Summer 2003

BC Forests Under Siege

ONLINE CONTENT
Journey to the Heart of the Great Bear Rainforest

George Bush of the North

Canada's Leaky Life Raft

A Tortured Land: A special two-page
poster map of British Columbia from the Summer 2003 issue of Cascadia Times (PDF)

Editorial: What you can do

BC Resources Directory

 

PRINT EDITION CONTENT

The Cascadia Times Summer 2003 also contains the following stories that are not online. To read these stories we ask you to subscribe. Your subscriptions support our work. Thank you!

  • BC's Shortchanged Species
    -- Canada's new "Species at Risk Act" does little for the spirit bear, grizzly bear, northern spotted owl, wild salmon, coastal wolf, Vancouver Island marmot and almost all other animals in BC

  • "Don't pull a Gordon" -- memorable photos from the Premier's short stay in a Maui jail

  • Bush and Campbell: Separated at birth?

  • Pocketing regime change: the money that got Gordon Campbell elected premier of BC -- and his American money connections

  • Campbell's new forest practices code a "pathway to extinction"

  • Vancouver Island old-growth forests almost 75 percent gone

  • Veteran activist says Americans can help save BC forests

  • Health of BC forests at stake in US-Canada softwood lumber dispute

  • Feeding Frenzy: BC fish farms swamp South American fisheries

  • First Nations assert claims to land, resource

  • BC Treaties: An historical perspective

 

Also in the print edition:

  • Feds impede scientist at Hanford nuclear site
  • Kathie Durbin: Silence in short supply in Alaska's Chugach
  • Cascadia Times Columnist Matt Rasmussen: The bad guy in the white hat

 

 

 

 
 

www.times.org
©2003 Cascadia Times

 

BC Forests Under Siege

 

Canada’s Leaky Life Raft

by Paul Koberstein

A decade ago, Canada led the global fight to preserve biological diversity. Canada was the first nation to sign the International Convention on Biodiversity at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, and was the first industrialized nation to ratify it. So what has Canada done since then to back up its words with action? Almost nothing.

In fact, British Columbia — the nation's most biologically diverse province — has significantly weakened protection for all wildlife species since 1992. And, in the case of the beleaguered northern spotted owl, the BC government’s own logging operations are are at least partly to blame for the owl’s slide toward oblivion.

The mission of the Convention on Biodiversity was to halt the mass extinctions that have been occurring in recent decades, caused almost exclusively by the reduction and degradation of habitat through human activities such as deforestation, intensive agriculture, and urbanization.

“Canada recognized that stemming the accelerating loss of biodiversity would require concerted and cooperative action by the nations of the world, and that it was in our best interest, as a nation, to assist other countries in achieving this end,” wrote the late Arthur Campeau, who headed the Canadian delegation in the negotiations for the Convention on Biodiversity.

But living up to that pledge means Canada must also protect critical wildlife habitat within its borders, which the country has not done.

For years, the Canadian Parliament found it difficult to pass even a weak endangered species law. Twice Parliament voted down the legislation. Finally, in December 2002 the Parliament passed the “Species at Risk Act,” which prompted David Anderson, Minister of the Environment, to claim Canada’s endangered species were now safe: “Today we fulfilled a commitment made by this government to ensure protection for species at risk and the places where they live. Protecting species at risk is a shared responsibility of all governments in Canada. This Act ensures the federal responsibility is met, and it also helps to fulfill some of Canada's international obligations under the Biodiversity Convention.”

But the new law, which takes effect in June 2003, offers almost no protection for habitat other than habitat used by migratory bird species and salmon. For most other species, the new law prohibits killing a listed species or its nest or den, but fails to protect any habitat unless the land is owned by the federal government. But this is a red herring.

Unlike the US, where federal ownership dominates, most of Canada is owned by the provinces.

In British Columbia the federal government owns just 1 percent of all forests. The province owns 95 percent. BC has no law providing any special protection for endangered species habitat, and its general wildlife protection laws have been severely weakened recently by the new BC government under Premier Gordon Campbell.

The consensus among scientists is that Canada’s Species at Risk Act will “do virtually nothing” to halt most imperiled species, says Dr. Brian Horejsi, a grizzly bear expert at the University of Alberta in Calgary. “The biggest roadblock to any remote possibility of effectiveness is it applies only to federal lands, and there are almost no federal lands in Canada.”

Grizzly bears, northern spotted owls, mountain caribou and many other animals “are almost completely defenseless in the context of this federal legislation,” Horejsi says.

The new law also fails to protect transboundary species — defined as species that roam between the US and Canada. “The federal government has completely abdicated its responsibility,” says Gwen Barlee of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “Courts have clearly stated that transboundary species are under federal jurisdiction. This law is astoundingly weak.”

“Habitat loss is the primary cause of species loss and decline yet habitat protection under the bill comes 'too little, too late' to ensure species and habitat protection,” said Kate Smallwood of the Endangered Species Coalition in Canada.

Smallwood said the new law also provides no timetable for completing plans to recover endangered species.

In 2001, more than 1,400 scientists in North America signed a letter saying Canada's remarkable biodiversity is at risk. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, the body responsible for determining the national status of species, has identified 402 at-risk species. It will add more names to the list as studies are completed.

Not that it will necessarily make any difference.