Mr. Speaker, I was born on Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean. Before colonization, it had 29 species of fauna that were unique in the world. Today, only three remain. The other 26 have disappeared, including the legendary dodo.
The three species left are the Mauritius kestrel, the echo parakeet and the pink pigeon.
A few years ago, all that remained were nine of one species, three or four of the other, the kestrels, and 20 pink pigeons. The Durrell Foundation in New Jersey captured these three threatened species and raised them in captivity in New Jersey.
Now, thanks to a conservation and recovery program, these three species are living in nature on Mauritius.
Three years ago I visited Mauritius where I was born. For the first time in my life, a long life so far, I was able to see a pair of kestrels myself. This was something I had heard of and read about in books and there it was in front of me. I found it a very moving time because it was part of my natural heritage, something that as a kid I could not enjoy. Today, thanks to the Durrell Foundation, we have managed to save the three species but twenty-six others have disappeared.
Learned people, like Professor Wilson of Harvard University, have counted the number of extinct species in this century alone at possibly one million. Jacques Cousteau, the great explorer, told how, on visiting the Amazon, he thought of a beautiful cathedral going back into centuries or a magnificent library of the most precious books. He wrote that losing the species in the Amazon was tantamount to a cathedral or a wonderful library of precious books burning to the ground because we can never replace them.
This is why I am extremely grateful to my colleague from Davenport for having brought this bill forward to protect what really makes species live: the habitat and the ecosystem. Without habitat and the ecosystem there are no species and species disappear. If we clear cut there can be no birds and no wildlife because there is no place for them to live.
This is what has been happening. We have been destroying the habitats and the ecosystems. There are 300 species at risk in this wonderful country of Canada.
This is why this bill is so precious to us. It gives us the ability to protect the habitat. Let us protect the habitat and the species at risk right across Canada. If we must, let us give equivalence to the provinces which have a prime right in many ways if they can show that they have equivalent legislation for them to act. The bill also provides for automatic listing at arm's length of species at risk, another essential element of any such legislation.
It hope these three elements will be found in any legislation that the government brings forward later on. The bill is clear. It is strong. It is logical. It is going to prevent extinction by addressing the root causes of extinction; that is, habitat conservation and preservation.
I will finish my speech with the same analogy I started with. On my own native island of Mauritius there is a little 375 acre island way out in the blue called Round Island. Of all the places in the world, it was the one that contained the most species of plants and wildlife unique to any one place anywhere in the world. They were innumerable on Round Island. Today we can count them on the fingers of one hand. The famous hurricane palm has only one specimen left in the world and it is on Round Island. Thanks again to the Durrell Foundation, they are trying to preserve that unique tree, hoping that in the future they might reproduce it in larger numbers.
I have seen so many species in my own lifetime disappear from my eyes on this tropical island where there is so much wonderful wildlife. I see it happening in Canada as we cut our forests and we toxify our streams and rivers. We must stop it. This is why Bill C-441 is so important. It sends a message, and sets a model for us.
I congratulate my colleague. I think he has done us a great turn by bringing this bill before parliament so that it can serve as an example for possible legislation to follow. This is my fondest wish.