CARMA Update: May 2005
We thought you'd like to hear about CARMA activities in the past few months so here is our first CARMA Update. If you have anything you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you. We have a few specific requests below so please reply and help us make this network work!
Wanted!
Monitoring indicators & protocols
What? At the 2004 CARMA meeting, we decided to compile a list of who collects what information and how. Why? So that people can use this information to compare results or modify their protocols. How? Please e-mail pippa.mcneil
ec.gc.ca your list of what you monitor and what methods you use.
Herd observations for spring 2005
For the next issue of our CARMA Update, we would like to include herd observations from across the North. But we can't do it without you. Please take 5 minutes to comment on the 2005 spring migration and calving seasons for your herd. Please submit your observations to pippa.mcneilec.gc.ca by June 30, 2005.
Mark your calendars!
The 2005 CARMA Workshop will be held November 15-16, 2005 in Vancouver, B.C.
George River Herd census
The Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources, Wildlife and Parks has published a report on the 2001 George and Leaf River herd census. Using the Rivest et al. (1998) statistical method, the herd sizes were estimated at 296 000 ± 26.3% adults in the George River Herd and 931 000 ± 45.9% adults in the Leaf River Herd. However, the authors recommend using the lower limit of the confidence interval for the Leaf River estimate. The report suggests using total population estimates of 385 000 animals for the George River Herd and 628 000 for the Leaf River Herd.
The full report is cited as:
Couturier, S., D. Jean, R. Otto & S. Rivard. 2004. Demography of the migratory tundra caribou (Rangifer tarandus) of the Nord-du-Québec region and Labrador. Ministère des Ressources naturelles, de la Faune et des Parcs, Direction de l'aménagement de la faune du Nord-du-Québec and Direction de la recherche sur la faune. Québec. 68 p.
Community monitoring
The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board has its next meeting at the end of May where Anne Kendrick will report on the community monitoring ideas and perspectives that came out of her 2004 workshop held in Baker Lake and Arviat, Nunavut; Fond-du-Lac, Saskatchewan; and Lac Brochet, Manitoba. Anne will also be presenting recommendations for expanding the project into other communities.
Monitoring in the US-Canada Borderlands Region (Porcupine Caribou country) is being reviewed since Joan Eamer moved to Norway. Some funding has been provided to expand work on the Alaskan side of the border.
Also, several international initiatives for "Indigenous Observation Systems" are being developed as part of the International Polar Year. CARMA should be a good fit for these programs.
Spotlight on the BQCMB:
The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board is an aboriginal-led co-management group working to conserve the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds of northern Canada for the benefit of traditional caribou-using communities, and others. The BQCMB (www.arctic-caribou.com) was created to help manage two caribou herds whose migratory routes straddle two territories, two provinces, and four different native cultures. The board consists of 14 members, including a chairman and vice chairman. Appropriately, since the main purpose of the board is to safeguard the caribou herds in the interest of aboriginal people who have traditionally relied upon caribou, the majority of board members represent aboriginal communities.
The BQCMB consists of:
- two members from communities in the southern Kivalliq (Keewatin) Region of Nunavut
- one Dene member from a community in the South Slave Region of the Northwest Territories
- one Métis member from a community in the South Slave Region of the Northwest Territories
- three members from communities in northern Saskatchewan
- two members from communities in northern Manitoba
- a senior official from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada
- a senior official from Manitoba Conservation, Government of Manitoba
- a senior official from Saskatchewan Environment, Government of Saskatchewan
- a senior official from Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Government of the Northwest Territories
- a senior official from the Department of Environment, Nunavut.
CARMA and the International Polar Year
As we discussed at the November workshop, the coordinators submitted a pre-proposal to the International Polar Year (IPY). If you haven't been involved in the IPY process, here is a little primer.
The international polar science community is currently preparing for International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY). Like its predecessors in 1882-83, 1932-33, and 1957-58, IPY 2007-2008 will constitute a major landmark for international polar science and will lay the foundation for decades of future polar research.
Designated by the International Council of Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), International Polar Year is envisioned to be an international program of coordinated, interdisciplinary scientific research and observations. The overall objectives include:
- Explorations of new scientific frontiers
- Deepening our understanding of polar processes and their global linkages
- Increasing our ability to detect changes
- Developing new generations of polar scientists, engineers and logistics experts
- Engaging and educating schoolchildren, the public and decision-makers.
A number of overarching themes have emerged. The IPY pre-proposals ideally fall within one or more of the six IPY theme areas:
- Status: to determine the present environmental status of the polar regions
- Change: to quantify and understand past and present natural environmental and social change in the polar regions, and to improve projections of future change
- Global linkages: to advance our understanding on all scales of the links and interactions between polar regions and the rest of the globe, and of the processes controlling these interactions
- New Frontiers: to investigate the frontiers of science in the polar regions
- Vantage Point: to use the unique vantage point of the polar regions to develop and enhance observatories from the interior of the Earth to the Sun and the cosmos beyond
- Human Dimension: to investigate the cultural, historical, and social processes that shape the sustainability of circumpolar human societies, and to identify their unique contributions to global cultural diversity and citizenship
The proposal process as we know it:
Pre-proposals were sought by January 2005, to be consolidated and sent to the international Coordinating Committee of IPY. Our proposal can be found at www.ipy.org/development/eoi/details.php?id=505. In March, the International IPY Committee met with country IPY representatives for a "consultative forum". The outcome of the meeting was a consolidation of possible projects. CARMA was identified as a potential lead project that could interact with other projects to build linkages and to strengthen each other's respective projects. To that end, CARMA has contacted 11 other projects where we feel there is an opportunity to cooperate. If you know of other projects that should be added to the list, then let us know. The 11 projects, lead contact and country are:
#66 The herd's calendar: annual profile of a reindeer herd on Kola Peninsula - Dr. Joachim Otto Habeck - Germany
#229 - Reindeer herding and oil industry: symbiosis or competition in tundra management (REOSOM) - Dr. Vladimir Elsakov - Russia
#531 - Arctic Vulnerability Network Study: Reindeer Herding in a Changing Climate - Coping Mechanisms and Adaptive Capacity (RENNET) - Prof. Svein Mathiesen - Norway
#556 - Reindeer system and climatic change (RSCC) - Dr. Sylvie Beyries - France
#100 - Monitoring of Oil Development in Traditional Indigenous Lands of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Northwestern Russia (MODIL-NAO) - Dr. Winfried Dallmann - Norway
#122 - International Tundra Experiment: impacts of long-term experimental warming and climate variability on tundra ecosystems (ITEX-IPY) - Dr. Greg Henry - Canada
#135 - ANTLER Network Secretariat and Workshop Series (ANTLER) Dr. Florian Stammler - Finland
#569 - Greening of the Arctic: Monitoring circumpolar arctic biomass (GOA - Greening of the Arctic) - Prof. Donald A. (Skip) Walker - United States
#672 - Arctic Wildlife Observatories Linking Vulnerable EcoSystems (Arctic WOLVES) - Dr. Gilles Gauthier - Canada
#38 - Resource selection patterns of maternal mountain-dwelling caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) and neonate survival, nutritional trade-offs, and site fidelity - Troy Hegel - United States
#705 - Ecology and Movement Patterns of Peary Caribou (Rangifer tarandus pearyi) and Wolves (Canis lupus) in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago - Mr. Paul Frame - Canada
Next stage:
At the end of April, requests and details for full proposals were sent out. CARMA was asked to develop a full proposal and to cooperate with other proposals if collaboration is advisable. When done, we will need to distribute a draft ASAP as there will be little turnaround time. After submitting the draft, the process is a little fuzzy.