Ambitious changes to Canadian conservation law are needed to reverse the decline in biodiversity
by The Conversation
Monarch butterflies are listed as endangered in Canada. Here, one is seen in the Insectarium de Montréal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
Canada’s biodiversity is in decline. Globally, climate change, urbanization, overexploitation of resources and habitat loss are combining to drive biodiversity loss across all ecosystems.
Laws matter. They codify societal values and priorities, define acceptable behaviours and establish the government programs and institutions needed to tackle complex problems. Canadian biodiversity law is neither meeting today’s challenges nor positioning us for the future.
Over the years, important additions to these acts include habitat and sustainability provisions to the Fisheries Act in 1977 and 2019 respectively, and a 2011 amendment to the CNPA, requiring that National Parks be managed to ensure their “ecological integrity.”
Nevertheless, several of the laws are pre-date the Second World War and all pre-date the internet, climate change and current biodiversity science.
Whooping cranes are considered endangered, and are protected under the Species at Risk Act. (Shutterstock)
Disconnected approach
Canadian biodiversity laws evolved through multiple unconnected legislative events over 150 years. They legislatively fragment the environment into separate components and fracture accountability into multiple agencies. They entrench program silos fostering conflicting departmental priorities and operational inefficiencies.
They establish no biodiversity goals, reporting mechanisms or mandates for biodiversity science. Their structures impedes public data sharing and transparency, dissuades Indigenous engagement and consistently sparks federal-provincial tensions.
Nothing on the horizon suggests that these shortcomings will be addressed through new leadership, new policy or plain old good luck. On the contrary, these laws seem destined to yield the same sub-optimal outcomes.
The Jefferson salamander is listed as endangered by both federal and provincial legislation. (iNaturalist/evangrimes), CC BY
Meeting the challenge
If we are to meet current and future biodiversity conservation challenges, we must develop a new legislative approach. This approach should support the creation of modern biodiversity programs and institutions and drive integrated, transparent and inclusive decision-making.
Our work suggests that we need a single unified law for biodiversity: a Canadian Biodiversity Conservation and Protection Act (CBCPA). A new act of this kind would replace the existing nine laws and could usefully include:
1. Principles requiring — not just encouraging — nature-positive programs emphasizing biodiversity, science, ecosystems, transparency, accountability and inclusivity.
2. Mandated biodiversity target and objective setting, including those of the Global Biodiversity Framework. This should also include reporting measures that offer actionable insights into program effectiveness and delivery improvement opportunities.
3. Requirements for the use and public documentation of science in decision-making, including the requirement that all government biodiversity data should be made available to the public.
4. Establishment of governance arrangements embracing Indigenous rights and interests, as well as mechanisms to bring conservation communities together around collective actions, facilitated by a new Biodiversity Conservation Fund.
5. Creation of a Biodiversity Conservation Agency to fuse the existing four agencies into one, and establish clear ministerial accountability and a stronger voice for biodiversity in Cabinet.
6. Operational elements governing the establishment and operation of protected areas, the management of fish and migratory birds, and the protection and recovery of species at risk in a cohesive and mutually reinforcing manner.
A CBCPA would dramatically improve policy and regulatory certainty for industry. It would drive program cohesion and efficiency, build trust in government decision-making and facilitate intra- and inter-governmental collaboration. It would remove key obstacles to biodiversity conservation success and create the societal conditions so urgently needed to reverse biodiversity decline in Canada.
This would obviously be an ambitious legislative project replete with substantive policy and political challenges. But the importance of biodiversity to Canada’s ecological, economic and social well-being is difficult to overstate. Maintaining the legislative status quo or adopting minimalist incrementalism is unwise.
As we transform our economic and trade systems in Canada to grapple with climate change, a fundamental shift in how we conserve and protect biodiversity is equally vital. This is a time for ambition, not apathy.
Reference Written by Trevor Swerdfager, Derek Armitage Provided by The Conversation
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Monarch butterflies are listed as endangered in Canada. Here, one is seen in the Insectarium de Montréal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson 
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