Environmental groups sue Ottawa over decade-long failure to map B.C. caribou habitat

Ottawa sued over caribou

Photo: Bailey Repp

Logging in a BC Timber Sales lot in Bigmouth Creek in B.C.'s Northern Selkirks. A lawyer for the environmental groups warns of a 'silent catastrophe' as logging encroaches on caribou habitat

Three environmental groups have sued the federal government for allegedly failing to map out critical habitat for B.C.’s threatened caribou.

The request for judicial review was filed in the Vancouver Federal Court Monday, Feb. 9 by Wildsight, Stand.earth and Wilderness Committee.

The application takes aim at Ottawa’s alleged failure to produce habitat maps—the first step in a caribou recovery plan under the Species at Risk Act (SARA).

Southern mountain caribou were listed under SARA in 2003. The legislation requires Ottawa to identify what critical habitat a species needs, so it can implement a plan for it to survive and recover.

That requires full and accurate maps, something Ottawa was required to publish as part of proposed and final recovery strategies no later than 2007. The minister missed those deadlines, states the court challenge.

After a previous round of litigation in 2014, Ottawa said it would finish by the end of the year. More than a decade later, that still hasn’t happened.

Sean Dixon, a lawyer representing the three environmental groups, said his clients have been waiting for the federal government to do the right thing of its own accord. At first, he said it looked like Ottawa was making progress.

“We’re finally at a point that we don’t trust a thing they say,” Dixon said. “It’s frustrating living in an advanced industrial nation where the government fails to follow its own laws.”

By delaying 11 years, the three groups claim Ottawa’s unlawful and unreasonable failure to produce the maps has caused further harm to the threatened caribou herds.

The result is the species has faced a “silent catastrophe” where logging is quietly authorized in critical caribou habitat with little scrutiny, Dixon said.

None of the claims have been tested in court.

Canada's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change spokesperson Samantha Bayard said in an emailed statement that the government is “committed” to protecting Canada's species at risk through a number of measures. 

“Mapping to refine the identification of critical habitat for southern mountain caribou is underway,” Bayard wrote. 

Caribou face major threat from climate change, habitat destruction

The application to the Federal Court comes amid warnings that climate change and other human pressures will inflict a significant, and in many cases, mortal toll on caribou populations.

An international group of researchers found in 2025 that global warming would likely drive one of the greatest declines in caribou populations in the last 21,000 years, with B.C.'s herds expected to see declines of up to 61 per cent by 2100 if high rates of warming go unchecked.

Caribou—also known as reindeer in Europe and Asia—have survived several spells of Arctic warming in the past. Their presence across the planet’s tundra, forests and mountains have long supported Indigenous populations while acting as ecosystem engineers, disturbing the soil and trampling vegetation in a way that promotes new plant growth.

A natural fertilizer, their droppings return essential nutrients like nitrogen to the soil and help to redistribute them across boreal forests and tundra landscapes. In mountainous areas, caribou feed on forest lichen, helping to regulate vegetation while acting as a food source for wolves, grizzly bears and wolverines.

Human disturbance of those landscapes—from logging to road building—has already led to a two-thirds decline in the global population over the past 30 years.

In the six years leading up to 2020, Canada's population of southern mountain caribou dropped by 53 per cent, according to the federal government.

The deteriorating situation has led to the local extinction of eight of B.C.’s 18 herds, said Wildsight conservation specialist Eddie Petryshen.

“Without the federally defined mapping, we can’t have a real recovery strategy,” Petryshen said.

B.C. continues to approve logging in caribou habitat, claim groups

Dixon said his clients have been waiting on the sidelines as provinces like B.C. and Alberta continue to approve logging in caribou habitat.

An analysis by the Wilderness Committee found that between 2007 and 2023, B.C.’s southern mountain caribou lost more than 3,100 square kilometres of habitat to logging.

A satellite analysis carried out by the three environmental groups during the summer of 2025 identified 5,713 hectares of B.C. forests had been slated for logging across the ranges of three of the province’s most at-risk herds: Columbia North, Groundhog and Wells Gray South.

That’s an area equivalent to about 14 Stanley Parks.​

​There are some signs B.C.’s government is ready to counter the threat to at least one of the most threatened herds.

BC Timber Sales—a government-run corporation responsible for administering a fifth of the province’s annual logging quota—said in May 2025 it was halting “new investments” in unprotected core caribou habitat of the Columbia North herd.

At the time, the ministry failed to answer several questions, including how much forest the logging pause would impact, how long would will last, and how it expects the pause to impact caribou and the forestry industry.

The province later said it has no plans to roll out logging pauses in other parts of B.C.

Focus on habitat protection could risk already teetering forestry industry 

Fully protecting southern mountain caribou could involve curbing logging activity in large swaths of B.C.—something that has worried the province's forest industry.

As early as 2018, the BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI) asked government to consider the socio-economic impacts of protecting and recovering caribou. It also warned against an approach that only focuses on habitat protection.

“These impacts include the constraints that would be placed on the timber harvesting land base that would ultimately impact the viability of local mills, jobs, and the communities that rely on our forest sector for their well-being,” wrote the industry group at the time.

COFI declined to comment on the latest court challenge, citing an inability to review the lawsuit before publication time.

Others, like Joe Nemeth, general manager of the BC Pulp and Paper Coalition, said Canada's moves to protect forests have gone too far.

He said “blindly” pursuing a “habitat rules” approach to forests while ignoring business interests has “crucified” the logging industry.

“The pendulum has swung too far in trying to make environmental groups and First Nations happy and ignoring the business side of conversation,” Nemeth said.

“Are caribou important? Sure. But you can have multi-use practices.”

Mapping caribou habitat shouldn’t be seen as an object of fear for the forestry industry, but rather an “easy step that acts as notice for companies” looking to get logging tenure where caribou live, Dixon said.

Producing the maps would allow the federal government to monitor the province's efforts to protect the caribou, Dixon added. Failing that, Ottawa could step in and invoke either emergency protection orders or federal “safety net” measures under SARA.

In both circumstances, the environment minister would have to make a recommendation to cabinet for approval.

​To date, the federal “safety net” has never been exercised. In recent years, cabinet has declined to issue emergency orders to protect endangered species like the southern resident killer whale.

“Maybe at the end of the day, we make the decision as a nation that we don’t want caribou,” Dixon said. “But let’s do it with our eyes wide open.”

​For others, the federal government's delay in producing habitat maps points to a larger problem that extends beyond caribou to all of Canada's endangered species.

A 2025 report from Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development found that of all the living creatures listed under Canada species at risk law, only 32 per cent had their critical habitat fully identified.

“It’s not just about caribou,” said Lucero Gonzalez, a conservation and policy campaigner with the Wilderness Committee. “Our laws protecting species at risk are not protecting species at risk.”

“We cannot wait for species to go extinct to do something about it.”