I am very much opposed to…

I am very much opposed to the government’s plan to proceed with implementing the Species at Risk Conservation Fund (and the agency that would run it, the Species at Risk Conservation Trust). The Fund will not “improve the effectiveness of the species at risk program” as the proposal claims; it will do quite the opposite. The Fund is “innovative” only in the deceptiveness of its claim to be a measure to conserve species at risk.

There is no possible way the Fund could “support more positive outcomes for select species at risk” when it would be facilitating destruction of habitats and allowing developers to merely pay for the destruction rather than protecting endangered species in-situ. Furthermore, the money collected by the Fund could never contribute to the recovery of an endangered species, as there is no requirement that the payment be commensurate with the harm done (including the loss of entire ecosystems and the biodiversity within it)—or that the funds collected be used to benefit the specific species impacted. As there is no consideration of protecting a species in the area in which it was found, the Fund would inevitably lead to the extirpation of species at risk in the locations where their habitat is being destroyed and to the loss of genetic traits that could help the species to survive overall. Given that climate change is already impacting the survival of ecosystems and species, the loss of any genetic traits among an at-risk species that could help that species to adapt and survive in a changing climate would be an irreversible loss.

Research by the World Bank Group and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has shown that biodiversity offsets, as such as those proposed by the Fund, have very limited success and are high risk. It is very clear from the proposal that the Fund (as part of a larger plan to “shorten timelines” and “reduce burdens” for developers and industry) would increase habitat destruction and loss, further threaten and decimate at-risk species, and lack any community or public accountability for the damage done to local ecosystems and at-risk species.

The Endangered Species Act was first established in 1971 (and updated in 2007) to legally protect and recover Ontario’s most vulnerable plants and animals. It wasn’t meant to be bypassed for developer or industrial interests. Developers and industry should never be allowed to pay to slay endangered species and eliminate their habitats in order to go ahead with projects. Establishing a Fund and Trust to work under the Act to facilitate such attacks on nature is incomprehensible.

I would very much like the province to “preserve Ontario’s rich biodiversity for generations to come,” but none of our current government’s actions to date indicate any respect or concern for the environment or biodiversity. The government’s 2019 series of amendments to the Endangered Species Act, which weakened the protections contained within the Act, illustrate this fact. The proposed Species at Risk Conservation Fund is yet another measure that would benefit developers and not biodiversity and, as such, the idea should be utterly rejected.