The Legault government will add 11 varieties of plants to the list of threatened or vulnerable species in Quebec, has learned The duty. The species most likely to disappear are all particularly sensitive to the impacts of human activities, which threaten their often very restricted habitats.
Saying it wants to be “proactive” in the protection of plant species, in a context of climate crisis and loss of biodiversity, the Council of Ministers has decided to add eleven new species to this list, eight of which are considered “threatened” and three are considered “vulnerable”. This is the first designation of plant species by the Quebec government in nearly 10 years.
According to the government, this approach makes it possible in particular to “officially recognize their precariousness on Quebec territory”, to “stimulate conservation initiatives that will allow the preservation of these species and which will prevent the degradation of their habitat”.
The eight species now considered threatened, the most severe status under Quebec’s Act respecting threatened or vulnerable species, are all vulnerable or already affected by human activities. What’s more, their habitats are usually very limited.
Thus, the ergot-de-coq hawthorn, which is a tree, was found in only two places in Quebec, in the regions of Châteauguay and Valleyfield, according to what can be read in the technical sheets prepared by the experts of the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC). However, the only occurrence observed more recently “is affected by habitat destruction, fragmentation and disturbance associated with urban sprawl and human activities”.
In addition, a species of herbaceous plant bearing small white flowers, the long-leaved houstonia, is today limited to “a single colony of a dozen individuals spread over approximately 30 m2 » located in the Sherbrooke region. This same colony previously numbered 200 individuals, but it would have been partly destroyed “by maintenance work on the railway bridge located just above”, according to MELCC experts.
Other species now considered endangered are threatened by trampling, pollution, or other types of habitat disturbance.
The Legault government has also listed a new endangered species that is considered an “exceptional element of Quebec’s floristic heritage”: the log drive from the Puvirnituq mountains. This small herbaceous plant was discovered in 2011 and it has been listed in a single location in the far north of Quebec, in the Deception River sector. “The world population of the species would number less than 30 individuals”, according to the evaluation of experts from the MELCC.
This endemic species is considered particularly vulnerable to “any disturbance” of its habitat. ” The location [deux colonies distantes] is located near a former asbestos mine, in an area where mining activities take place [mine Raglan] “, specifies the technical sheet written by the Ministry of the Environment of Quebec.
In addition, three species have been added to the list of “vulnerable” plant species, including the segmented-leaved fleabane, a plant from the same family as the dandelion found mainly in the Arctic. Its population of Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie “would number at most 1,500 individuals”. It is a relic of the last glaciation and therefore has “remarkable biogeographical and heritage value”, according to MELCC experts.
The government has also planned that three species will move from threatened to vulnerable and three others may be removed from the list, “due to improved knowledge of their abundance and distribution”.
With this update of the list, there are now 89 listed plant species, including 65 threatened and 24 vulnerable. A total of 507 plant species, including 314 vascular and 193 non-vascular, are also listed as species “likely” to be designated threatened or vulnerable.
Modernize the law
Director General of the Society for Nature and Parks of Quebec, Alain Branchaud welcomes the decision to finally update the list. This is all the more necessary, according to him, since development projects, particularly in the south of the province, can directly threaten endangered species.
However, the biologist believes that adding species to the list, under the Act respecting threatened or vulnerable species, is insufficient. “No matter how much we list all the species we want under this law, it remains a law that lacks teeth, if we compare it with the federal government’s Species at Risk Act. The necessary modernization of the Act respecting threatened or vulnerable species is another project that must be on the agenda of the next Quebec government. »
This modernization should make it possible to better protect species, in particular those considered to be “vulnerable”, so as not to worsen their situation by destroying their habitats.
The same observation applies to the list of threatened or vulnerable wildlife species. “There is no legal process for listing species. It’s done in a non-transparent way. We don’t know where the files are. And in the case of wildlife species, it’s been nearly 10 years since there has been a new listing or a change in the status of species. »
The presence of a wildlife species at risk is also not enough to block a project that threatens it directly. For example, in 2021 the MELCC authorized the destruction of one of the last chorus frog habitats, located in Longueuil, to build a road. This species has been classified as “vulnerable” in Quebec since September 2001 and has lost more than 90% of its habitat over the years. The federal government stopped the road project, under the provisions of the Species at Risk Act.