I am writing to implore the…

I am writing to implore the provincial government to abandon plans to repeal and replace the Endangered Species Act.

This proposal demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how animals interact with the natural world around them. An animal's habitat extends far beyond its place of dwelling; it includes the broader areas in which they travel and find food. The Endangered Species Act defines an animal's habitat as "an area on which the species depends, directly or indirectly, to carry on its life processes, including life processes such as reproduction, rearing, hibernation, migration or feeding." By contrast, the new Species Conservation Act defines animal habitat as “a dwelling place or the area immediately around it, such as a den, nest or other similar place, that is occupied or habitually occupied by one or more members of a species for the purposes of breeding, rearing, staging, wintering or hibernating.”

That means the areas needed for other processes critical to a species survival — like finding food — are no longer protected. For example, in the case of a bird, it would protect the nest and the canopy of the tree in which the nest is made, but not the marsh or field where the bird find insects to eat. In the case of a fox, it would protect the den and the immediate surrounding area, but not the meadow where the fox finds small rodents to eat.

This is a dangerous and misguided move. It could allow the despoilment and destruction of critical natural habitats that sustain animal and plant life, which in turn are part of the complex web of ecological relations that sustain ALL life -- including our own!

Moreover, the removal of the principles of 'recovery' and 'stewardship' -- which are explicit goals in the existing Endangered Species Act but are not included in the proposed Species Conservation Act -- is deeply misguided in era of climate breakdown and mass extinction. Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in just the last 50 years. This is not the time to be playing games with species protection to serve loosely defined 'economic development' objectives. This is the time to invest seriously in the recovery of wild habitats and stewardship of wildlife areas.

We can expand housing supply, develop critical infrastructure, and grow our economy without eroding and destroying the ecological systems on which all economic development -- and all life -- ultimately depend. I implore the government to abandon this initiative.