Canada now has a national law to protect endangered species. It comes after nine years of study and debate. The new law takes effect early next year. It’s designed to protect more than four hundred species and their critical habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
Canada now has a national law to protect endangered species. It comes after nine years of study
and debate. The new law takes effect early next year (2003). It’s designed to protect more than
four hundred species and their critical habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan
Karpenchuk reports:
Among the species to be protected are the grizzly bear, sage grouse, swift fox, whooping crane,
the humpback whale and the American pine marten, just to name a few.
Canada’s environment minister says the country’s first ever national endangered species law
fulfils the international commitments Canada made under the Biodiversity Convention.
The law provides for assessing which species are at risk and calls for an action plan to save those
species which are found to be most at risk.
Some environmental groups have welcomed the law as a positive first step, and a signal that
Ottawa has finally accepted some of the responsibility for protecting species and their habitats.
But others are critical. Peter Tabuns is with Greenpeace Canada:
“It’s in the end just a public relations gesture. It will not have any substantial effect on species at
risk in Canada. It won’t fulfill Canada’s obligations under the convention on biodiversity. It is
really a lost opportunity.”
Tabuns says he’s also upset that it will be the federal cabinet ministers, not scientists, that decide
whether an animal will be placed on a protected list.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk