Criticized for its lack of will to protect endangered wild fauna and flora in Quebec, the Legault government has decided to take advantage of the UN conference on biodiversity (COP15) to update the list of threatened or vulnerable species. . Some, although considered “endangered” by the federal government, have not been included.
Saying it wants to “do more for the protection of wildlife”, the government announced on Monday its intention to designate 27 new wildlife species in a precarious situation, 16 as threatened species and 11 as vulnerable species, “in order to protect them adequately and to ensure their survival. This is the first threatened species designation since 2009.
The chorus frog will thus move from the status of “vulnerable” species, which it was assigned in 2001, to the more severe status of “threatened” species. This amphibian has already lost more than 90% of its habitat in Quebec, mainly due to urban development.
The Legault government had also authorized, last year, the destruction of an important habitat for the tree frog, in Longueuil. Representatives of the Quebec Ministry of the Environment had helped the City of Longueuil obtain authorizations to build a street. They explained to the City the procedure to follow to avoid an unfavorable opinion from government experts, since they concluded that the project would destroy one of the last wetlands sheltering this species.
It was ultimately the federal government that stopped the project, once the habitat was largely destroyed, following legal action launched by the Society for Nature and Parks of Quebec and the Center québécois du droit. of the environment.
A new project to widen a stretch of road in La Prairie also risks encroaching on chorus frog habitat protected by the Species at Risk Act. The Ministry of Transport, which is piloting the project, has itself collected data on the presence of this endangered species and is promising measures to “restrict” its impacts.
Insufficient
The list of endangered species, once updated, will also include new species of birds, insects and the brown snake, a reptile whose habitat has been largely destroyed by urban development projects in the Montreal. The Legault government also authorized earlier this year a development project in Laval that encroaches on a habitat for the species.
“Updating the list of threatened or vulnerable wildlife species is a step in the right direction, but remains clearly insufficient. In reality, these additions do not provide any additional protection to individuals,” laments the director general of the Society for Nature and Parks of Quebec, Alain Branchaud.
“Quebec must quickly modernize the Act respecting threatened or vulnerable species and the Regulation respecting wildlife habitats if it wishes to help the recovery of endangered wildlife species in Quebec,” he adds.
For example, at present, Quebec legislation does not allow the Quebec government to intervene on private land to stop a project that would kill individuals of an endangered species. Mr. Branchaud also criticizes the lack of additional measures to protect species on public lands.
Discarded species
The Legault government will also add the fin whale to the list of vulnerable species. But two other cetacean species, the right whale and the blue whale, will not change status. They remain “likely to be designated as threatened or vulnerable”.
Under the federal government’s Species at Risk Act, both cetaceans are considered “endangered,” the most severe status before extirpated. The right whale, which numbers at most 340 individuals, is also the subject of exceptional protection measures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to avoid collisions with ships and entanglements in fishing gear, after episodes high mortality in recent years.
The woodland caribou, of which several herds are showing steep declines and whose total population in Quebec amounts to a few thousand individuals, also retains its status as a “vulnerable” species. The protection of the habitat of this species is the subject of negotiations with the federal government, which could impose a decree for the preservation of the last remaining forests to allow the survival of the deer. The Innu are also urging Quebec and Ottawa to take action to avoid the disappearance of certain herds.
The migratory caribou, which has been considered “endangered” since 2017 by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), has not been added to the Quebec government’s list. One of the herds of this population, the George River herd, has declined by 99% since the 1990s.
The Lacs des Loups Marins harbor seal remains on the list of species “likely to be designated as threatened or vulnerable”. According to COSEWIC, this seal, which is the only population of its kind to have adapted exclusively to the freshwater environment, has been considered “endangered” since 2007. It would number at most a few hundred of individuals.
Finally, two cod populations considered for more than 10 years as “endangered” by COSEWIC will keep the status “likely to be designated as threatened or vulnerable”.
Preserve habitats
The Legault government has also added 11 varieties of plants to the list of threatened or vulnerable species in Quebec. The species most likely to disappear are all particularly sensitive to the impacts of human activities, which threaten their often very restricted habitats.
By designating 27 new wildlife species, the Government of Quebec notably promises to “stimulate conservation initiatives”, to “facilitate the adoption and implementation of recovery plans” and “to initiate, if necessary, the legal protection of certain habitats of threatened or vulnerable species”.
“Quebec is making an important gesture with this intention in favor of wildlife and the protection of biodiversity. We must speed up the designation of new species, which is why I am also announcing our intention to quickly fill the three vacant positions on the Advisory Committee on Threatened and Vulnerable Wildlife Species in Quebec,” the Minister of Quebec Environment, Benoit Charette.