Nature Barrie submission on…

Nature Barrie submission on proposed Ontario ESA amendments – May 2019

I am submitting these comments on behalf of Nature Barrie, formerly known as the Brereton Field Naturalists' Club. Nature Barrie has worked since 1951 to acquire and disseminate knowledge of natural history, to protect and preserve wildlife and to stimulate public interest in nature and its value.

Nature Barrie strongly supports submissions made by Ontario Nature, Environmental Defence, The David Suzuki Foundation and the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition opposing the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Schedule 5 of Bill 108 contains changes to the Endangered Species Act. These changes are sweeping and tantamount to having no Endangered Species Act at all. If passed, the changes spell a dire future for species at risk in our province.

Given the just released United Nations report (May 6, 2019) on the status of endangered species worldwide, it is unbelievable that our government could consider weakening Ontario's present legislation for Endangered Species. On the contrary, the government should be amending the regulations under the ESA to undo the harmful weakening of protections for Endangered Species passed by the previous Liberal government several years ago.

The following is from the May 6, 2019 CBC News report on this United Nations study:

"The findings are not just about saving plants and animals, but about preserving a world that's becoming harder for humans to live in, said Robert Watson, a former top NASA and British scientist who headed the report.

"We are indeed threatening the potential food security, water security, human health and social fabric" of humanity, Watson told The Associated Press. He said the poor in less developed countries bear the greatest burden.

'Business as usual is a disaster'

The report's 39-page summary highlighted five ways people are reducing biodiversity:
Turning forests, grasslands and other areas into farms, cities and other developments. The habitat loss leaves plants and animals homeless. About three-quarters of Earth's land, two-thirds of its oceans and 85 per cent of crucial wetlands have been severely altered or lost, making it harder for species to survive, the report said.

Overfishing the world's oceans. A third of the world's fish stocks are overfished.

Permitting climate change from the burning of fossil fuels to make it too hot, wet or dry for some species to survive. Almost half of the world's land mammals — not including bats — and nearly a quarter of the birds have already had their habitats hit hard by global warming.

Polluting land and water. Every year, 300 to 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents and toxic sludge are dumped into the world's waters.

Allowing invasive species to crowd out native plants and animals. The number of invasive alien species per country has risen 70 per cent since 1970, with one species of bacteria threatening nearly 400 amphibian species.

Fighting climate change and saving species are equally important, the report said, and working on both environmental problems should go hand in hand. Both problems exacerbate each other because a warmer world means fewer species, and a less biodiverse world means fewer trees and plants to remove heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the air, Lovejoy said.

"Humanity unwittingly is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity's own future," said George Mason University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research. He was not part of the report.

The world's coral reefs are a perfect example of where climate change and species loss intersect. If the world warms another 0.5 degrees Celsius, which other reports say is likely, coral reefs will probably dwindle by 70 to 90 per cent, the report said. At 1 degree Celsius, the report said, 99 per cent of the world's coral will be in trouble.

"Business as usual is a disaster," Watson said."

In our own Simcoe County, Nature Barrie has worked with the City of Barrie, MNRF, Bird Studies Canada and the developer of the former Barrie Central Collegiate site in Downtown Barrie's Urban Growth Centre to preserve roosting and nesting habitat for threatened Chimney Swifts in the chimney of the former high school when the school was demolished in the spring of 2018.

This habitat will either be maintained intact or replaced with a suitable habitat structure across the street as part of the redevelopment. The developer publicly expressed his support for wildlife habitat protection when recently presenting his redevelopment plans for the site. The City made and posted large signs on both street frontages of this site to share this good news story with the public at large. Nature Barrie has presented plaques to both the city and the developer to recognize their efforts to preserve habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Clearly there was no need for reducing or avoiding the requirements of the present ESA in this major residential/institutional downtown redevelopment project. The existing ESA did the job it was supposed to do!

WHY DOES THIS MATTER? WHO CARES ABOUT ENDANGERED SPECIES ANYWAY? Well, THE PEOPLE CARE! HOW DO WE KNOW THE PEOPLE CARE? All of Ontario's eight species of turtles are now on the ESA. One evening several years ago, I stopped to assist four teenage girls, in their prom dresses, who were helping a turtle get across four-lane Ferndale Drive in Barrie and safely back into the adjacent provincially significant wetland known as the Bear Creek Ecopark. These young women felt it was important enough to stop and take time, on one of the biggest social nights of their lives, to protect this endangered species!

We owe our future generations much better than what Bill 108 proposes to do!