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OTTAWA — Preserving endangered species and the habitats in which they live has been a low priority for Canadian governments of all stripes for too many years, says a highly critical report released Thursday by Ron Thompson, Canada’s Environment Commissioner.
In addition to its failure to adequately identify disappearing plants and animals, Mr. Thompson says Environment Canada’s guidelines to identify those species are lacking and the number of invasive aquatic life forms threatening the country’s waterways is increasing faster than they can be identified.
His report also finds that a strategy to protect environmentally sensitive areas has been developed but not implemented, there is no assessment to determine whether conditions in those areas are improving, and insufficient resources have been allocated to address “urgent needs.”
Dealing with climate change is important but other areas of the environment also need attention, Mr. Thompson told reporters.
“When I think about the kind of Canada that I want to pass on to my children and my grandson, I want them to enjoy loons crossing lakes in the evening. I want them to be able to awake in the summer to songbirds. I want them to be able to enjoy all of the clean water that we have just now. Now this isn’t just going to happen. This is going to require some work.”
The Commissioner’s 2008 Status report revisits issues that have been the subjects of previous examinations and finds that, in many cases, little has been done to tackle identified problems.
For instance, the federal government is responsible for managing 51 national wildlife areas and 92 migratory bird sanctuaries. But the report says Environment Canada has done little to act on a 2001 study that found inadequate enforcement of regulations to preserve species in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin.
More than that, the department has not identified specific threats to each of its protected areas, it has not fully implemented a strategy to manage the sites, and there is no real way to monitor progress.
The report lauds Parks Canada for making satisfactory efforts on developing a list of species at risk, but Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans have not followed suit. And, while the Species at Risk Act requires that recovery strategies for 228 types of plant and animals that are imperil, only 55 of those strategies are complete.
Mr. Thompson said that means the government is in violation of its own law.
More than that, says his report, Environment Canada has no guidelines for dealing with situations in which the Environment Minister does make additions to the List of Wildlife Species at Risk even after a special scientific council created for the task has recommended that they be included.
The Commission also took another look at recommendations it made about the Great Lakes Basin where 17 severely degraded areas were identified in 1987. Seven years ago it found that there were no clear priorities established to tackle the cleanup and this report says little progress has been made in the interim.
“After 20 years, only two of Canada’s original 17 areas of concern have been delisted – the latest in 2003,” says the report which identifies contaminated sediments and overloaded municipal wastewater systems as the main impediments to progress.
The Commissioner estimates that will cost $150 million to clean the sediments and $2.4 billion to fix the water systems but “solving these problems is critical to restoring most areas of concern.”
Aaron Freeman of the Environmental Defence Network, said he found the Great Lakes section of the report to be the most stark. There was a commitment to address the problem in the most recent Throne Speech, he said, but no money was offered in either the fall economic update or last month’s budget.
“We have seen major investments south of the border in Great Lakes cleanup where there’s been leadership from the federal government there,” said Mr. Freeman, “There is nothing to match that commitment on the Canadian side and it’s very much a federal budget commitment that’s needed.”
Mr. Freeman is also frustrated with the seeming lack of interest in preserving dying species.
“Environmental organizations have had to sue the federal government three times over the implementation of the Species At Risk Act,” he said. “They’ve got a clear legal obligation that they are not following through on.”
The Globe and Mail