Protect Canada’s biodiversity

EDITORIAL: WHAT OTHERS THINK

It’s tempting to sit smugly back and wag a finger at Donald Trump’s America for being dangerously backward on environmental issues. But according to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS) annual report, Canada, too, has cause to hang its head in shame.

Apparently, this country — home to 20 per cent of the world’s forests and 24 per cent of its wetlands — is a world-class laggard when it comes to protecting its lands and fresh waters and, as a result, its biodiversity.

Under the 2010 United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, Canada promised to increase the 9.6 per cent of lands and fresh waters that were protected at that time to 17 per cent by 2020. Now, a mere three years away from that deadline, we have managed to increase the proportion of protected land and water only to a piddling 10.6 per cent.

That’s the lowest of all the G7 countries (in Germany the figure is a healthy 37.8 per cent). Indeed, Canada is sadly below the world average of 15 per cent.

If there is any good news in the CPAWS report it is that in the last 18 months, the Trudeau government has taken welcome, though modest, steps to address this environmental disaster-in-the-making.

This year, for example, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna held a meeting with her provincial and territorial counterparts to discuss how to reach the 2020 goal. And under its new “Pathway to 2020” process, the federal government established a national panel that will counsel governments on how Canada can achieve its target and an Indigenous Circle of Experts to provide advice on conservation.

Such collaborative efforts are crucial. As CPAWS notes: “With 90 per cent of Canada’s land and 100 per cent of inland waters managed by governments, all jurisdictions need to work together to achieve our conservation commitments.”

But talk alone is clearly not enough. If the government is going to meet the 2020 target - and the CPAWS report suggests that’s still possible - it will have to take decisive action now.

In particular, the report recommends, governments should fast-track safeguards for 13 areas where environmental protection work has already been done, including the North French River Watershed in Ontario.

Other sensible suggestions from CPAWS include banning permits for industrial development in areas identified for permanent protection by Indigenous governments; and protecting more land and waters rather than simply “amending the accounting system to incorporate more existing conservation areas.”

Such efforts are important not simply to conserve wildlife and wilderness. The human-driven destruction of biodiversity poses a threat to our food, water, the health of our economy and the sustainability of our planet. In Canada, by virtue of our vast wilderness, rich wildlife and enormous holdings of fresh water, we have a special responsibility to conserve. It’s past time we stopped shirking.

An editorial from the Toronto Star (distributed by The Canadian Press)