In December 2009, Bloodvein River’s renewed interest in the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project was announced. The project is a partnership of the Bloodvein River, Pauingassi, Little Grand Rapids, Poplar River and Pikangikum First Nations, and the governments of Ontario and Manitoba.

Bloodvein River’s plan outlines its vision of the protection and development activities to take place in its planning area. A section of Atikaki Provincial Park, which is covered by an existing management plan, falls within Bloodvein River’s traditional territory.

The proposed Pimitotah traditional-use planning area regulation describes the boundaries of the proposed area and the proposed management plan that would apply to it. In addition to establishing a permanent protected area, the plan proposes community-resource and commercial-development zones.

A public meeting will be held to review the proposed planning area regulation and management plan on Friday, July 8 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on the main floor, Southeast Resource Development Council offices, 360 Broadway, Winnipeg.

Comment sheets on the proposed regulation and management plan can be found at www.manitoba.ca/conservation. Comments may also be given to Manitoba Conservation at 204 945 6784 or 1-800-214-6497 (toll-free), by mail to Pimitotah Planning Area Proposal, Manitoba Conservation, Land Programs Branch, Box 25, 200 Saulteaux Cres., Winnipeg, MB R3J 3W3, by email to eastsideplancomments@gov.mb.ca or by fax to 204-948-2197.

All comments must be received no later than Aug. 23.

“The Mother Earth Water Walk began in 2003 in answer to question — What will you do?”

http://www.motherearthwaterwalk.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119&Itemid=126

“The Boreal Forest: Our Land, Our Story, Our Responsibility”

National Aboriginal Speaking Series Tour
Thursday, June 2nd, 7:00 p.m. at the University of Manitoba
Free admission – Open to the Public – Refreshments provided
The Canadian Boreal Initiative is inviting you to the opening event of its National Aboriginal Speaking Series Tour. Come and celebrate the leadership and commitment of Aboriginal communities in the conservation and sustainable development of the Boreal forest.

The evening will be dedicated to Aboriginal leaders who will share their stories from the Boreal Forest, both successes and challenges. Sophia Rabliauskas, well known First Nations activist, Pimachiowin Aki spokesperson and leader of Poplar River First Nation in Manitoba will be speaking with Stephen Kakfwi, a gifted and passionate speaker, former Premier of the NWT and Dene Nation President. The event will open with the performance of prominent local band, Eagle & Hawk.

Please see details in the attached poster (click image or click here). For further information, please contact our Events Coordinator, Sarah de Jonge, by email at sdejonge@borealcanada.ca or by phone at 613-232-2537.

SWAN RIVER(The province is investing $800,000 to help address alarming declines in moose populations in several areas of the province, Premier Greg Selinger announced here today.

“We are concerned about the decline of the moose population in these areas and we are investing in rebuilding the population,” said Selinger. “To reverse the decline and restore the population to sustainable numbers, we are consulting First Nations, Métis and other Aboriginal communities, as well as the general public to develop long-term plans to ensure the population is not reduced to this level in the future.”

The areas of concern include Game Hunting Area (GHA) 18 in the Duck Mountain area of west-central Manitoba, GHA 14 in the vicinity of the Swan-Pelican Provincial Forest and GHA 26, which extends from Lake Winnipeg to the Ontario boundary between the Winnipeg and Wanipigow rivers, including Nopiming Provincial Park.

Included in the total program is an additional $190,000 that will be allocated to the Wildlife Enhancement Initiative for aerial surveys related to moose management. The initiative is dedicated to wildlife management and is related to the number of hunting licences sold in Manitoba.

Other provincial initiatives include:

Increased enforcement to ensure compliance with wildlife regulations. The Duck Mountain area will get two additional natural resource officers and better patrol coverage, and a resource officer assigned to GHA 26, bringing the complement of staff in that area to six.

Two new wildlife biologists to implement all aspects of the moose recovery program including contacts with First Nations, Métis and Aboriginal people.

Road access management to areas of high moose density including permanent and short-term decommissioning of all-weather, secondary and winter roads in critical parts of the province.

Wolf management surveys. Reliable wolf population estimates are critical to understand how wolves are influencing moose populations and guide options for wolf management.

The province is establishing a moose advisory committee comprised of local groups, Aboriginal organizations and governments to partner with the province in the further development of a moose recovery strategy.

“If moose populations decline too much there is a risk the population may not recover or the recovery period will be extended over many years,” said the premier. “The 2010 survey results confirm the concerns about the state of local moose populations raised by First Nation communities and licensed hunters.”

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March 19th, 2011
10:00am – 3:00pm, University of Winnipeg, Rm 4M37

Download the poster

It was evident to the Pimachiowin Aki (pim MATCH cho win – ahh Key) team that Manitoba and Ontario First Nations had some good lessons to share with their Maori counterparts who are also struggling with how to work with other interests groups in efforts to protect the land.

“It was amazing  how similar our stories and our connections with the land are with the Maori we met. After the conference we traveled to their traditional lands and a UNESCO site and it was clear they have the same connection with the land that our people have. They face the same challenges trying to figure out how to work with government and environmentalists to take care of the land. We showed them how we’re working on land use plans with the support of our governments and they were impressed,” said Pimachiowin Aki spokesperson Sophia Rabliauskas (raw-BLOUSE-kiss).

Rabliauskas attended the Sharing Power Conference with Pimachiowin Aki team members Elder Oliver Hill and his Ojibwe translator Dean Peters from Ontario’s Pikangikum First Nation and Pimachiowin Aki researcher Dr. Iain Davidson-Hunt who is a faculty member of the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba.

“Before going on this trip I thought that New Zealand was further ahead in terms of partnering with the Maori for the management of protected areas.  However, at the meeting it became apparent that conservation in both New Zealand and Canada, as well as elsewhere, still struggles to live up to current international policies regarding indigenous peoples and protected areas” said Davidson-Hunt, who is also the North American Vice-Chair of the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The conference was also a good opportunity to show case the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project to international experts some who are involved in evaluation of  UNESCO World Heritage proposals – such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that co-sponsored the conference.

As a special honour the Maori invited Elder Oliver Hill, who presented his community’s White Feather Forest Initiative to the conference, to participate in two of their traditional opening ceremonies as an honourable guest.

The other Canadian speakers included Grand Chief Stan Beardy and Carol Ann Audet of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, from Thunder Bay, Ontario and Russell Diabo and Rosanne Van Schie of Wolf Lake First Nation, Quebec.

The Pimachiowin Aki Corporation is working on a nomination document due in 2012 that will propose a vast track of land that straddles the Manitoba-Ontario boarder be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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For more information or interviews contact:

Gord Jones, Project Manager, Pimachiowin Aki,

204-275-1564 (office); 204-232-8528 (cell); whp@shaw.ca

or

Shirley Muir, Communications Lead, Pimachiowin Aki

204.771.7523 (cell) themediabank@shaw.ca

www.pimachiowinaki.org

www.landthatgiveslife.com

Last month the Winnipeg Free Press published a full page of criticism regarding the decision to run the Bipole III transmission line down the West Side of Lake Winnipeg. The critique consists of two parts, namely, an open letter by 18 retired engineers titled, “Engineers united on east side,” and an article by Jim Collinson, “’All or nothing’ wrong approach on east side.” These articles contribute little to the discus­sion regarding hydroelectric development in Manitoba because they are based on narrow and out-dated ways of thinking about the issues at hand. Their favoured plan – trying to build the new line down the east side of the lake — would endanger Hydro’s exports and stall or even stop construction of the new BiPole. We should keep in mind that Manitoba consumers and businesses are still paying for similar decisions Hydro made decades ago.

The articles by Collinson and retired engineers do serve to remind us of how decisions about Hydro de­velopment were made decades ago – and how important it is not to repeat those mistakes with Bipole III.

Hydro Electric Development and the Principles of Sustainable Growth in Manitoba

It is necessary to understand the broader context in which the debate over the routing of Bipole III has emerged before we address the limitations of the arguments put forward by Collinson and the retired engineers.

The Manitoba government argues that over the past decade it has been establishing a coherent frame­work for achieving sustainable and balanced economic growth based on hydro electric development, increased immigration and expansion and improvements in the quality of education. As well, the government has stressed the importance of environmental initiatives aimed at conserving our resources and reducing the impact of global warming, and working more closely with Aboriginal peoples to ensure that they have op­portunities to contribute to and share in the benefits of sustainable growth.

The fact that Hydro electric development is key to the economic future of Manitoba is recognized by most observers of provincial and regional econo­mies. For example, a recent publication by the Canada West Foundation (An Extraordinary West: A Narrative Exploration of Western Canada’s Future) says that: “…[B]y far the greatest opportunity for [Manitoba] is hy­droelectric capacity. With such vast water resources it has already become a leader in North America in the generation of clean and reliable energy, and has ample room to grow. It has among the lowest industrial elec­tricity costs in the world…Electricity is exported to markets in both Canada and the mid-western US, and the province’s expertise in planning, design and operating hydroelectric plants has been exported to over sixty countries”.

The province claims that the projects now un­derway for the expansion of hydroelectric capacity and the construction of Bipole III recognizes the importance of this resource in achieving sustainable development.
Routing Bipole III Down the West Side of Lake Winnipeg
We previously explained the justification for the new hydro developments on the Nelson River and a west-side route for Bipole III in a paper published in September, 2010, titled, “Taking Stock of the Bipole III Debate.”

In brief, the construction of additional dams on the Nelson River will allow the province to maintain the comparative advantage in hydro rates within the province. As well, the expansion in capacity will al­low the export of additional power to markets in the US and other provinces, and the revenues from these sales will offset the costs of development and provide additional resources to further diversify economic activities.

The province has concluded that routing of Bipole III down the West Side with a second converter station south of Winnipeg is necessary to achieve diverse and longer-term objectives. These objectives include: se­curing reliability of our hydroelectric system; establish­ing with the support of the Ontairo government and First Nations on the east side of Lake Winnipeg a 4.3 million hectare UNESCO World Heritage site in the Boreal forest; expanding economic opportunities for First Nations and communities on the East Side; and enhancing the ability of Manitoba Hydro to expand sales to the US.

In our discussion in this paper, we also noted that abandonment of the west-side route at this time and all the work that has been done in preparation for commencing construction in 2012 will result in significant delays in moving the project forward and impose significant costs on the people of Manitoba.

We turn now to a consideration of the claims made by the 18 engineers and/or Mr. Collinson to justify abandoning the west-side route.
Flaws in the Arguments of Jim Collinson/18 Engineers
Claim 1. Government decision on West Side based on incomplete environmental picture
Available information suggests that the early recommendations for the east-side route referred to by the engineers were based almost entirely on cost and distance factors (less cost, shorter distance) and environmental and socio-economic factors were either ignored or discounted. It was only when these factors were included in the analysis — which recognized the intrinsic value of the East Side, and the potential negative impacts the BiPole line would have on it — that the focus shifted to a possible west-side route.
The value in East Side is in the sum of its parts. The East Side of Lake Winnipeg is one of the last remaining ecological intact forests left in the world and abounds with intact watersheds of rivers, lakes and wetlands that are significant habitat for migratory birds, breeding waterfowl bird populations, and boreal songbirds. It is also critical habitat for endangered woodland caribou populations and other important boreal indicator species. Does the presence of roads, as argued by the retired engineers, compromise this totality? Of course, but the roads are to benefit the First Nations peoples who are also part of the ecosys­tem; the roads will be constructed largely where the existing winter road system is and therefore very little new linear disturbances will occur. BiPole transmission lines cannot be put in the same category as roads that provides for the delivery of affordable food and basic services to these communities that we in Southern Manitoba take for granted.

Claim 2. Government concerns about gaining UNESCO World Heritage Site Status for boreal forest on East Side is overblown
The arguments of both Collinson and the en­gineers downplay the significance of satisfying the criteria established to obtain World Heritage Site Sta­tus. In particular, they ignore the fact that when the application was submitted by Manitoba, Ontario and First Nations no reference was made to the possibility of having a new transmission line – Bipole III – in the area for which the designation is being sought.

The engineers’ contention that the government’s decision to build all-weather roads in the area means that the bodies that evaluate applications for UNES­CO Site are flexible and would likely also be prepared to accommodate a transmission line is based on con­jecture only. In fact, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) clearly states that the Outstanding Universal Values, the key to receiving UNESCO World Heritage site designation, is based on the ecologically and cultural intactness of this site. Running BiPole through the heart of this site would not only jeopardize the Outstanding Universal Value but the nomination itself.

The other point they ignore is that the all-weather roads would be built on rights of way already used for winter roads. As a result, there would not be a major change from the situation that already exists for most of the length of the road. The new roads will help provide affordable goods and services to the affected communities and improve access to development activities associated with a World Heritage Site both of which are compatible with criteria used to assess UNESCO World Heritage applications.

Finally Banff, which was written up some time ago in National Geographic as an example of how NOT to manage an environmentally important area, is hardly the standard we should be referring to when deciding the right mix of economic development and environ­mental protection. More recently, Newfoundland and Labrador Conservative Premier Danny Williams was forced to cancel plans to build a new transmission line through Gros Morne National Park, due to concerns about environmental damage and the risk of losing’s the park’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The transmission line was re-routed along a longer corridor outside of the park instead.

Claim 3. There are few economic benefits to First Nations population and communities of a World Heritage Site Status.
Mr. Collinson suggests that there would be very few benefits to First Nations on the East Side of ob­taining World Heritage Site Status. The First Nations initiated the proposal to apply for UNESCO status be­cause they believe that increased tourism in the region will improve economic – investment and employment and income – prospects for their communities. Indeed, the five First Nations communities whose traditional territories make up the largest portion of the of the proposed boundaries of the UNESCO site have been the ones in the lead in seeking World Heritage Site designation and recognize, as does the IUCN, that the proposed UNESCO World Heritage site offers the world a ecologically intact cultural landscape with a continuation of traditional land uses that makes this site unique, thereby opening up possibilities for eco-tourism.

Is Mr. Collinson suggesting that the First Nations communities who initiated the UNESCO application do not know how best to plan their futures? Surely their experience with past hydro development — such as the infamous Churchill/Nelson River Diversion and Dams project — has steeled their resolve to chart their own community development. Mr. Collinson, who was involved in the Churchill/Nelson River project, knows better than anyone that these communities would likely protest rigorously to developments that would jeopardize the World Heritage Site designation. Mr. Collinson will also know that Manitoba Hydro rate payers have paid out over $700 million dollars to Aboriginal people whose lives were terribly disrupted by past hydro development.

Furthermore, Mr. Collinson notes that 2,000 jobs will be needed in the next 12 years to provide work for the growing labour force in these First Nations communities. If these jobs do not come from tourism, where will they come from? Even if the Bipole III line were built on the East Side, the employment gained by First Nations workers would only last as long as the construction period. Moreover, if the UNESCO status were denied because of the construction of Bipole III through the site, the net opportunities would be much diminished.

Claim 4. The effects of Bipole III would be just as bad or worse on the West Side
We agree that we need an analysis that considers the complexities of the environment, energy and economy. But that is not what is provided in the articles published by the Free Press. The engineers argue that the transmis­sion lines would be relatively non-intrusive and benign if placed on the East Side, but intrusive and trouble­some if placed on the West Side. The potential for damage seems to be directly related to the density of human population and economic activity. (While there are legitimate concerns around the dangers posed to migratory birds, we don’t know enough about migratory routes to understand the full impact.) The farmers and other land owners who will be adversely affected by the transmissions lines can be financially compensated, in the same way they are with oil and gas and wind power development. But who do we compensate for the loss of an internationally recognized ecologically intact cul­tural landscape?

Conclusion: Times have changed
Hydroelectric power is one of the most valuable assets owned by the people of Manitoba. If Bipole III is done right, Manitobans will enjoy the benefits for generations. The reverse is also true: if decisions around hydro expansion are reckless and short-sighted, the consequences will be felt for decades.

Not long ago, many engineers and government per­sonnel did not consider these factors because no one cared about their impact on the environment and First Nations peoples. If these projects were on the agenda today, outcomes would likely be much different than they were 40 or 30 years ago. But society now demands that we move away from the views of the retired engineers and take into account all the relevant socio-economic and environmental factors.

Errol Black is a CCPA Mb. board member and research associate.
Lynne Fernandez is a CCPA Mb. research associate.

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Colvin Lake and Nueltin Lake Parks hug the Nunavut boundary and cover about 610,000 hectares, a total area 10 times larger than Winnipeg, Premier Greg Selinger said.

The Colvin Lake Provincial Park, known as the Land of Little Sticks, protects a total of 163,070 hectares.

Nueltin Lake Provincial Park totals 447,190 hectares.

Both fall in an area of transition between boreal forest and the tundra and are within the traditional hunting and trapping territories of the Northlands Denesuline First Nation and Sayisi Dene First Nation.

Chief Joe Dantouze of the Northlands Denesuline First Nation said the wilderness area designation means both areas will be protected from development such as mineral exploration and mining.

Lands included in a wilderness land-use category under the Provincial Parks Act also legally prohibit commercial logging hydroelectric development, oil and gas development and any other activities that may significantly or adversely affect habitat.

The designation also means the Qamanirjuaq barren ground caribou herd has a better chance of recovery after seeing its numbers drop substantially in recent years.

The province also says Nueltin Lake and Colvin Lake parks store an estimated 126 million tonnes of carbon, the equivalent to the emissions of 2.5 million cars in 10 years.

Selinger also said the designation of these parks sees the percentage of Manitoba lands under permanent protection jump to 9.9 per cent.

* More information on the new Colvin Lake and Nueltin Lake provincial parks.

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Manitoba chapter executive director Ron Thiessen said in a statement the two new parks have a combined size larger than Prince Edward Island.

“For those of us working toward large-scale protection of Manitoba’s Boreal Region, and for all Manitobans, this is a tremendous victory,” Thiessen said.

Bruce Smith of the Lake Winnipeg Foundation said that’s why the local foundation has joined forces with B.C.-based Wildsight, to create the Living Lakes Network Canada.

“They have a good track record with the Columbia River and they are 15 years old and we’re five,” Smith said on Monday after a press conference announcing a two-day summit dealing with Lake Winnipeg.

The two day conference, starting today, is pulling together government officials, business leaders, academics and students.

Heather Leschied, program director of Wildsight, said the idea to create a national group came when they started giving advice to the Lake Winnipeg Foundation. Wildsight has been working for years to reduce nutrients in the Columbia River watershed. She said one of the first priorities of the new national group is helping Lake Winnipeg.

In recent years the lake’s shoreline has been covered with thick blooms of blue-green algae and large portions of the lake have been covered with the algae. The algae is caused by nutrients in the lake such as phosphorous and nitrogen.

Bob Sandford, chairman of the Canadian Partnership Initiative in support of United Nations “Water for Life” Decade and a member of the RBC Blue Water Project’s advisory panel, said a national organization is coming together at the right time for Lake Winnipeg.

“We can learn a great deal from other’s mistakes,” Sandford said.

Leschied said the first thing done to help the Columbia River watershed was to survey its fish habitat, marshland and shorelines.

As well, she said Wildsight built a community-supported system of water stewardship along the river’s headwaters region.

Meanwhile, while the conference itself is closed, the public is invited to a public forum and panel discussion tonight at 7 p.m. at the IMAX Theatre in Portage Place.

The panel, moderated by former Premier Gary Filmon, includes Hank Venema of the International Institute of Sustainable Development, and retired federal scientist Ray Hesslein.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 30, 2010 A7

Credit: Valerie Courtois, Canadian Boreal Initiative

It’s beginning to be the time of year when caribou, as reindeer are known in North America, show up on holiday cards and tree ornaments.

But not all is well with this iconic species, which has been in retreat from humans for decades. Now new thinking about the conservation and restoration of North America’s wild herds of caribou combines not only the latest western approach to science but also the tried-and-tested ancient knowledge and perspectives of indigenous cultures that co-existed so long and so successfully with these northern animals.

Caribou, known as reindeer, are tough, adaptable creatures–and it’s no wonder they are attributed with the power of flight in Christmas stories. Yet the current reality is a far cry from the folklore: these animals are in severe decline.

Circling the northern latitudes of the Earth, caribou thrive in cold climates. They have hooves that allow them to easily walk on snow and ice unlike deer and moose. Their hollow hairs give them extra insulation from the extreme cold and allow them to easily float when swimming across rivers and lakes. They can survive in winter by eating only lichens.

Some forms live in large herds of tens or even hundreds of thousands that follow migratory paths of a thousand miles from forested wintering grounds to summer calving grounds in Arctic tundra. Other forms are largely non-migratory, remaining year-round within the boreal forest or making smaller movements up and down mountain ranges.

Caribou have survived for millennia, and their success in evolutionary time scales is evident when one looks at their large circumglobal distribution.

But across the world, populations of these resilient creatures are plummeting as they struggle to cope with the fast-moving dual threats of industrial development in their boreal forest home and global warming. Canada’s federal government listed the boreal woodland caribou as threatened in 2002 and started a series of investigations to ensure its long-term health and survival.

Woodland caribou have lost nearly all of their historical range in the continental United States, as well much of southern Canada.

An icon of the north, the caribou’s success is an indicator of the health of the Canadian boreal, the world’s largest remaining intact forest. But to the indigenous people whose history is one shared completely and intimately with this species, they are more than that. For millennia, northern indigenous people could not have survived without an abundance of caribou. Some scientists even believe that the first people to cross the Bering Land Bridge into North America may have been in pursuit of migratory caribou herds.

Caribou skins made tents, cords, clothing, moccasins, rugs, and countless other items. Caribou meat was an essential large food source and its bones and horns were fashioned into tools.

For hundreds of indigenous communities spread across Canada’s boreal and arctic regions, the loss of caribou from their lands and culture would be the loss of their identity and a severing of a vital link to their ancestral past.

Last month, at the 2010 North American Caribou Workshop in Winnipeg, Manitoba–an academic conference supported in part by the Pew Environment Group’s Canadian Boreal Initiative–the effort to protect the caribou took a hopeful new direction. The meeting has historically been attended largely by scientists, without much representation from indigenous communities.

Aboriginal Knowledge, Western Science

This year’s meeting was different. Attracting 400 attendees compared to the previous meeting’s 125, it included discussions of traditional Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives alongside presentations of traditional western science.

In a session, one might listen to an academic biologist discuss the results of a statistical model that elucidated the ecological limiting factors of caribou populations, followed by a Cree or Dene chief sharing his people’s history with caribou and how it shapes their community today.

The presentations documented the decline of caribou in North America, which was well under way by the late 1800s.

The woodland caribou had become by the early 1900s only a lost memory of the northeastern United States and Canadian Maritime Provinces where it once roamed. Soon after that it disappeared from the U.S. side of the Great Lakes and, except for a few dozen in eastern Washington, from the U.S. northern Rocky Mountain range as well.

The loss continued tracking north in Canada so that in Ontario the species range has retracted at a rate of two miles a year since 1880 resulting in the loss of half of the province’s woodland caribou range. Sixty percent of caribou range has been lost in Alberta and 40 percent in British Columbia.

More recently massive declines in the numbers of the barren-ground caribou—the long-distance migratory form—have also been documented in many herds. Some of these declines have been particularly alarming with drops as high as 70 to nearly 90 percent. The Bathurst herd of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, for example, went from an estimated 472,000 in 1986 to 128,000 by 2006.

Another take home from the meeting: academic and government scientists, conservation groups, and industry need to do more to consider traditional knowledge along with western science.

Perhaps more importantly, scientists, conservation groups, and industry should support the rights of indigenous people to determine the future use of their lands.

It is obvious that healthy and abundant caribou populations will not survive in many regions without setting aside large tracts of land free from industrial development.

First Nations land-use plans developed across Canada’s boreal forest region have acknowledged this and many would set aside vast regions for sustaining caribou and other wildlife and the traditional way of life for their communities.

Pew Environment Group has worked for a decade on boreal protection, including caribou conservation. We have learned that any caribou recovery strategy will be incomplete without all relevant experience, perspectives, and expertise.

Needs of Local Communities

Traditional western science might be helpful in determining which herds might be most susceptible or resilient, but may fail to incorporate the needs of local communities.

Many of these communities have historical knowledge of the herds that extends far beyond recent studies, having been passed down verbally for millennia.

The relationships of indigenous people with the land and environment are ancient, their observations and perspectives are crucial, and it is their input upon which this most adaptable of creatures, and the boreal itself, depends.

Dr. Jeff Wells is a science advisor for Pew Environment Group’s International Boreal Conservation Campaign. He received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University where he continues as a Visiting Fellow. Previously he served as National Bird Conservation Director for the National Audubon Society. He has published numerous scientific and popular articles and book chapters and is the author of Birder’s Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds at Risk published by Princeton University Press in 2007.