Environment Committee on May 29th, 2012

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Just as an aside, the one piece I didn't get to mention to Professor Willison, and I should have, is that I am also not as optimistic as you about the timeline that you have set out. But having said that, I think that if I were constructing the plan I would construct it with short-term and long-term and intermediate-term objectives.

However, I'd like to speak with Mr. Dupuis for a few minutes, if I may, about the funding issue that he mentioned.

I confess, I'm not as familiar with DFO as I am with Environment Canada, because on this committee we deal more often with the environment department. But you mentioned a $12 million per annum figure, and I think I understood that to be a contribution by DFO to salmon fisheries. I'm not entirely sure. Could you elaborate on that?

[Todd Dupuis]

It is the figure provided by Ottawa, by DFO, and how much the federal government spends on conservation and protection of wild Atlantic salmon. It's not a donation, by any means, to groups, but it's the money the federal government spends on its role in protecting wild Atlantic salmon. And that has actually decreased by about 75% since about 1985.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That was going to be my next question. It was decreased by 75%. That would suggest it was $48 million in 1985.

[Todd Dupuis]

It was $25 million in 1985, but if you take into consideration the cost of living, it's about a 75% reduction today, at $12 million.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you happen to know what it was five years ago?

[Todd Dupuis]

I do not know what it was five years ago, but I could probably get that figure for you.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'd be interested in it, because at least on the environment department side, the government has been increasing the budget for the environment department year after year for the last six years, and even this year there is no reduction in the environment department budget. I cannot speak to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, however.

One thing I wonder about, though, is whether you have been looking at this from a whole systems point of view. When you talk about the reduction in technical support capacity, I'm sure you're aware that the government's responsibilities include enforcement, actually establishing protected areas, research, other conservation projects, assessing projects, things like GHG monitoring, GHG regulation, clean air and particle pollutant cleanups, contaminated site cleanups, invasive species, weather monitoring, media requests, oil sands monitoring, international negotiations, specific court-ordered actions, clean energy research, climate change reparations to other countries.

How do you propose to prioritize the technical support capacity in among those other things, sort of like draining the swamp when you're up to your hind end in alligators? What do you consider the alligator and what do you consider the swamp?

[Todd Dupuis]

Right. It's certainly a tall order.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

It's the order we have to fill, unfortunately.

[Todd Dupuis]

Yes, I understand.

When it comes to prioritizing the technical stuff, I am a person who has spent two decades getting his feet wet, walking streams, and helping community-based groups—these NGOs such as ASF, TU, and right down to the watershed organizations that have adopted their watershed and have taken it upon themselves to try to restore and protect their backyard. These are the landowners in the watershed. These are the folks who are picking up the pieces as governments—and not only federal governments but also provincial governments—roll back their budgets.

These groups, in my mind, are going to be the delivery mechanisms for the conservation programs in the future. It makes reasonably good sense, because they are the landowners. We think they would be more effective at delivering programs, because they are local, as opposed to DFO driving in with a 9-millimetre strapped to the hip. It's always easier to have a community leader approach landowners in the community to make, perhaps, changes with land use.

But these groups are lacking technical expertise. The more we study these ecosystems and watersheds, the more complicated it is. We need people, such as hydrologists or geomorphologists, to go in, do assessments, and determine what needs to be done in the backyards of these watersheds and to provide that expertise to the community groups.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm inclined to agree with you, but I hope everyone understands that in a real world of constraints, if we were to increase technical support to conservation delivery, which personally I wouldn't mind doing, other things might need to decrease.

We have great pressure on us at the moment to put money into clean energy and greenhouse gas reductions, which are of course entirely unrelated to technical support for conservation. I'm getting the yank, so do you have a quick response to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Unfortunately, time has expired. Sorry.

I want to share with colleagues that I'm going to be suspending the meeting in a moment. CBC and CTV—excuse me, Global—will be coming in right after I suspend. If you would stay in your seats, those who don't mind having their picture taken—I'm understanding it's just a picture--they want to use that to show that the committee is meeting in Halifax and dealing with the issue of a national conservation plan.

We will suspend. We will come back at 10:45 and look forward to further testimony.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

I call the meeting back to order.

This is the 38th meeting of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development as we study the development of a national conservation plan for Canada.

We want to welcome the witnesses and thank them for being with us today. This is our second round of hearing from witnesses.

We will begin with ten minutes from the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

[David Coon, Executive Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick Inc.]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to the Maritimes.

Yesterday I was telling my daughter Laura, who's 13, that I was coming to Halifax, because she always complains that I tell her at the last minute when I'm going away. She said, "What for?" I said, "To speak to members of Parliament." She said, "That's amazing", not because I was speaking to members of Parliament—over my career I've done that numerous times. She said, "You mean they come from Parliament to the Maritimes? That's amazing." So thank you for coming to the region and getting off the Hill to tour the country on this important topic.

It's appropriate that you begin your hearings here in Atlantic Canada, because of course this is the site of Canada's greatest conservation failure—that is, the widespread collapse of many of our fish stocks, including most species of groundfish, the Bay of Fundy salmon, wild oysters, and our inshore herring. That catastrophe has taught us that the environment's not a luxury—environmental protection's not a luxury or a side issue or a competing demand—but in fact the environment's rather the source of our lives and the source of our economy.

I'm going to sketch out here, using your framework, some thoughts on the elements of a national conservation plan. The first question was what should the purpose be. In our view, the purpose certainly should be to address the problems we have identified, both the damage that has occurred to date to ecosystems in Canada that therefore require restoration and the threats that face intact ecosystems. By ecosystems, I mean our forests, lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, ocean regions, and estuaries.

Fortunately, some of your work has been done for you. You have great information on where we're at because Environment Canada and DFO both have led pretty weighty pieces of work to synthesize the best science Canadian researchers have come up with to look at the status of ecosystems on land, in our fresh water, and in our salt water, all over this country and on all our coasts. This is thanks, on the Environment Canada side, to Dr. Risa Smith and her colleagues from Environment Canada's ecosystems and biodiversity priorities group.

Dr. Smith and her colleagues have been involved in this vital synthesis and assessment of the state of our ecosystems. In 2010 they published a summary document. I distributed this some time ago to the committee by jump drive—I hope those got to you—entitled “Canadian Biodiversity: Ecosystem Status and Trends”. Since that time, a whole series of technical reports has been published and posted on the website biodivcanada.ca. The regional reports for each of our regions will soon be published there as well. It is a tremendous amount of work.

At the same time, federal scientists from DFO have undertaken a similar exercise, building up from our ocean regions publishing essentially status and trends reports or report cards, if you like, on our ocean regions right across this country. That was synthesized into a summary report the same year, 2010, “Canadian Marine Ecosystem Status and Trends”.

Taken together, the key findings from these report cards really do define the problems that we think a national conversation plan needs to address. I'll give you a few examples. These don't all fall within federal jurisdiction. Some of them are provincial. For example, the capacity of our forests in southern Canada to regulate water flow has been greatly diminished. That's obviously a concern for flooding and dealing with the intense rainfall events we've been having lately on this side of the country. Wetlands are diminishing across the country, so the essential services they provide in controlling floods and sequestering carbon are being diminished.

Coastal ecosystems are something we've done a lot of work on ourselves at the Conservation Council. We are experiencing tremendous problems with simplification, nutrification, and dead zones in our bays as a result of excess nutrient loading, undermining the productivity and partly resulting in the collapse of our oyster fisheries.

We're hearing a lot about marine ecosystems today. We have carbon loading—causing acidification, ocean warming, change in the currents, and upwellings—which is fundamentally affecting the availability of nutrients to the entire food chain. Those food chains are changing dramatically, in part because of overfishing and the fishing technology that's being used.

So the purpose of a national conservation plan must be to address these kinds of problems that have already been identified in the key findings in this report card.

With respect to the goals of a plan, I think it's relatively straightforward. It was 20 years ago, just after the Rio Earth Summit, that scientists issued what they called the warning to humanity. It was quite dramatic and grandiose: 1,600 scientists, 70 countries, 102 Nobel laureates basically said that humans are on a collision course with the natural world, and if not checked, our current practices put at serious risk the future for human societies and may alter the living world in such a way that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. We're coming to that, and that's some of what these key findings in the reports are identifying.

It's interesting that 1992 was the year that the collapse of the northern cod was acknowledged. That of course erased 40,000 livelihoods in our region, which we tend to forget about nationally now, signalling the ecological dysfunction in our ocean waters that plagues us still.

I realize it's unfashionable to speak in terms of an ecological crisis. It's far more fashionable to speak about an economic crisis, because we've got one. But we have an ecological crisis, and it's not going away, it's only deepening.

So I think the way to think about this—and this isn't to be a doomsayer—is to simply say we need to follow a different path. We need to recognize that as a society in Canada, like everywhere else, we are embedded in the environment. We don't live outside of the environment, we're not apart from the environment, so we have to change the way we do our business.

A national conservation plan must be the context, then, in which government makes decisions around its other priorities overall. If we're embedded in the environment, surely that's how we need to organize our decision-making in terms of creating a context. Already we know habitat destruction, excess nutrient loading, and greenhouse gas emissions have exceeded tipping points on a global scale and that we need to pull back.

So in terms of goals, a national conservation plan should set us on a different path. It should change the relationship we have with nature, but fundamentally be designed, as goals, to maintain the ecological integrity and resilience of our ecosystem and to restore the ecological integrity and resilience of those that have already been degraded.

Those two goals, to me, would be the centre points for a national conservation plan, and decisions taken by government would proceed with these goals in mind.

With respect to principles, I can't think of better principles than those that are enshrined in the Earth Charter, written in 1992. It's been endorsed by thousands of organizations, representing tens of millions of people, including the City of North Vancouver and the Sisters of Charity right here in Halifax. This gives you a sense of the diversity of support for these fundamental principles. You can read them, and I'm sure you will: principles such as respect, caring, love—if you get love in your report, it's great in my books—fairness to the future, and so on. You'll read it, I'm sure.

As far as conservation priorities are concerned, I think it's great timing for this committee. We signed on, as a nation, to these targets under the Convention on Biologicial Diversity back in 2010, at the Nagoya biodiversity summit.

I distributed the brochure on the targets to you. We as a nation will be submitting our biodiversity framework about how we're going to pursue those targets very shortly to the convention. It's going out for consultation to national stakeholders in a couple of weeks. I believe it contains about five goals, maybe fifteen “Made in Canada” targets specific to our reality here. I encourage you to get hold of that, look at it, and maybe invite someone from Environment Canada to speak to it.

Finally, on implementation priorities, I think there are two key things for implementation. A national conservation plan really needs a legislative agenda, a statutory basis for protecting and restoring our ecosystems. In doing so, it would provide a long-term comprehensive and legal framework for conservation and sustainable use of our ecosystems.

As Jeff Hutchings already mentioned, Australia and Norway both have adopted laws similar to what I have in mind here, which are designed to sustain and rebuild ecosystems in their countries. In particular, Norway's Nature Diversity Act is very interesting. It sets overall management objectives for ecosystems, within which government decision-making takes place. It gets away from just a singular focus on those species or habitats that are dramatically endangered but essential to our health, well-being, and wealth.

There needs to be a legislative agenda and some kind of institutional framework that spans government departments at the federal level to implement and deliver a plan to get away from the silos that often exist within departments—so, some new institutional agreement.

Finally, in closing, I just want to say that as a parliamentary committee, you have a tremendous opportunity here to be a catalyst for discussion in this country about the need for a national conservation plan to deal with the ecological crisis. It's something we can come to grips with in Canada. What we do here can matter. Your predecessors in the 32nd Parliament, the subcommittee on acid raid, published a report called Still Waters that catapulted action on acid raid in eastern Canada, from Manitoba east. It was a bestseller. It was in bookstores, if you can believe it—a report of a parliamentary subcommittee, not even a full committee, in bookstores. It captured the imagination of Canadians. That's something your committee could aspire to. I look forward to reading your report in my local bookstores.

Good luck with this. And again, thank you for coming to the Maritimes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much.

Next we will hear from DFO. We have Mr. King and Mr. Burgess.

[Steve Burgess, Acting Director General, Ecosystem Programs Policy, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll speak on behalf of the department, but both Marty and I are available for questions, obviously, at the conclusion of this.

Thank you for inviting us to speak here today about the role of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in marine conservation.

What I thought I'd do is provide you with an overview of the department's approach to aquatic conservation in Canada, and also our perspectives on a national conservation plan. I would like to start by summarizing the department's role and views on marine conservation by highlighting three themes that are implicit to all of our work within the department.

First, I think it's fair to say that DFO is the lead federal department in the protection and management of fisheries and in the conservation of aquatic ecosystems nationally, both marine and freshwater. Second, DFO is of the view that conservation and economic prosperity go hand in hand: healthy environments lead to healthy economies. Third, DFO's programs for aquatic conservation and fisheries management are geared towards what we are referring to as an ecosystems approach. I thought I'd elaborate on each of those themes.

The department's role in implementing the Oceans Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Fisheries Act places the department in a federal leadership role for aquatic conservation and the conservation of aquatic ecosystems. In our capacity as lead federal steward, we advance, conserve, and protect sustainable aquatic ecosystems. We do this through multiple program areas such as fisheries management, aquaculture management, ecosystems and fisheries science, our species at risk and oceans programs, and in our work, for example, with aboriginal groups.

DFO recognizes that conservation of our valuable aquatic resources is a responsibility shared by all Canadians. We can't do it alone. To be effective, conservation activities must engage all responsible authorities as well as affected and interested parties. Engagement is required at all stages of policy and program development, implementation, and coordination, and at all levels: locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

To achieve the support and buy-in for conservation activities that may impact economic activities, we need to ensure that those impacted are part of the decision-making processes, that their needs are well understood, and that alternatives that can achieve conservation objectives while allowing economic activities are properly evaluated.

Freshwater, marine, and fisheries expertise isn't found only within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It's found in conservation groups; it's found in provincial agencies, and so forth. We rely more and more on the support and participation of the academic community, environmental non-government organizations, conservation organizations, and other levels of government, to share knowledge, to develop solutions, and to implement conservation activities.

For these reasons, the department takes a shared stewardship approach to its relationships with other levels of government, the users of ocean resources, fish harvesters, aboriginal groups, aquaculture operators, and the Canadian public at large. In our view, we must all work together to conserve and protect aquatic ecosystems and to manage the impacts of activities on our valuable aquatic resources. In summary, the scope, scale, and importance of conservation really demand a collective effort.

I think the efforts required to promote conservation are well illustrated by the establishment of marine protected areas, as one example. The department, on behalf of the Government of Canada, has established eight marine protected areas through participatory and collaborative processes, and a further seven marine protected areas have been identified for future designation through similar processes.

I think it's important to stress that the establishment of marine protected areas is not just a departmental effort, but a collective effort involving industry sectors, conservation organizations, provincial organizations, and others. To some extent, that's our challenge in developing marine protected areas' needs across the board. DFO is also leading the establishment of Canada's network of marine protected areas based on a national framework, which has been developed through federal, provincial, and territorial collaboration. The network will consist of 13 bioregions and will include existing federal, provincial, and territorial marine protected areas and other area-based conservation measures--for example, fisheries closures that can contribute to network objectives.

The overall goals of the network are to provide long-term protection of marine biodiversity, ecosystem function, and special natural features; to support the conservation and management of Canada's living resources in their habitats and the socio-economic values and ecosystem services they provide; finally, to enhance public awareness and appreciation of Canada's marine environments and Canada's rich maritime history and culture.

I've provided committee members with a copy of a report entitled “Spotlight on Marine Protected Areas in Canada”, which is illustrative of some of the work that's happening in this area. Certainly if the committee is interested in further information, we can provide that at your request.

Biodiversity is a fundamental element of conservation, and DFO's contribution to the conservation of aquatic biodiversity is supported, for example, by the Species at Risk Act. Our colleagues in Environment Canada and the Parks Canada Agency have already spoken to you about the Species at Risk Act, I believe. Like Environment Canada and Parks Canada, DFO must propose listing decisions and then produce recovery strategies and action plans for aquatic species listed as endangered or threatened and management plans for species listed as a special concern.

Approximately 103 aquatic species have been listed under the Species at Risk Act. In the Maritimes region, some notable listed species include the Atlantic blue whales, North Atlantic right whales, northern bottlenose dolphins, inner Bay of Fundy salmon, and the leatherback turtle. All of those are protected under the Species at Risk Act.

Recovery strategies have been produced for 68 of the aquatic listed species, with some action plans completed or near completion, and management plans have been produced for 35 species of special concern. Through development of these documents DFO engages affected and interested individuals and groups, generates an understanding of issues associated with these species at risk, and attempts to garner support for recovery actions.

To increase the engagement of Canadians in the protection and recovery of species at risk, DFO and Environment Canada support stewardship through the habitat stewardship program and the aboriginal funds for species at risk. I think these are important aspects of the program. Combined, these two funds will invest $7.3 million this fiscal year while leveraging an additional $15.5 million in more than 150 conservation projects across the country.

The aboriginal fisheries strategy and the aboriginal aquatic resource and oceans management programs are other examples of how DFO makes significant investments annually to engage aboriginal groups in monitoring, reporting, and enforcing efforts to protect ecosystems. As valued partners, aboriginal groups play an important and sometimes critical role in DFO's promotion of sustainable fisheries and the oceans sector.

The department continues its leadership role in aquatic resource conservation through the important work on the conservation and sustainable use of fisheries. In collaboration with the fishing industry, DFO has developed a sustainable fisheries framework. This overarching framework incorporates existing fisheries management measures with new policies and tools. It also includes tools to monitor and assess initiatives geared towards ensuring an environmentally sustainable fishery and identifies areas that may need improvement.

I will go to the conservation plan now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Your time has expired. Do you want to answer those questions during the question period?

[Steve Burgess]

Sure. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you.

Next we have the Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation. You have ten minutes.

[Ward Samson, Member, Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation]

Thank you.

My name is Ward Samson. I'm past president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation, which was formed in 1962. We're affiliated with the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

For a number of years we have been asking for equal and unimpeded access to our outdoors in Newfoundland and Labrador. We firmly believe that hunters and fishermen and fisherwomen should have access to our land to enjoy outdoor pursuits.

We also firmly believe that we must manage our wildlife so that future generations have those resources to use and enjoy. Unfortunately, over the number of years that we've been part of Canada, those resources and freedoms have been fraught with the mandates of industry and special interest groups, which have dictated government policy both federally and provincially.

In 1949 we joined Canada as the tenth province. On three occasions before that, we didn't join. Canada wanted us, but we said no, we didn't want to come. But we did join in a plebiscite in 1949. I would like to remind the people present and all of Canada that for almost 500 years the fishery was the mainstay of Newfoundland and of the rest of Europe, South America, North America, and the Caribbean. We didn't have a real federal fisheries presence until 1953. They became less minuscule because they had some details to work out with the Canada and Newfoundland agreement. It was not until the 1970s that we had a big fisheries presence in Newfoundland.

As you all know, in 1992 we had a cod moratorium--no more fish to catch. Canada managed our offshore fishery for 39 years. We had managed it for 500. Thirty-nine years, and nothing left--done, over with, can't catch any more fish. Occasionally we can take a few cod, five fish per day; that's it, no more, no less.

How did Canada destroy this fishery for Newfoundlanders? Some of them are at fault too; don't get me wrong. In 39 years--not 500, not 100, but 39--gone, no more fish. There are mounds and mounds of reports that would explain why, maybe, but the reality is mismanagement of a resource by central Canada's government policy and the Newfoundland government's policy. Today, from our perspective, we cannot even get a fish to eat without going through many federal government hoops.

I participated in a province-wide protest about five years ago. I didn't get charged, but we don't have to have a licence any more. We can catch five fish, but we don't have to have any more tags for our cod. Nova Scotia gets 11 months. What do you think of five weeks? Why is this gap between provinces? I don't understand it.

When we talk about sustainable development, we must reflect animal movements and have no artificial borders put in place by governments and bureaucracies.

I don't think the codfish understand that they are Newfoundland and Labrador fish. When they reach close to Nova Scotia, do they say that they can't cross the border? Do they say “We are Newfoundland and Labrador fish, and we cannot cross the border”? I think not.

We cannot manage for fish alone. Sustainable development must manage for people. We have to manage for people, not fish. People want equal and fair treatment.

Do we sell farm tractors to other countries in return for cod quotas--which they did--on the Grand Banks? Maybe it wasn't your government, but they did it.

Do we ensure that landlocked countries in Europe get fish to eat and have a codfish quota--which they did?

Do we insist that an inshore fishery fleet in Newfoundland harvest cod on the spawning grounds in winter time--which they did? Five friends of mine drowned in a boat off the south coast of Newfoundland harvesting cod in the winter. They were on the spawning grounds. They were told to go and catch them, boys, so that foreign fleets couldn't come in and catch them.

What happened was that they were knee deep in cod spawn, and I know, because my uncles were there. They were knee deep in spawn, and they were shoveling them off the decks of the boat. They were undersized fish, shovelled off, dead, and floated out, because the market dictates, not conservation. The market dictates for fish and for cod.

Is what I just told you sustainable development of a resource? No, it's definitely not. That is what happens, and that is what has happened in Newfoundland. Because of past government policy, that means they've left their small bays and inlets and have gone off to Alberta, to Fort McMurray. And they're not coming back. They're gone.

We managed the development of the fishery, oh yes, but not the sustainable development of the fishery.

That's the cod fishery.

I just want to mention Muskrat Falls. Maybe you've heard about Muskrat Falls, the Danny Williams thing.

Listen, we have a proposed development of Muskrat Falls. This power line that runs from Muskrat Falls to St. John's is going to cross 586 salmon rivers. They are not all big ones, but there are 586. Now, I don't know where they're going to cross. I've asked. They don't know where they're going to cross. Those small streams and rivers are spawning streams for salmon. Do they know where they're going to cross? No one seems to know.

Our provincial government is being guaranteed a federal government loan for Muskrat Falls, by Stephen Harper, so that we can have this thing go ahead.

I have not been privy to any environmental impact study on how the power corridor will impact on the surrounding environment. We know that together with salmon spawning in those 586 rivers, along those rivers, where they come into where I live, they come into woodland caribou calving grounds.

I just want to read you a little quote from Chief Seattle. Chief Seattle says, “We do not inherit the world from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children”. We seem to see the world of the quick dollar and tend to leave our land in a malaise for the quick dollar.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that when we go to Kentucky Fried Chicken or McDonald's, we don't make that justification that it's meat that was once a live animal. For some reason, we forget it.

When we go hunting seals, we don't kill whitecoats any more, by the way. We haven't done that for years. I wish someone would tell people we don't kill whitecoats. We've told them, but they still don't seem to believe us, for some reason.

The last thing I'm trying to say is that there's a new hydro development or some kind of a pipeline going through B.C. I have lots of degrees after my name. I wouldn't mind to tell people what's good for them in B.C., but I'm from Newfoundland. How can I tell someone from northern B.C. what he should do? I can't do it. I don't know it.

We must manage our renewable resources for our children and ensure that they have the same for their day. We must mitigate the damage to our environment so that we leave the least visible footprint for the future to see. It is the non-renewable resources that can give us wealth, but the renewable resources give us life. I think we should try to remember that as a benchmark for life. It's quite simple--nothing more, nothing less.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you, Mr. Samson.

Finally, we'll hear from Mr. Bondrup-Nielsen of the Science and Management of Protected Areas Association.

[Dr. Soren Bondrup-Nielsen, Treasurer, Head, Department of Biology, Acadia University, Science and Management of Protected Areas Association]

Hello, and thanks for inviting me.

I have to start out by admitting that when I was first invited I was very reluctant, and in fact I thought I would not go. Then I spoke to Martin Willison, who was here several days ago. He and I are on CPAWS together, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and he convinced me to come.

My background is that I'm an academic. I am a biologist, a population ecologist. I teach conservation biology at Acadia University and have done that for 23 years. I do research in conservation, so I consider my background to be in this particular area.

I did not write any speaking notes. If you would like some, I could certainly do them later; however, I'm also the head of the biology department and so I have been a little busy, unfortunately.

I would like to start out by saying that when I start my courses in conservation biology I start with some stats. I was born in 1951. In 1951 there were approximately 2.5 billion people in the world. By 1978 there were 5 billion people in the world, and recently we passed 7 billion people. If I live to be 85 or something like that, under the present projections there will be 10 billion people in the world.

We live in an unprecedented time of human population increase. No other generations will ever see this kind of increase in the human population within the lifetime of a single individual: two doublings, 2.55 billion to 10 billion people. We are exerting a phenomenal pressure on this globe. I think we really need to look at the assumptions we make in terms of who we are and how we can interact with this world.

The other thing I talk about when I talk about conservation biology, which in the old days was called wildlife management, is that it has been recognized since Aldo Leopold's time that wildlife management is people management. Wildlife doesn't need to be managed; all species other than humans do not need to be managed. Humans need to be managed.

The other thing I talk to my students about when I start out is that the current paradigm of the linear predictability of nature started in the late 1600s, when we humans stepped outside of nature. We discovered that technology could separate us from nature and that in separating ourselves from nature we could use technology to counter the various negative feedbacks that nature throws at us when we do things that are unsustainable. We still believe in that paradigm.

That paradigm has brought us to where we are today: to the number of people we are, the riches that some of us have—that few of us have. In fact, 20% of the world lives on a huge footprint, whereas the rest lives on a very small footprint.

I think it's time to understand where the physicists are today: it's quantum mechanics, it's unpredictability; it's not linearity, it's connections. That is how the world works. We need to move in that direction.

Our economic system, which evolved along with science, because science fundamentally is a means of generating technology that can make our use of resources go beyond what is sustainable to the point that we suddenly fall off when we reach the end point.... I think it's time to also realize that our economic system must be subservient to nature's economic system.

Those are just the introductions I want to make: the assumptions we live under.

What should conservation be? I think conservation is not something that we do because we have the economic means to put aside a few protected areas, or that we have the means to be concerned about some rare and endangered species.

Many people ask, “Why should we preserve rare and endangered species? They're rare and they can't have an important ecological impact if there are only a few of them, so if we lose them, what is the big issue?” Of course the big issue is that nature is dynamic. Nature is always changing; nature is adapting. These rare species that we have today may be the dominant species in the future, under a new set of conditions.

Being concerned about biodiversity is not setting aside in a few protected areas and then thinking, “Now we're fine, now we can move on and impact the areas where we gain our resources to the maximum extent we want to, because the protected areas will protect biodiversity”. Well, protected areas are a short-term measure to conserve biodiversity.

What we need, of course, is a conservation ethic that goes to all the activities that we do. This is what I mean when I say that we are a part of nature.

Indeed, I'd like to argue that when we get it right, protected areas will become obsolete, because we don't need them any more; we are taking care of all species everywhere, and therefore protected areas, in terms of protecting biodiversity, are not necessary. Indeed, many protected areas—of course I think of Canadian national parks—are phenomenal places to go and see how phenomenal nature is, but these parks will never conserve biodiversity. They will serve the important function of really making people understand what a phenomenal country Canada is.

The last thing I would like to say—or maybe the second-last thing—is that here in North America we have a funny attitude. We white people in North America came here as visitors a long time ago, and we often forget about the aboriginals and their viewpoint. In the rest of the world, in Europe, the white people are the aboriginals. In Europe and elsewhere, they view nature as people being a part of it. Human artifacts are a part of nature in Europe and elsewhere, whereas in North America we like to separate people from nature. We feel that nature should be devoid of people, so when we talk about wilderness in North America, it excludes people. I think that's a very wrong approach to take. We are part of nature. Now, we may be visitors here, which makes it even maybe more special in a sense. That's one thing.

Finally, I'd like to just talk about Robert Costanza, who is an ecological economist. He has these four scenarios, and I can only remember three of the points he has. But he has a Mad Max approach, which is that humans just do as we are doing right now, taking resources as fast as we can and just hoping for the best. Then there is the Star Trek scenario, where science will save us in the end, and we will always be able to find new resources, new sources of energy, and new cures for diseases, etc. Then there is his precautionary approach: that what we need to do is to go slowly and take a precautionary approach, not saying we can take this maximum number of fish and we'll be fine; we should take far less than that and see how that disturbs the system, and then maybe we can take a few more, but we always have to opt for the lower level, not the upper level, when we use resources.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you so much.

We will begin our questioning.

The questions that are within the scope of the study we're doing today are what should be the purpose of a national conservation plan, what should be the goals, what should be the guiding principles, what conservation priorities should be included in a national conservation plan, what should be the implementation priorities, and what would the consultation process be. That's the scope of the study. We will be reporting to the government as a committee on the creation of a national conservation plan. If you go beyond that scope with your comments, it's permitted, but it won't really provide valuable input that we need in creating this report to Parliament. Keep that in mind, please, both members of the committee and witnesses.

I'd like to introduce you to the panel. We have 12 members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and there are six of us before you today. Mr. Woodworth and Mr. Lunney are with the government, as am I. Then we have Monsieur Choquette and Madame Liu with the NDP, the official opposition, and Mr. Eyking with the Liberal Party.

We will begin questioning. The first round is seven minutes, and we will begin with Mr. Woodworth.

You have seven minutes.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the witnesses, particularly those who had to travel to get here today. We appreciate your time and your effort. We want to try to absorb as much as we can.

In that regard, Mr. Coon, I was happy that you highlighted the documents you have with you. It's probably my omission that I don't recall receiving the report card items or the reports that you mentioned from the ecosystems and biodiversity group. If I may, I'd like to ask the clerk if we got that material from Mr. Coon. Can you give us the titles again, Mr. Coon?

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

One moment, please.

I am advised that we have one document but not what Mr. Coon was referring to.