Endangered animals not protected: eco-groups
Victoria Times Colonist
Environmental groups are accusing the federal and provincial governments of failing to protect critical habitat of endangered and threatened species, including the Vancouver Island marmot -- the model for Mukmuk, the Olympic Games sidekick mascot.
"When the B.C. government refuses to identify the critical habitat of the Vancouver Island marmot, an Olympic mascot, you know you have a problem," said Gwen Barlee, policy director for the Wilderness Committee environmental group.
A letter from legal environmental group Ecojustice, written on behalf of the Wilderness Committee, Environmental Defence, Georgia Strait Alliance and David Suzuki Foundations, puts both levels of government on notice of ongoing violations of the Species At Risk Act in B.C.
Documents obtained by the groups through a freedom of information request show that federal and provincial officials have known for more than two years which areas are critical for survival of more than 40 endangered species, including the Vancouver Island marmot, but have not changed recovery plans to include the vital information.
Recovery strategies are written by government for species at risk. Ecojustice has argued successfully in court that those plans must identify and protect habitat if species are to survive and recover.
The environmental groups recently won a Federal Court test case that dealt with lack of identified critical habitatfor the Nooksack dace, a small fish.
The court ruled that failure to identify critical habitat was unlawful.
"Our review suggests that in B.C. alone, there appear to be 107 endangered and threatened species that have been deprived of lawful recovery strategies," the letter says.
The only aquatic species that now have such "lawful"strategiesare the Nooksack dace and northern and southern killer whales, both of which had critical habitat identified after lawsuits.
We have no qualms about returning to court to force protection for B.C.'s species at risk if the B.C. government continues to block those protections," said Devon Page, executive director of Ecojustice.
But B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner said the province has protected more land from industrial activity than anywhere else in Canada. He added that the marmot has been a success story in recent years, with a co-ordinated approach to allow its numbers to reach the hundreds after dwindling to only a few dozen animals in the 1990s.
"I participated myself personally in a number of releases of the young marmots," said Penner in an interview, "including in Strathcona Provincial Park ... and that area is strictly protected from logging and mining activities where the marmots are being released."
