Environment minister calls for emergency decree to protect Quebec caribou from 'imminent threat'

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is recommending the adoption of an emergency decree to protect the boreal caribou in Quebec as some herds cross the «threshold of near-disappearance.»

The Pipmuacan, Val-d'Or and Charlevoix woodland herds could soon be subject to federally imposed protection measures.

In a letter addressed to Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette, Guilbeault writes that he intends to recommend federal intervention to cabinet this week.

The Val-d'Or and Charlevoix herds, which currently live in captivity, each have around 10 breeding females. Over the next decade, Guilbeault says the Pipmuacan herd could also be threatened.

The minister presented these results following an analysis carried out by his department over the past year, at the request of some Indigenous communities.

In his letter to Charette, Guilbeault points to the forestry industry, saying logging and the network of multi-use roads are among the activities that, to date, have «contributed most to habitat disturbance.»

'Provincial government is too slow,' says conservation group

The emergency order is provided for in Section 80 of the Species at Risk Act (SARA) in which the minister is required to make a recommendation if they consider a species to be exposed to imminent threats to its survival or recovery. Once in effect, it can remain so for five years.

The federal government has a «legal obligation» to protect the herd, says Alice-Anne Simard, executive director of the conservation group Nature Quebec.

«The environment and biodiversity is a shared responsibility,» she said.

"(Caribou) are on the brink of extinction and the federal government has to act since the provincial government is too slow in this process."

In April, the