The Federal Government has purchased a pristine piece of B.C. mountain wilderness in an attempt to save an endangered herd of woodland caribou.
The 550 square kilometres to be conserved takes in mountains, valleys and wetlands that are home to 265 bird species and hosts more than 100,000 migratory birds.
It is also home to the last 46 caribou that make up the southern mountain herd.
"By setting aside these lands, we're giving these caribou the large tracts of undisturbed land that is so critical to their survival," Environment Minister John Baird told a news conference in Vancouver on Thursday.
The federal government would not release the cost of the purchase the land from Pluto Darkwoods, a company belonging to Germany's Duke of Wuerttemburg. The price is not being released as the duke donated the land through the Ecological Gifts tax incentive program.
The move brings the land conserved in the area between Nelson and Creston, B.C., to almost 1,000 square kilometres.
John Lounds, president of the Nature Conservancy, recently flew over the property, called Darkwoods.
"When you fly over Darkwoods, the peaks, the valleys, the alpine lakes, they're all awe-inspiring," he said. "You can't help but be struck by the sheer scale of the property and the enormity of the conservation challenge."
"We want to learn as much as this landscape is able to teach us."
Across Canada, woodland caribou populations have plummeted and the herd near Creston, near the Canada-U.S. border, is a subspecies in particular peril.
The new protected area was identified by conservationists years ago as a prime tract of pristine wilderness in B.C. and one of the few remaining.
It hasto be determined what activities the designation will curb in the area. Unlike a park, it will not be off limits to economic activities.
The Nature Conservancy will perform studies in the coming months to come up with an interim management plan by next spring.
The purchase of the land from the private owner was made through the federal Natural Areas Conservation Program, for which $225 million was earmarked last year.
To date, said Baird, 71 properties throughout Canada have been preserved to conserve habitat for 59 species.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has said that of the five major woodland caribou populations in Canada, one is endangered, two are threatened and one is of concern.
The land represents a quarter of the range of the southern mountain population of the woodland caribou. Overall, there are 1,900 mountain woodland caribou throughout British Columbia.
In winter, the animals move into mountainous regions like the land set aside Thursday, surviving on lichens which grow only on old-growth trees.
The society has warned that the species could disappear from much of its range in this country by the end of this century if steps are not taken to protect habitat.
Pluto Darkwoods manager Christian Schadendorf said some logging will continue on the land.
"NCC has not decided what kind of logging we will be doing," Schadendorf said. "That's all dependent on what the ecological inventory and the science work is going to show.
"We're now concentrating purely on beetle wood basically that has to be harvested anyway because if we leave it standing it will contribute to a huge fire hazard that might take out more than the infested stands," Schadendorf said.
Lounds said the preservation also offers scientists the chance to study an undisturbed habitat.
"Darkwoods is a living laboratory the size of some small countries," he said.
He said there hasn't been hunting on the property since the 1960s.
"There are rare plants and endangered animals and tree species that are more diverse than anywhere else in Canada," Lounds said.
