A new report commissioned by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) illustrates the degradation of critical trout habitat is not just rampant in the Highwood River area where logging is set to start up again this year, but is actually widespread over a large chunk of the forested landscape of Alberta.
The report shows the habitat of native trout like the Westslope cutthroat – designated a Species At Risk by the federal fisheries department responsible for monitoring such things – is being degraded year after year, and not just in the controversial Highwood River area of Kananaskis where West Fraser Timber (WFT) is under investigation.
WFT built a bridge over the Highwood to prepare for clearcut logging to go ahead last year, but had to tear it down last year as a result of protests from environmental watchdog groups. The bridge has since been rebuilt, and the logging company is planning on starting up clearcutting this summer.
Released last week, the new report, Native Trout Critical Habitat Loss in Southern Alberta, documents critical habitat loss across a wide swath of forested area ranging from the Oldman watershed in the south, to the Ghost watershed northwest of Cochrane, including areas of Kananaskis.
West Fraser Timber (formerly Spray Lake Sawmills) is the major logging operator in this area, producing a variety of timber products at their Cochrane sawmill.
The report says critical habitat loss in Southern Alberta continues despite federal protections.
The preamble from CPAWS in the report states:
“In recent months, we’ve explained how the convoluted definitions of Critical Habitat, the flawed Species at Risk permitting process, and lobbying by the forestry industry have made Critical Habitat protections for native trout ineffective.
“This report quantifies the startling extent of habitat loss caused by forestry operations in the South Saskatchewan River Basin, which contains most remaining Westslope Cutthroat trout habitat and a significant proportion of remaining Bull trout habitat.”
The report used Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis to estimate the amount of Critical Habitat loss that has occurred since the publication of species’ recovery strategies in 2019/2020.
“We found large numbers of stream crossings caused Critical Habitat destruction, but none had a SARA (Species At Risk Act) permit. We also found hundreds of hectares of riparian Critical Habitat lost due to insufficient protections on smaller watercourses,” the report stated.
Despite the destruction being illegal, the loss of critical habitat for native trout species in the South Saskatchewan River Basin has continued.
The report lays the blame clearly at the doorstep of logging companies.
“Forestry operations are major causes of loss of riparian critical habitat as a consequence of harvest areas with insufficient buffers, crossings of critical habitat watercourses, and building of new access. Roads built for access not only cause direct losses of riparian areas, but also create surface erosion risks that have a major impact on native trout habitat.”
To see the report go to cpaws-southernalberta.org.
Josh Killeen, Conservation Science and Program Manager, CPAWS Southern Alberta, said the report confirms that critical trout habitat has been lost and continues to be threatened in a much larger area than just the Highwood, despite government assurances that protective legislation is in place.
“We found that in the last few years, when there were legal protections put in place for these species, we continue to see that critical habitat has been lost due to forestry operations,” Killeen said.
“We’re still seeing this critical habitat destruction right across the region – it’s not just isolated to one area.”
Killeen said CPAWS is planning to meet with DFO, to ask that the Species at Risk protections be actually enforced. Absent of enforcement, the destruction of habitat goes on. They also plan to meet with West Fraser.
West Fraser said they paused their 2024 logging plan for the Highwood area so they could discuss the bridge with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) as well as meet with local stakeholder groups.
In a statement to The Eagle they said: “Based on stakeholder inputs and the DFO approval, we are now starting the remediation phase of the existing Highwood River bridge site which includes the bridge removal. Timing for the removal was selected to align with government policies to minimize impacts on fish. All remediation activities were reviewed and accepted by DFO. We forecast the installment of a new structure in its place by the summer of 2025.”
West Fraser is engaging stakeholders to refine the draft harvest plan.
The statement continues: “Further refinements will ensure environmental stewardship and maintenance of multiple forest management values such as fish habitat, water quality and recreation among others. We continue our work on site assessments of watercourses for the establishment of appropriate buffers and crossing structures to protect water values, confirm existing trail locations and public use of the area. Once our work with stakeholders is complete, our revised harvest plan will be available for public review during our Spring 2025 open house, in advance of a scheduled harvest for Fall 2025.”
