Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you, they say. When we look at our environment in Quebec, the death knell rings in our ears, to the point of making us deaf.
BirdLife International has just published its State of the World’s Bird Populations 2022: Prospects and Solutions for the Biodiversity Crisis. The portrait of bird life is dramatic: “Populations of 49% of species are in decline”, and this “net loss amounts to 2.9 billion individuals (29%) in North America since 1970 “. This report from 119 national organizations around the world brings us face to face with reality: “Nature is in decline worldwide, unsustainable development is degrading natural habitats and pushing species to extinction. »
Despite the complexity of the statistics, Quebec is an integral part of this North American scheme, particularly in the Montreal region — a fact that makes COP15, which will take place in December in this city, all the more important. The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), first held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, meets every two years “so that the world can go on without squandering the biological resources we we need to sustain life on Earth. And fortunately, the CBD has its secretariat right here in the heart of Montreal.
What to do ? BirdLife International is adamant: “We must conserve remaining habitats, and restore and reconnect those that have been lost or degraded. »
What we must do here in Montreal is very clear. North of the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport is an irreplaceable ecosystem of 215 hectares of integrated wetlands, known under the generic name of Technoparc, a place where more than 200 species of birds have been recorded.
Undoubtedly, these unique fields, swamps and forests are vital habitat, which needs to be conserved, restored and reconnected — rather than destroyed.
But our governments refuse to act. Prime Minister Legault doesn’t seem to know or care — at least not now, before the COP15 meeting. The administration of Projet Montréal, although it has promised the conservation of 175 hectares of the Technoparc in the long term, seems immobilized by the prospect of an REM station right next to the marshes.
The federal government of Canada owns 155 hectares of the ecosystem through Transport Canada, but leases this land to Aéroports de Montréal (ADM). Time and time again, environmentalists have urged Canada to act. Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra even met with ADM authorities, who apparently reacted with embarrassed anger after it was publicly revealed that they had razed fields of milkweed needed to breed the monarch butterfly. in the area.
Governments at all levels remain paralyzed, and this invaluable wetland ecosystem is on the verge of extinction. ADM must be told very clearly to cease all industrial development of the natural site of the Technoparc. Conservation remains necessary and feasible.
If action is not taken now to conserve this rare 215-hectare wildlife habitat, environmental groups will address their calls for the conservation of this ecosystem directly to international delegates at COP15 in Montreal in December.
By their tragic absence, the birds sounded the death knell and spoke to us. Now is the time for us to speak up and act for them where we can, right here in Montreal.