Stephen Hazell
Opinion
The Toronto Star
National wildlife areas should be for wildlife: anything else is misleading.
Unfortunately, proposed changes to wildlife area regulations are a step backward from protection, giving the federal environment minister more power to hand out permits for mining and oil and gas development in areas that should be for conservation.
Canadians count on mining and oil and gas development being banned in national parks. No doubt Canadians would be concerned to know that national wildlife areas are still open to both.
In fact, it’s nearly happened before.
Alberta’s Suffield National Wildlife Area was protected in 2003. This grassland ecosystem provides critical sanctuary for endangered animals such as burrowing owls, the swift fox and the sage grouse.
But just six years after the announcement, a permit allowing the Encana Shallow Gas Infill Development Project, and hundreds of new gas wells, was proposed within the national wildlife area’s boundaries.
Nature Canada and Alberta nature groups had to fight hard in public hearings to get this project stopped.
That permit should never even have been considered. Wildlife should always come first in national wildlife areas and other conservation designations, never second. There just isn’t enough time in the race to safeguard nature.
In May the UN released a new report that shows one million species around the world are at risk of extinction due to human activity. The leading factor in these declines is habitat loss.
Protected areas, such as the two million hectares of national wildlife areas, are our best chance to end the extinction. Canada has promised to double protected areas, ensuring protection for 17 per cent of land and inland waters and 10 per cent of oceans by 2020.
Led by the federal government, Canada is making progress, but still has far to go. What kind of protection is on offer?
The current wildlife area regulations allow ministers to give out permits for industrial activity where, “that activity will not interfere with the conservation of wildlife.”
The federal government would have been wise to eliminate even the possibility of industrial development. Instead, proposed changes to the regulations open the door wider to development.