Evidence of meeting #68 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was conservation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
All of them commented on it. Perhaps Mr. Wareham could answer that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Mr. Wareham, do you want to respond to that question, please?
Science Project Manager, David Suzuki Foundation
I'd be happy to address that question. Thank you very much.
The overarching frame, I think, is that we need to look at the natural habitat classifications we have across the country and make sure that we protect very significant components of those habitats. We know that climate change and the shift of climate regimes across habitat are going to change the composition of those areas and the species mix that perhaps use it. The base of habitat is the vegetation complex, the soil complexes, in these areas, and different species will use them over time. We have to accommodate the shift of species regimes across the landscape, and that is best done by maintaining that diversity of habitat.
As Bob Sopuck said, you can transition a habitat and it will serve some other function, but only to the degree that you have adjacent habitats that species can move to and accommodate their futures in under a different climate regime. It's really about taking a bolder step in protecting that representation of ecosystem classification types across the country.
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
All of you mentioned that the government needed to impose stricter standards to help meet targets, including the Aichi targets.
Could you give us specific examples of such standards or best practices?
Senior Conservation Adviser, Nature Canada
We have some concerns with respect to how some federally managed lands are being managed. For example, national wildlife areas, which are a tremendous resource, are often overlooked. Most Canadians have never even heard of them, but the Canadian Wildlife Service manages almost as much land as Parks Canada.
There are some concerns about how that land is managed. For example, Nature Canada was involved in a dispute and legal actions relating to the Suffield National Wildlife Area in Alberta. There was an application to do additional oil and gas development activity in the national wildlife area itself, on grasslands, which we've heard are threatened ecosystems.
I think we have to be much more careful about how we regulate activities on those federal lands. That's an important point. And to reinforce the point, in terms of cost-effective approaches to managing conserved lands such as national wildlife areas, the Canadian Wildlife Service operates on a shoestring budget. I mean, it's really shocking how little funds are available to manage the amount of land they have.
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You said that, unlike in the case of national parks, the protection of certain wildlife areas is limited to the surface of the land. That means, then, that these sanctuaries are not necessarily protected below the surface of the land.
What impact do activities have on migratory birds and other species in areas where the land is not protected?
Senior Conservation Adviser, Nature Canada
I think your question related to the fact that in a number of protected areas the surface rights are protected but not subsurface rights, and that obviously is an issue. That was the issue in Suffield, the fact that the subsurface rights were proposed for development.
Let me step back a bit. We have to recognize that there's a range of protection. Obviously in the national parks and in the provincial ecological reserves you get a much higher level of protection, which is intended to protect the full ecological integrity of those areas. When you're talking about a managed landscape, the objectives are different. There are agricultural interests; there may be industrial interests. It's a different level of protection. I think, as Bill has mentioned, you have to have some areas for which the full ecological integrity of that place is protected so we can continue to have representative ecosystems protected across the country, whether they're Arctic ecosystems, boreal, grasslands, St. Lawrence lowland forests, or whatever.
Conservative
NDP
Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Yes. I am going to share my time with Mr. Choquette.
Conservative
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to sum up what I took from your remarks in one minute. You talked about the importance of continuing to fight climate change, of taking action based on sound science and of having legislation that governs habitat conservation effectively. I also took away the importance of the no net loss policy.
Could you elaborate a bit more on that? I know we don't have much time, but I think it's very important.
Senior Conservation Adviser, Nature Canada
As I mentioned, this no net loss policy was developed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in 1986, in parallel with some changes to the Fisheries Act that protected fish habitat. In the most recent omnibus budget bill, those changes have largely been undone. However, the changes to the Fisheries Act that have diminished protection for fish habitat have not yet been declared in force. I would suggest to the committee that if we're interested in the no net loss principle, then let's not declare those changes in force. It's a matter of government prerogative to do that. I'm familiar with one law, the Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act in the 1980s, which was never declared in force. It was ultimately repealed when the government brought forward some very important strengthening of fuel efficiency regulations a few years ago—this is the current government.
No net loss is an important principle that can be applied as much to wildlife habitat conservation as fish habitat conservation. It hasn't worked perfectly for DFO. The Auditor General has made some critical remarks about whether the DFO has achieved the goal of no net loss in conserving fish habitat production. But, nonetheless, I think it's a useful principle that could be applied to wildlife as well.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you, Mr. Choquette, and Mr. Hazell.
We'll move to Ms. Rempel.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Thank you Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for coming this morning, especially Mr. Davidson; we wish you the best with your family today.
Mr. Chair, I remind my colleagues on both sides of the table today that the scope of the study is terrestrial ecosystems. I won't call points of order, because I think that it's been studied in the DFO and we're both looking at this issue. That's just a reminder to my colleagues.
Mr. Wareham, in looking at best practices for habitat management, you spoke about the concept of overall ecosystem function. I'm quite interested in that, because some of our witnesses have spoken today about the development of recovery strategies through SARA, etc.
Could you speak about that concept, and whether there's a better way that the government can use that concept to both protect habitat and look at recovery strategies?
Science Project Manager, David Suzuki Foundation
I'll provide a couple of examples. In the context of transforming habitats, there are limits to transformation. You get to the point where you no longer have the function. I'll use the example my being born and raised in Winnipeg, and growing up in Manitoba and the prairies. The transition I've seen there shocks me to some degree. You look at the elimination of quarter-section roads, hedgerows, wetlands, and even, in many cases, the rail lines. The quarter-section roads themselves have been transitioned into crop land that can be very extensive—you can have 10 sections of land in canola, and the accommodation for species in those areas is negligible. In that example you're not providing another habitat function there, so I think it's really important in looking at the larger-scale development areas. If you have these large development areas, then you subsequently need larger intact areas or areas that provide habitat for the species that live in that ecosystem.
Similarly with ancient forest areas on the west coast, these forests are thousands of years old. They do change; habitat changes, as Bob said, but it changes at a very slow pace over thousands of years. When we eliminate that forest on a large scale, over huge tracts of land, the species that lived in that old-growth forest habitat go away. They don't move somewhere: they're gone.
If we want to maintain species and abundance in ecosystem function at that scale, you need to be looking at the landscape-level impacts. You can have impacts at a very intense level in some places, but you need to accommodate that.
For example, in the Great Bear Rainforest conservation planning initiative I was involved with, we set targets for small-scale, landscape-scale, and regional-scale forest conservation. At the large scale the science demonstrated that you needed 70% of the old-growth forest intact to reduce the probability of losing species. At the finer scale you could go down to 30%, and at the site level you could log up to 80% of a particular site, but it had to scale up to maintain, as I said, that larger landscape level conservation function. Whether it's prairie wetlands and grasslands, whether it's forest or boreal forest or any other type of habitat, you need that scaled approach.
Does that answer your question?
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
It does.
Perhaps to Mr. Davidson, and Len, if you would follow up on that question, have you ever encountered a situation where there have been competing demands in, let's say, overlapping recovery strategies, where we're perhaps not looking at the overall ecosystem in recovering one specific species over another?
Maybe as a follow-up to that question as well, how can the federal government better partner with provincial governments, given that there is some overlap of jurisdiction in these areas?
I open it up to each of you, bearing in mind that we probably have one minute each to answer that question.
Executive Director, Nature Canada
I can answer that very quickly. We were just talking about this yesterday with respect to a number of prairie species. We were talking about sage grouse, which is a SARA-listed species, and swift fox. As you know, foxes tend to eat birds. In this case, on the landscape both species are considered endangered and there are recovery plans that aim to put them back onto the landscape. So we have to be very careful when we think about this and how we engage and how we look at multi-species reintroductions, if you will.
President, Wildlife Habitat Canada
I'll answer the second part of your question, if I may, in terms of provincial-federal work. Many of the provinces have developed their own species recovery plans and biodiversity plans. Then you can go down to the regional conservation organizations and the national ones, which also have their plans. If governments and these organizations could work more closely, you'd be eliminating a lot of duplication and expense, and also the overlapping and competing interests, as Ian pointed out.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Are there specific examples of how we could improve that efficacy?
President, Wildlife Habitat Canada
There are. I could go into great detail for you. Many of the grant applications that we receive have federal and provincial governments, non-government conservation organizations, and local groups all partnered on a specific project. So it is going on; it's not well publicized. Each one of them is either putting money on the table or providing services as part of their work in the project.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Perhaps—oh, sorry. Did you want to add to that?
Executive Director, Nature Canada
As a specific example of this, going back to my comments, there is a sage grouse partnership that is being developed in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. It brings together ranchers, private landowners, government, and scientists, who are really trying to figure out how to do this. How do we put multi-species conservation issues on the landscape that are good for wildlife, good for habitat, and good for the people who live off that habitat?