Mr. Speaker, as a strong advocate of wildlife conservation I am pleased to speak in support of this bill to amend the Canada Wildlife Act.
Wildlife has a special place in our country. It is part of a heritage we all value. In the north many Canadians still earn their living by wildlife harvesting. Throughout the country wildlife related activity is a cherished form of recreation for an overwhelming majority of people.
Our challenge is to see that this heritage is passed on to future generations of Canadians. At the moment I am regrettably unsure that we will succeed.
Wildlife populations in Canada today are under considerable stress. More and more species are being designated as endangered and some populations are experiencing declines. But the outlook is not entirely bleak because while the dangers are greater than ever before, so is the support for wildlife conservation and so is our understanding of what it takes to protect and conserve our living natural resources.
Back in the 1970s when the Canada Wildlife Act was passed we thought mostly in terms of protecting individual species that were at risk and our efforts were limited by a failure to recognize the wider social and economic benefits of wildlife.
That recognition is now becoming more common. We know that wildlife activities make a significant contribution to Canada's economy. In hard dollar and cent terms we need to maintain our wildlife to maintain our prosperity, our communities and our traditional lifestyles. That is why close to 90 per cent of Canadians want better protection for our wildlife.
We also have come to recognize that working with individual species is not necessarily the best way to conserve wildlife. Certainly this is justified in the case where a particular species faces special threats. We have realized that each species is part of a web of life on which it depends and which it helps sustain. Tear apart that web and many species may no longer be able to survive. Patiently mend the web and you may help save not one but dozens of species.
In other words, we have understood that the most effective way of ensuring the health of wildlife is by ensuring the health of the ecosystems in which they live. No creature can long exist outside its accustomed habitat. Our task, first and foremost, is to protect key ecosystems, to conserve essential habitat. This is how we can ensure that future generations of Canadians will enjoy the benefits of a rich wildlife heritage.
In 1973 our predecessors in this Chamber were far-sighted enough to know the value of habitat protection to wildlife conservation and they incorporated that approach into the Canada Wildlife Act. The act allows the Minister of the Environment to acquire lands for the purpose of research, conservation and interpretation. Under the act, 45 national wildlife areas have been established in the intervening years, covering 287,000 hectares of territory.
The areas are managed by the federal government in co-operation with provincial and territorial authorities as well as non-government organizations. They complement an extensive system of national and provincial parks and other protected areas which encompass much prime wildlife habitat.
Internationally as well we have seen a growing appreciation of the need for an ecosystem approach to wildlife conservation. That is what underlines the North American waterfowl management plan, the Ramsar convention on the conservation of wetlands of international importance and, most important, the historic global convention on biological diversity adopted at the Earth Summit in 1992.
Among other things, the 1992 global convention calls for each signatory nation to establish a system of protected areas as a way of conserving biodiversity. To meet our commitments under the convention Canada must now redouble its efforts on this front.
We made a promising start in November of 1992 at the first joint meeting of Canada's federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for wildlife, parks and environment. The tri-council meeting called for development of Canadian biodiversity strategy. It also gave fresh impetus to the effort to complete Canada's network of protected areas, including areas representative of Canada's marine natural areas.
That effort has been defined in different ways. At times the call was to set aside 12 per cent of our country's territory as protected areas. But more important than achieving a particular figure is protecting representative samples of the Canadian ecosystems. Inevitably that means protecting key habitat on which our wildlife depends.
The bill now before the House will improve our ability to do that. It broadens the definition of land in the existing Canada Wildlife Act to include both land and marine areas alike, out to the 200 nautical mile limit. This wider definition will put the administration of the act in line with the ecosystem approach. Under the amended act it will be possible to establish new
national wildlife areas protecting habitats where wildlife reproduce, as well as associated offshore areas in which they feed.
The more extensive our network of national wildlife areas the better will be our protection for wildlife. Already this network covers a diverse array of landscapes and ecosystems throughout Canada and they support such varied activities as hiking, photography, bird watching, grazing or haying, and hunting, all in a manner compatible with the wildlife conservation objectives of a given area.
Allow me to describe a few of the national wildlife areas in existence or shortly to be established. In New Brunswick this year we will see the designation of Portobello as the province's fifth national wildlife area. This designation will protect over 2,000 acres of wetlands where waterfowl breed and stop on their annual migration as well as the Old Growth Forest where moose, whitetailed deer and black bear still roam.
In Quebec, Cap-Tourmente is an area that combines archaeological and wildlife significance. This site of the north side of the St. Lawrence River was established primarily to protect the habitat of the world's only greater snow goose population but it also contains remains of prehistoric as well as more recent times. Here Samuel de Champlain built a dwelling and a stable in the early years of European colonization.
In Ontario the Long Point national wildlife area forms a core of an international biosphere reserve. This fragile sand based ecosystem on the shore of Lake Erie contains unique habitats, including a significant portion of the remaining Carolinian forest and critical wetlands.
In Saskatchewan Last Mountain Lake is North America's oldest waterfowl refuge. Parliament first set aside land here in 1887 and this year it will be formally designated as a national wildlife area.
Yukon will get its first national wildlife area in 1994 with the designation of Nisutlin River Delta under the Teslin Tlingit land claims agreement. The area will protect approximately 5,200 hectares of inland river delta used by waterfowl as breeding grounds and a stopping point for their migrations.
In particular, it will shelter the tundra swan, a species listed as vulnerable with only 15,000 individuals in existence throughout the world.
Nisutlin is especially significant for the part being played by the first nations in its creation. In the Northwest Territories Polar Bear Pass has been the national wildlife area since 1986. It has also been recognized as a wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar convention and a significant biological site under the international biosphere program. This Arctic oasis supports some of the largest concentration of birds and mammals in the far north.
In the eastern Arctic huge numbers of sea birds nest at Coburg Island or at Nirjutiqavvik and it provides feeding habitat for the beluga, the narwhal, the walrus, the polar bear and three species of seals. A national wildlife area will be created there in 1994 under the terms of the Nunavut final agreement. The area will protect 3,450 hectares of land area and 14,350 hectares of water area for a total of 17,800 hectares.
The Inuit of the community of Grise Fiord will have a direct say in the management of the land use decisions affecting this area.
Far to the south of the island at the mouth of British Columbia's Fraser River, Alasken national wildlife area has been in existence since 1976. This is an important staging area for migratory birds, including the lesser snow geese from Wrangel Island in the Russian Arctic.
This is only a small selection from the list of Canada's national wildlife areas but it shows the variety and richness of these sites. It also shows the flexibility of a concept of wildlife area under Canada's Wildlife Act.
In Ontario's Long Point, for example, virtually all human activity must be closely monitored to avoid ecological damage. In constant, buildings standing at Alasken from before the site was designated now are used as offices of the Canadian Wildlife Service's Pacific and Yukon regions.
Other wildlife areas are open for many types of recreational activities, including closely regulated hunting, fishing and trapping.
In other areas local native people continue to exercise their traditional wildlife harvesting rights. That flexibility is one of the keys to the success of the national wildlife areas.
In many cases the sites that we seek to designate are of great importance to particular communities and groups. Our challenge is to gain their support and co-operation, to find ways of working together for common goals, including the goal of wildlife conservation.
This is truly sustainable development at work. Perhaps the greatest value of our national wildlife areas is that they give us a model for sustainable development, one that we should apply more widely. This House has an opportunity of doing exactly that by amending the Canada Wildlife Act. I am confident that hon. members will appreciate the importance of this bill and will give it swift passage.
