Last week we published a letter by David Anderson, Canada’s environment minister, reassuring us that his Species at Risk Act (SARA) will be a kinder, gentler version of the American model, which even environmentalists agree is flawed. The minister also assures us that protection of species “will not be achieved through confrontation” and that voluntary preventive measures will form the cornerstone of the legislation.
SARA will be “reasoned and balanced,” the minister adds, and coupled with a compensation regime should the legislation impose an extraordinary burden on a private landowner. And if that isn’t reassuring enough, we’re told that, after sitting down with environmental groups to hammer out a few compromises, the Mining of Association of Canada has agreed to support the general intent of the legislation.
Are we reassured? Hardly, though we support incentives and voluntary measures as the preferred option to protecting threatened species and their habitat, as well as penalties against those who purposefully harass, harm or kill a member of an endangered species. Our main objection isn’t what’s in the proposed legislation — though we have some major concerns there, too — but rather with how it could be used, and by whom. The legislation puts a powerful obstructionist tool in the hands of extremists, some of whom believe humans are a cancer on nature and that endangered species can only be saved by restoring huge swaths of settled land to wilderness, no matter how devastating the economic consequences.
We oppose the legislation because we know with 100% certainty that it will be used by activists to stop or stall resource development from one end of this country to another. We say this not just because we’ve heard environmental extremists bragging that they’ve used the American law to shut down entire industries (mostly in rural areas) but because we’ve had a ringside seat to anti-development battles on both sides of the border. Without exception, they are fought on the premise that humans are threatening, damaging or destroying wildlife habitat in the name of profits. We’ve seen Windy Craggy and New World expropriated and watched as Crown Jewel, Tulsequah Chief and Cheviot battle for survival. Even Diavik and Voisey’s Bay have been dragged through court challenges on the grounds of perceived risks to the environment. We’ve seen the economy of British Columbia devastated by a handful of environmental radicals who view the province as their private wilderness preserve, citizens and the economy be damned.
We’ve heard extremists publicly state that government institutions and the regulatory system are incapable of saving the earth and its endangered species from destruction. We’ve seen them reject the political process and turn to the courts, where they’ve usurped, with amazing ease, the right of legislators to make and enforce law. Hundreds of special-interest groups routinely challenge government decisions or intervene in court cases, whereas only a handful of private or corporate interveners ever do the same.
An exaggeration? We wish. This is reality and it won’t go away because David Anderson’s proposed legislation is full of rhetoric about reason, balance and co-operation. If his bill is passed, activists will be running to the courts, preaching doom and waving the document in their hands each time the government approves a resource development they don’t like. If it’s difficult to get a mine permitted now, it will be a nightmare a year from now. Already, activists are knocking Anderson’s proposal for not going far enough to protect the habitat of endangered species.
The other reality is that North America has a sizable population that cannot be sustained without access to land. Yet, many urban dwellers no longer recognize the direct connection between resources produced from the land and their end-use. They want the metals, but not the mines. They live in a civilization and enjoy its benefits, yet fund groups aiming to restore rural settlements to pre-Colombian times. There’s a hypocrisy at work here that is too often ignored.
If this legislation is passed, land-use battles will heat up, not cool down, and rural and northern economies will be sacrificed to the environment, as happened in B.C. Unrealistic expectations will be generated, including the notion that governments can play God and restore Eden. There will be times when it is not possible to save an endangered species, perhaps because it is genetically unsuited to a changing environment, or because a predator has put it at risk. Nature can be cruel and capricious, as evidenced by no less than five mass extinctions and numerous rapid climate changes in this planet’s turbulent history. This earth is not static and fragile, but amazingly resilient and dynamic, yet the propaganda doled out by some extremists preaches the opposite.
That brings up our final point. While we’re for doing everything that can be done to protect wildlife and the environment, we’re against the notion that the government or special interest groups have the right to force property owners to forgo development because of a perceived risk to the habitat of some endangered bug, bird, beast or plant. We don’t believe taxpayers should be expected to fund compensation regimes either. They have a heavy enough burden already.
Private property is human habitat first and foremost, which doesn’t have to mean the exclusion of natural values. Co-existence and planning should be the guiding principle here, not placing the needs of one segment of nature above others through heavy-handed legal remedies and government intervention.
In addition to a large network of parks, Canada is fortunate to have huge tracts of wilderness that can be managed and respected without denying the right of humans to make a living from the land. Rural residents and native groups have the most at stake here, and their interests and rights should be given more consideration in this debate, which has thus far been dominated by environmental groups.
Environmental policies that recognize humans as an integral part of nature — and not a blight on it — will have the best chance of success. Policies that punish humans for being human and deny personal liberty and economic freedom will not save endangered species. The adversarial U.S. model, which has turned some property owners into unwilling foes of nature, is sad proof of that.
It is not enough to say that SARA has “a made-in-Canada approach,” as though this somehow precludes the ability of special-interest groups to use the legislation to pursue an anti-development agenda. It is no comfort at all for an industry that contributes 4% of Canada’s gross domestic product from a mere one-tenth of 1% of the country’s land mass. We oppose SARA because it will give extremists a powerful tool that will be used to transform those who make their living from the land into endangered species. Sorry Minister Anderson, we cannot be convinced otherwise. We have been on the front lines of land-use battles too long.
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