Government Gives Nod to Nature Conservation in Throne Speech, Budget

In last week’s Throne Speech, and then in this week’s Federal Budget release, the Federal Government made a number of promising announcements for those who love nature.

First, the Government announced it plans to “create significant new protected areas,” including a new urban national park in the Rouge Valley of eastern Toronto. Secondly, the Government pledged to “engage a broad range of stakeholders on the development of a National Conservation Plan.”

Talk of a national conservation plan is good. Conserving wildlife, wild spaces, and the environment is a complex challenge, but fortunately there are many people helping. People in Aboriginal, provincial, and territorial governments, nonprofit organizations, local clubs, landowners, businesses, industries, and others are all doing their part.

A national plan to support and coordinate these efforts would make the job of nature conservation so much more effective. I’m looking forward to working with the Federal Government on bringing the plan to fruition.

We learned a few more details from the Federal Budget – including $5.5 million over 5 years to establish Mealy Mountains National Park in Labrador. Nature Canada campaigned for over 15 years to protect the majestic Mealy Mountains region, a place characterized by wild lakes and rivers, glacier-worn mountains, subalpine plateaus, bogs and fens, marine coasts, salt-swept islands, sandspits, coastal plains and boreal forests. The establishment of this National park is great news for the Woodland Caribou, Harlequin Duck and other wildlife that call the Mealy Mountains home.

There were other commitments made in this week’s budget announcement that should benefit nature, including $5 million over 2 years to improve near-shore water and ecosystem health, and better address the presence of phosphorous in the Great Lakes, renewed funding for the Clean Air Agenda, and the ecoEnergy Retrofit Homes program.

The Green Budget Coalition (Nature Canada is a founding member and home for its Secretariat) released a scorecard this week summarizing these and other nature-related budget announcements, which you can see online.

These announcements are promising words that need to be backed up with action. Much work remains to protect and conserve nature in Canada and we at Nature Canada look forward to working with the government to ensure that happens.

Canada's North and a Changing Climate: What Does the Future Hold?

As rapid climate change continues to alter Canada’s Arctic in dramatic ways, there has been an unprecedented domestic and international interest in what the future holds for this fascinating – and important – region.

As the ice disappears, new opportunities for natural resource extraction, shipping, tourism, and infrastructure arise, and with them could come substantial new investment and employment to the North.

However, the effects of environmental change, such as shifting and melting permafrost, melting glaciers, shrinking ocean ice and a shortened season for ice roads could have significant social and economic consequences for Canada’s arctic peoples, and the entire nation.

If you’re in the Ottawa area tomorrow afternoon, I encourage you to join me at the Museum of Nature for a panel discussion hosted by the Canadian Committee of the IUCN. The event will bring together specialists and members of the interested public to have an interactive conversation on a range of topics:

• Sustainable wildlife use – David Lee, Wildlife Biologist, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated

• Aboriginal traditional knowledge – James Eetoolook, Vice‐President, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., and Chair, Inuit Wildlife and Environment Advisory Council;

• Protected areas – Rob Prosper, Executive Director, Northern Canada, Parks Canada;

• Marine transportation – Ross MacDonald, Manager, Special Projects and Arctic Shipping, Marine Safety, Transport Canada.

The event will be chaired by Tom Laughlin, Deputy Head of the IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Program. Following the presentations, the speakers and the audience will have an open discussion about how sustainable developments in the North can provide maximum benefits for indigenous communities, and for Canada as a whole, while ensuring development in the North occurs in a sustainable manner.

The IUCN (the International Union for the Conservation of Nature) is one of the world’s largest global environmental networks. The Canadian Committee is a unique group on the national conservation scene – it brings representatives from government, non-profit organizations, academia and Aboriginal groups around one table to talk about conservation issues of global and national concern, such as climate change, biodiversity, and indigenous peoples’ rights and interests.

I was excited to join the Canadian Committee this year, and to engage Nature Canada with fellow Committee members, including Parks Canada, Environment Canada, Nature Conservancy, and Aboriginal groups, to promote conservation awareness and action on biodiversity in Canada.

I encourage you to join me tomorrow. If you can’t make it, post a comment here with any message you’d like me to take to those in attendance – what should the future hold for Canada’s Arctic?

Event details:

A Panel Discussion Hosted by the Canadian Committee for IUCN
Canadian Museum of Nature, 240 McLeod Street, Ottawa
May 26, 2011, 1:30 ‐ 5 p.m.

The Gulf Oil Spill is a Disaster that Can't be Repeated

On April 20, the world awoke to a developing tragedy triggered by an explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Recent estimates put the total amount of the spill between 160 million and 320 million litres so far, more than four times the amount of the Exxon Valdez spill. We still don't know when the flow of oil into the Gulf will stop.

Oil has already reached a dozen Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The oil has damaged coastal grasses and sea grass beds that are vital nursery grounds for fish and shrimp and provide habitat for numerous other animals and plants. The loss of these critical sources of food could have devastating consequences for many bird species that depend on the Gulf coast region.

You can get up to date information on the oil spill's path on the National Audubon Society's website, as well as first-hand accounts of clean-up efforts underway.

In just a few short weeks, the first migratory birds will begin their journey south from Canada to their wintering grounds in South and Central America. Many of them rely on the impacted region to gather and feed during their journey.

As birds arrive in the disaster zone, the oil spill will affect them in a number of ways:

• An inability to fly due to oiled feathers
• Hypothermia induced by oil on their feathers
• Poisoning from ingesting oil while preening
• Poisoning from eating other contaminated wildlife
• Disturbances during rescue efforts

It will be months, if not years, before the full impacts of this oil spill are known. In some cases, we may never know the extent of the effects on particular species.

What lessons can Canada learn from this disaster?

The tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is a reminder that offshore oil drilling is never safe for the environment or for the communities along our coasts. Oil in the water is dangerous for fisheries, wildlife and ecosystems no matter where it happens.

Perhaps the greatest danger lies in drilling in the Arctic region. A spill in the Arctic would have devastating consequences for the region's fragile wildlife and ecosystems, and no technology exists that could clean up a spill in so inhospitable an area. The techniques deployed in the Gulf – even there not nearly successful – would be useless in the Arctic.

Just weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, BP was actively lobbying the Canadian government to ease some of the planned rules for Arctic Ocean oil and gas exploration, and had already acquired three offshore exploration licenses for the Canadian Beaufort Sea.

Unlike the United States, Norway and Britain, Canada lacks a regulatory process governing whether or where oil and gas development can happen in the Arctic. Licenses are granted, and contracts signed with oil and gas companies before any environmental assessment takes place. The result: exploratory licenses exist in environmentally sensitive areas like the Beaufort Sea, where a blowout would have immediate negative effects on the delicate ecosystems there.

The disaster in the Gulf is a wake-up call. It is time to place a moratorium on new offshore drilling, including the Arctic, and to end our reliance on dirty, polluting fossil fuels in favour of responsible development of clean, renewable energy.

In the near term, no new exploratory licenses should be granted and no applications approved until the National Energy Board completes its review of Arctic safety and environmental offshore drilling requirements. A moratorium should also be in place until an independent commissioner is appointed to hold a review of offshore drilling on all of Canada's coasts.

And of course, a permanent ban should be in place prohibiting any oil and gas drilling inside a recognized protected area, and that prohibits any future exploration licenses from being granted within protected areas.

What has happened in Gulf is truly tragic; the Canadian government and industry should do all it can to put the environment and worker safety first so that a similar disaster doesn't happen off Canada's shores.

New Book, "Important Bird Areas of the Americas" is a Blueprint for Conservation

Tonight I'll be attending a very important event for bird conservation in Canada in Washington D.C. The event marks the release of a seminal new book, Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of the Americas: Priority sites for biodiversity conservation. The book is a roadmap for conservation that identifies 2,345 top-priority conservation sites in Canada and the 56 other countries and territories within the Western Hemisphere. It provides a blueprint for decisions- makers to make informed decisions on habitat protection and restoration, and I believe it will help enormously in the conservation of both threatened and common species as well as a wealth of wider biodiversity.

The event is hosted by Luis Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, and featured speakers include Henry M. Paulson, Jr., former US Treasury Secretary; Andres Bosso, CEO Aves Argentinas; Frank Gill, President, National Audubon Society; and Margaret Atwood, author and Joint Honorary President of BirdLife International's Rare Bird Club.

The Americas is one of the most important regions for bird conservation, given that it holds almost 40% of the world’s threatened species (11% of the region’s birds are threatened). IBAs are becoming a formidable tool to help governments, the private sector, investment banks and donor organizations to direct conservation funding towards clearly defined priorities. There are nearly 600 IBAs in Canada, including well-known migratory bird staging areas such as Point Pelee National Park in Ontario, and British Columbia’s Boundary Bay, a provincially-designated wildlife conservation area.

This gala reception brings leaders and supporters of BirdLife International’s Important Bird Areas (IBAs) program – and of global conservation generally – to celebrate a decade of accomplishment for the BirdLife Americas Partnership, as well as to galvanize support for the future of IBAs and their gifts to birds, biodiversity and people.

I’m very excited about the release of this book and grateful for the work that staff at Nature Canada, Bird Studies Canada and all our BirdLife Partners in the Americas put in over the last few years to get this directory published. We now have a terrific new tool for biodiversity conservation in the Americas!


You can download the book here.