agreement for the Central Group of Southern Mountain Caribou.

The federal government has entered into an Intergovernmental Partnership Agreement for the Conservation of the Central Group of the Southern Mountain Caribou (“Partnership Agreement”) with British Columbia, West Moberly First Nations, and Saulteau First Nations. The Partnership Agreement provides for the implementation of key protection and conservation measures, and a commitment to longer-term recovery planning, by all Parties for southern mountain caribou, which is a shared federal-provincial-territorial priority species under the Pan-Canadian Approach to Transforming Species At Risk Conservation in Canada.

Specifically, the Partnership Agreement commits the Government of BC to bring forward regulatory measures for moratoria on resource development in various critical habitat areas, to be replaced in some areas by permanent protection measures; and to negotiate and seek agreement on a co-management framework with the signatory First Nations. Additional sustainable resource development areas would be managed consistent with caribou recovery-related land use objectives, while still allowing for some industrial activities. The Partnership Agreement also calls for all Parties to support southern mountain caribou recovery measures, including habitat restoration and maternity penning, and indicates that the federal and provincial governments will seek funding to support these initiatives throughout the duration of the agreement.

The proposal will contribute to the following Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS) goals:

• Healthy wildlife populations: by protecting and restoring the species’ habitat, and increasing the population through maternity penning.
• Effective action on climate change: by protecting and restoring habitat, including the provision of carbon sequestration services by standing and growing trees.
• Sustainably managed lands and forests: by the enactment of the anticipated provincial regulatory measures for the creation of the protected areas and other sustainable resource development areas that are integral to this proposal.

The implementation of the proposal will also support Canada’s Biological Diversity Strategy, which recognizes the importance of protecting the habitats of species at risk as a key component of conserving biological diversity. The conservation and protection of habitat will also contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), notably SDG 13 Climate Action as a result of the carbon sequestration services provided by standing and growing trees, which are among the actions to combat climate change and its impacts; and SDG 15 Life on Land, by protecting, restoring, and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, providing for sustainable forest management and traditional Indigenous practices, and halting and reversing land degradation within the areas to which the Partnership Agreement applies.