Regional Industry Caribou Collaboration

By: Devon Canada

Boreal woodland caribou populations are listed as “threatened” under Canada’s Species At Risk Act. In Alberta, their large ranges also overlap with significant oil, gas and timber resources. Due to their wide-ranging nature, caribou recovery requires a coordinated approach, implemented at the caribou range scale, to be most effective. The Regional Industry Caribou Collaboration (RICC) is a group of energy and forestry companies operating in the Cold Lake and East Side Athabasca River (ESAR) caribou ranges of northeast Alberta. These companies are working collaboratively across tenure and lease boundaries to coordinate habitat restoration, conduct research on caribou ecology and landscape relationships, and lead investigative trials on landscape restoration methods, effectiveness and wildlife responses to habitat treatments.