Manitoba’s efforts to champion its critical mineral sector may be putting one of the province’s most iconic species — the boreal woodland caribou — at risk.
During the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto earlier this month, Manitoba doubled down on its critical mineral commitments as it revealed the latest round of funding distributed under the Manitoba Mineral Development Fund.
Among the $3.3 million in funds announced was a $300,000 grant to nickel mining company NiCan Limited to support “ongoing drill exploration” in Grass River Provincial Park in northern Manitoba.
According to environmental group The Wilderness Committee, NiCan’s mineral claims not only fall within park boundaries — they also overlap the calving and rutting grounds for a herd of threatened boreal woodland caribou.
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Comments
Parks are parks for a reason, just like this park is set up for the woodland caribou. Please make the rules that nothing industrial can go on in a park. The parks hopefully have some wild land around them that wide ranging animals like caribou can go to outside the park.
You are right. Parks should mean something. It seems they are only parks until there is some resource to be extracted or infrastructure to be rammed through.