The year 2022, which ended with the UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP15) in Montreal, placed biodiversity at the center of concerns: it is in crisis everywhere on the planet, and Canada is not there. not escape. In the country alone, 20% of listed species are “critically imperiled, imperiled or vulnerable”. This extinction cannot be curbed without more concrete commitments and a strong and concerted political will of all actors and all political orders.
Fortunately, during COP15, Canada showed leadership in its role as host country. The federal Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, said he was open to the implementation of a law allowing the protection of biodiversity. But that commitment now needs to be translated into substantive legislative changes if there is any hope of reversing the curve.
Although the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a step in the right direction, it is urgent to act, otherwise the crisis will worsen in the coming years.
Several examples in Quebec show the difficulty of reconciling human activities and the protection of species, even when the latter enjoy a precarious status. We need only think of the copper redhorse, threatened by the port project in Contrecœur, the chorus frog, whose habitat is weakened by the controversial extension of boulevard Béliveau in Longueuil, or the emblematic caribou , disappearing under the pressure of forestry activities.
The federal powers that can intervene to save the last refuges of seriously threatened species, under the Species at Risk Act, are certainly a tool of last resort. However, this law is little applied and is late, when the species is already in danger. This is why it is urgent to renew our legislative protection tools to implement Canada’s new international commitments while addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss.
We need strong laws that hold the federal government to account for meeting biodiversity targets, and the public seems to know that.
According to a poll commissioned by Greenpeace, 84% of Canadians say they worry about the future of the planet because of the current state of wildlife. More than seven out of 10 people support the drafting of a new law along these lines. And already more than 40,000 people have signed a petition calling for the rapid adoption of a new law.
What this law should contain
This new law on nature and biodiversity must provide a clear framework for achieving its biodiversity objectives in a transparent and responsible manner (remember that previous commitments to protect 17%, which expired in 2020, have still not been respected).
To improve enforcement, this new law must empower the public to demand accountability and sue the federal government for failing to act on the destruction of biodiversity. The possibility of facing justice could be an effective deterrent to ensure that government decisions no longer favor “nature destruction / species reduction”.
The existence of such a right would also empower indigenous and local communities suffering the negative consequences of undesirable damage to their natural environment.
Remember that here, as elsewhere, the greatest protectors of biodiversity are the First Peoples. The federal government must therefore develop this new law in cooperation with their leaders, with a view to recognizing Indigenous governance and stewardship as entirely legitimate forms of nature protection.
With each passing day, we continue to destroy nature and species on our planet. We must now reverse this trend, which ultimately affects our own survival. If the Canadian government is serious about the commitments it made at COP15, putting in place a rigorous legislative framework in the next year would certainly be an excellent first step to take.