Environment Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[Alison Woodley]

I can't answer. In my inbox I actually have a suite of studies that somebody shared with me, and I wish I'd had the chance to read them because it might have helped me to answer the question. I will look at them and I'll share them if they're applicable. I'm not sure exactly whether they tackle that question or not.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

With such evidence, probably at best there is weak inference.

[Alison Woodley]

My sense is that there is not a lot of evidence that looks at that question currently. I'm sure you may be able to design a study. I'm not sure what it would look like, but right now on the table again the question may be looking at two complementary.... These are complementary strategies, I would say, that need to go together, and that would be how we would look at it.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Exactly, and anything we'd do we would like to be evidence-based.

[Alison Woodley]

Absolutely.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

In your view, to what extent have the habitat provisions of SARA succeeded, say, on a scale from zero, being dismal failure, to 10, being a real success, and on what evidence would your conclusion be based?

[Alison Woodley]

I'm not going to put a number on it because, again, I'm not confident enough in my analysis to be able to put a number on it.

Obviously, habitat protection is critical. We know that for over 80% of species at risk, their key risk is habitat, so protecting habitat is going to be the solution to that, and restoring habitat.

There are examples where it is working. The act is a decade old, but it takes a long time to recover a species, so we're not going to see instant results. In some cases, some species recover faster than others, and there have been some success stories, but it's a long haul. We're only just getting to the point where recovery strategies are identifying critical habitat, and we need to move on to action planning so that that translates the critical habitat measures to the ground.

We are getting there. We are making progress, important progress, and we're accelerating the rate at which recovery strategies are being developed, but we need to get them done and we need to get to action planning, and that requires concerted effort. That's where we're really going to see the habitat protection measures for many species playing out and the species recovering.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Should the act be implemented or streamlined?

[Alison Woodley]

Our sense is that the key challenges with the act are in implementation, and we're recommending that this be the focus moving forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Duncan and Ms. Woodley.

We'll move now to Monsieur Choquette for five minutes.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses who are here today.

Last week, we heard from another first nations group, which provided us with a very relevant and interesting testimony. They said that, before conservation work can begin, we first need to agree on what habitat conservation is. The meaning of conservation could vary from one group to another.

It's important to see that there is a difference between private and public lands. We also need to see what those lands are used for. That changes our view of what habitat conservation should be.

In particular, you talked about the Athabasca River and your region. Could you give us some recommendations on what must be done to ensure adequate conservation of your land and habitat? For instance, you talked about how quickly the expansion of oil sand extraction is occurring, compared with how quickly habitat is being restored. You also talked about the fact that, following restoration, the habitat is no longer what it used to be.

You may go ahead and answer.

[Lisa King]

We've been working with industry and government for about three years now. We want to create what we call a traditional land and resource management plan. What that will do for our land, our traditional territories, is map out where it is that ACFN members are using the land, what they are using the land for, and what they are harvesting—plants, berries, moose, caribou. It will map out what that is and the health of those resources as well.

First you do a mapping exercise to find out what we're doing on the land, where those traditional resources are, and how we can protect the health of them. But it's really challenging. We've been doing this for three years, trying really hard, and we haven't had much support in developing this. We can share with you our proposal. We've shared it with other federal departments that were ready, so we can share it with any of you as well. But that's the first step, to map out what it is that ACFN members are using the land for, those traditional resources. Then, over time, you monitor them. You check their health over the years.

We know emissions are a huge risk to the health of those resources. Not only is the water flowing from the Athabasca Rive, and the effluent going into that water is impacting those resources, but what is the change in those resources over time? Development is not going to go away, but shouldn't we get a handle on how existing development is affecting those resources now, before we approve more projects? Shouldn't we determine the health of those resources, those berries that our people eat, those plants that we need? Before we keep going with, yes, more development, let's hold on here. Let's take a look at what exactly is the health of those resources.

The first thing, for sure, is to develop that traditional land and resource management plan. That's what we would like to do.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much for your recommendation.

Is there anything you would like to add, sir?

[Larry Innes]

If I might add to that, as Lisa has pointed out, the intent is not only to map where the resources are, but also, and I think this is the critical point, to establish thresholds or limits that we can then monitor against performance, to ensure that the values we're trying to sustain—whether they be livelihoods for indigenous people, whether they be clean air and water for all of us—are actually maintained. Then we can challenge industry and governments to basically exercise stewardship within those thresholds and create the opportunities for innovation with new technologies, to create better and more effective regulatory mechanisms that are directed towards stewarding those thresholds as goals, and appropriately incentivize industry to perform against those measures.

We think that is the most effective way going forward, particularly in a region that is under tremendous pressure, such as the Athabasca Chipewyan territory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Choquette.

We'll move now to Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to everybody for your contributions on a fascinating and important discussion.

I want to pick up on the discussion about Australia. Some of my colleagues got in ahead of me on this particular thing. I'll make my question brief on this.

When did Australia adopt this management plan for protected areas of various types? Has it been in place long enough to be able to evaluate how well it's working?

[Alison Woodley]

That's a good question. I don't have a precise date for you because I haven't looked at it for a few months. It's in the last decade that they have adopted a strategic plan going forward under this framework. They've done a number of interesting things. It is at the strategy state. It is starting to be implemented; there's funding in place for it, so it is moving forward. I don't have an exact answer to how successful it's been so far. I'm sure they're tracking it, and I could get back to you with anything specific.

Interestingly, the most recent piece of that project is a nationwide connectivity strategy. There's a huge recognition that connectivity of the landscape is critically important and that we need to enable wildlife, particularly wide-ranging species, to be able to move through the landscape. They've come out with a national-scale strategy to look at continental-scale connectivity. There is connectivity of protected areas. They are also looking at it under a framework of climate change, because they've had some serious impacts from climate change in Australia, with wild fires, etc., and they've recognized that they need to get on with this.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

That's a great segue to my next question, really, because ecosystems, as came out in the earlier discussion regarding management, are not static. So establishing a protected area that's working really well now.... Even if it's not disturbed in any way, it may suffer from other forces beyond human intervention. That came out in the discussion about managing drainage systems on the farms. If we have an absolute in place, you might be prevented from actually maintaining what in the long term is an effective habitat enhancement mechanism. I appreciate the way you answered that very succinctly.

With that in mind, I want to just pick up on one of your observations and recommendations that came out of a previous discussion.

One of the recommendations, Mr. Bonnett, from your organization was that the national conservation plan should enhance the value placed on habitat by promoting innovative incentive programs for ecological goods and services.

I was out of the room briefly, so I hope someone hasn't already covered this, but I wonder if you could expand on that. What does that look like? What kinds of incentives and creative ideas might your organization suggest to help us in this worthy objective?

[Ron Bonnett]

I think there are a number of things we could be looking at.

To start with, I'd base it in the initial phase on looking at the environmental farm planning process, because that then identifies some of the areas where habitat could be protected. When you go through that process, you evaluate what you can do, if you're going to make some changes, to mitigate damage on habitat. These incentives could be a number of things. For instance, it could be some co-shared funding to put in alternative water systems to keep cattle away from stream beds. It could be developing partnerships with some of the conservation groups that are already out there, whether it be Delta Waterfowl or Ducks Unlimited.

The other thing we need to look at is the whole concept of developing pilots. This gets back to the management aspect. I think one of the better examples of where pilots were developed was the alternative land use services program. A number of pilots were developed. They actually demonstrated that they could be an effective tool to protect habitat, without a lot of outside investment. I think when we're looking at those pilots, what we should be starting to look at is how to take it from a pilot stage to a program stage. I know that's one of the frustrations on the farm side, that when we do a pilot, we may find something that works very well, but then how do we lever it up so that it could be replicated in different provinces? The reason I say replicated in different provinces is that we have to understand that what is done out west might be a wee bit different from what's done in eastern Canada. But the concepts are the same: to identify what needs to be protected. The base of that would likely be an environmental farm plan program, and then you'd have long-term programs that would drive the result you wanted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Lunney. We're out of time.

Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of you.

I'm learning a lot today, and all of my questions are about things I don't understand.

Chief Allan Adam from the Chipewyan First Nation was here. It would have been a couple of years ago, wouldn't it? When he was testifying he was talking very much about living off the land, people having to really live off the land, harvest off the land, eat the animals and the fish coming from the water. That got me thinking about some testimony we heard last week from the Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council and the Assembly of First Nations. They talked about habitat degradation as violating a treaty right.

That's something I had never thought of before. It's a very new concept to me, and the way you've been talking in your testimony really underscores that idea of healthy habitat being a treaty right.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this? It really is something new for me.

[Lisa King]

I'd start by saying that it was promised in treaty. When we signed treaty, it was the grass grows, the sun shines, the rivers flow. Those are resources. The land is a resource, and it was healthy. The water is a resource, and it was healthy. The habitat is also a resource—the land—and it provides for us. Over the years we've continued to use those resources, and we still do today.

And degradation, it's true...I go out on the land, and I've heard of my family opening up a moose and seeing the liver full of spots. First of all, that you have to look at the liver.... We never used to have to really inspect our food before.

My aunt was eating fish with me just the other day, and said to me, “Fish from the Athabasca River really smells different.” We had a fish from Saskatchewan just to compare, and it was really tasty. But just cutting and opening that fish, you could smell what was almost an oily smell. You could smell the petroleum.

You shouldn't have to eat that way. That's not what we were promised when we signed treaty. We were promised to continue our livelihood, so why are we eating that? And it's degrading over the years. That's not acceptable. It could impact our health, the health of our people, of my son. I have a son. He's only four months old. What's going to happen to the future of our members if our land's degrading over the years?

So in my opinion as well, it does break treaty. We're not given those resources to continue.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Ms. King. I appreciate that.

My next question has to do with another thing that I don't understand.

Mr. Bonnett, you were talking about the environmental farm plan. You were talking about how many farmers are engaged with this. What I don't understand is how you have that information. Who's coordinating it? How do farmers know how to engage with an environmental farm plan or know that this crop would be a good space for nesting birds? How is that organized?

[Ron Bonnett]

The simplest answer would be to say that we have very developed farm organizations in Canada. Each province delivers the environmental farm plan within the province.

I'm in the province of Ontario, and the Ontario soil and crop association takes over the administration of this program. They've developed workbooks that identify everything from water protection to fuel storage, manure handling, and habitat. They create chapters, and then workshops are put on to walk people through that.

I think the beauty of that—

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

So it's the associations? Sorry, I just want to be clear: it's non-government associations. So it's associations leading the charge and the organizing.