The federal government should act quickly to better protect critical habitats from logging and destruction of old-growth forests, environmental groups said Tuesday, as they welcomed a court ruling affecting the protection of imperiled migratory birds.
A Federal Court judge last week sided with environmental groups who alleged Canada’s environment minister had interpreted some federal protections for endangered migratory birds too narrowly.
A lawyer for the environmental charity Ecojustice, who represented two conservation groups in court, called the ruling “a victory for Canada’s endangered and threatened birds, whether they reside in ancient trees in British Columbia or on the islands of Atlantic Canada.
“Now the Federal Court has confirmed that the law requires the federal government to do more to ensure the survival and recovery of these species,” attorney Andhra Azevedo wrote in a statement.
The groups allege that Minister Steven Guilbeault took a position in 2022 that the federal government had no obligation to protect anything other than nests on provincial lands, and not more broadly the habitat that endangered migratory birds have needed to survive.
Chief Justice Paul Crampton ruled last week that the minister’s interpretation was unreasonably narrow, sending the minister’s safeguarding statement back to the government for reconsideration.
“It was neither reasonable nor tenable for the Minister to limit this critical habitat to ‘nests’ only,” the decision states.
The minister’s statement came after environmental groups, amid massive protests against old-growth logging in B.C.’s Fairy Creek watershed, urged the government to take action to protect the Marbled Guillemot.
Critical habitats at risk
The small seabird, which nests in old-growth forests on British Columbia’s coast, has been listed as “threatened” since 2003 and groups have alleged the province has failed to protect it from industrial logging and other activities.
The groups argued that some conservation regions on Vancouver Island had less suitable nesting habitat than was necessary for the bird’s survival and recovery, according to the court ruling, while others Conservation regions on the island were rapidly approaching this threshold.
Threats to habitat, from industrial logging to wildfires driven by climate change, are making already endangered migratory bird species vulnerable to extinction, the groups argued.
If the minister’s interpretation were not challenged, the groups argued that the majority of critical habitat for at least 25 at-risk migratory bird species across the country, including the Marbled Murrelet, would not have been affected. not been protected on non-federal lands.
“This decision must result in swift action by the federal government to protect critical habitat for imperiled migratory birds,” said Shelley Luce, director of campaigns and programs for Sierra Club BC, which filed the legal challenge, alongside the Wilderness Committee.
In a written statement, Mr.me Luce said the decision further highlights the urgency of passing species-at-risk legislation in British Columbia, “where the habitat of the Marbled Murrelet and other endangered birds remains vulnerable to exploitation.” forestry and other habitat destruction.
The minister had argued that his interpretation maximized the provincial capacity to act in an area of shared jurisdiction, according to the decision. According to the minister, a broader interpretation would risk undermining the principle of cooperative federalism.
But the judge said this principle, developed to provide some flexibility in the distribution of provincial and federal powers, cannot be invoked to “interpret” federal responsibilities to the point of rendering them “useless.”
“This is particularly true where the province concerned has failed to take advantage of opportunities to take protective measures in an area of joint responsibility, as the plaintiffs allege,” wrote Chief Justice Crampton.
Mr Crampton also cited evidence from environmental groups that identifying nests is difficult and therefore an ineffective way to protect and recover migratory birds. The federal government’s 2014 recovery strategy says nesting sites for the Marbled Murrelet, which typically lays a single egg on a moss-covered branch of an old-growth tree, can be “very difficult to locate.”
“In short, nests cannot be protected if they cannot be found,” Judge Crampton’s decision read.