Tag: conservation

Study examines how best to address species declines in Southern Ontario

This article was written by Ivan Semeniuk and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 3, 2025.

MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA; ONTARIO GEOHUB; AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD CANADA

Rural heartland is home to at least 133 at risk of elimination and in some cases extinction

Southern Ontario’s rural heartland features bucolic farm country, a growing suburban footprint and some of the most stunning shorelines and wilderness areas in Canada.

It is also home to at least 133 species of vertebrates, insects and plants that are at risk of elimination from the province and, in some cases, complete extinction.

That presents a conservation conundrum: How best to protect so many species at risk in one of the country’s most populated and productive landscapes?

Now, researchers have provided a comprehensive study of what it would cost to rescue a significant fraction of Southern Ontario’s threatened wildlife. The answer – about $113-million a year for 27 years – illustrates the magnitude of the challenge and offers a strategic roadmap for how to invest conservation dollars for the greatest benefit.

The study aims to provide policy makers and environmental advocates alike with guidance on how best to address species declines in Southern Ontario. The task is especially complex because most of the land in the region is privately owned and, barring some exceptions, outside the jurisdiction of the federal Species at Risk Act.

The province has its own species law that was significantly altered when the Ford government passed Bill 5 earlier this year.

The new legislation removes some barriers to the development of natural spaces and reduces protections for many of the province’s species at risk.

“Species in that region have virtually no protection now in terms of federal or provincial safeguards,” said Tara Martin, who heads the Conservation Decisions Lab at the University of British Columbia and whose team led the new study, published Monday in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the environmental organization WWF Canada.

Dr. Martin specializes in an approach known as priority threat management. It starts by recognizing that resources are finite and then seeks to determine which actions are likely to lead to the most favourable outcomes for a given budget.

Dr. Martin’s group has previously applied the method to southwestern Saskatchewan and B.C.’s Fraser River Delta, among other locations. The Ontario study is the largest and, in many ways, the most complex that the group has undertaken.

For the study, the teamed focused on a 63,000-square-kilometre swath of Ontario known as the Lake Simcoe-Rideau ecoregion.

It features a highly diverse mix of land-use types, including forests, farms, wetlands and built areas. Geographically, it stretches from the lower Ottawa River valley west to Lake Simcoe, the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. Several urban areas, including Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo and Barrie are located in the region, which is bordered to the north by the Canadian Shield.

The study did not include the Greater Toronto Area or southwestern Ontario, which forms its own distinct ecoregion.

Starting in 2022, experts were asked to identify key threats to 133 species categorized into 16 ecological groups found in the region as well as actions that could mitigate those threats. A 27-year time period for action was chosen to match with targets for the year 2050 set by the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, to which Canada is a signatory.

Among the experts consulted were those representing government agencies, conservation authorities, First Nations, environmental groups, industry and research institutions. Proposed actions ranged from legislation and other policy measures to physical interventions such as landscape-restoration projects and wildlife-safe highway crossings.

They estimated the cost-effectiveness of each action and scored them based on expected benefit. They also considered the benefits when various actions were pursued in combination.

If none of the actions are implemented, the study found that nearly all of the species groups, encompassing 130 out of the 133 species at risk, would have a less than 50-per-cent chance of persisting to 2050.

This assessment improves as measures are added strategically. In the best case, for an annualized cost of about $113-million a year, 15 of the 16 species groups have a better-than-even chance of persisting.

James Snider, vice-president of science, knowledge and innovation for WWF-Canada, said the study demonstrates the need for a larger vision to balance needs such as food security and housing while also protecting the region’s important natural assets and restoring marginal lands that are now lying fallow.

“We need to be bringing habitats back online for these species and that’s where the investment is needed at scale,” he said.

He noted that the study’s estimated price tag, though significantly higher than what the province currently spends on conservation in the region, amounts to less than one tenth of 1 per cent of Ontario’s annual budget – about $7 a resident per year.

Research into public attitudes, including a Quebec-based study published last month, suggests such a price tag falls well within what people would be willing to pay to save just a single species from extinction.

Dan Kraus, a conservation scientist and consultant based in Guelph, Ont., who was not involved with Dr. Martin’s study, said the results should prompt stakeholders in the region to think long term about planning and budgeting for meaningful conservation.

“For a long time, I think we’ve undervalued and underfunded nature,” he said. “It’s really important that we do start thinking about how much conservation is going to cost.”

The study also found that investments toward species would carry additional measurable benefits in the form of reduced carbon emissions. Dr. Kraus said that flood protection and human wellbeing could also be considered as net gains from conservation investments.

Decline in key Canadian wildlife has worsened, new data show

This article was written by Ivan Semeniuk and was published in the Globe & Mail on September 22, 2025.

A WWF report finds that efforts to conserve endangered species haven’t stopped other animals from joining that list. They include the snowy owl, which a scientific panel last May said is threatened.

Environmental advocacy group WWF has updated its Living Planet Index for Canada and found that downward trends in monitored wildlife populations are becoming more pronounced – a sign that federal and provincial policies are inadequate to the task of protecting species at risk across the country or improving their chances of recovery.

In a report released on Monday, the organization found that 53 per cent of the Canadian species it measures are decreasing in abundance, with an average decrease of 10 per cent since 1970 (a point in time from which wildlife population data were sufficient to allow for reliable estimates). Among those species already listed as threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 43 per cent showed population declines, including the boreal caribou.

“This is biodiversity loss happening in real time,” James Snider, vice-president for science, knowledge and innovation with WWF Canada, said during a media briefing.

He said that the report, built on more than 5,000 records tracking 910 species, offers “a stark reminder of the trajectory of wildlife in Canada.”

The report marks the fourth edition of the Canadian version of WWF’s Living Planet Index, which is updated every five years. It is not a comprehensive measure of all species across the country but focuses instead on a subset of vertebrates – including fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians – that occupy a range of habitats in Canada, from marine and freshwater ecosystems to wild and human-dominated landscapes.

As in previous editions of the index, species that are found in grasslands – such as the swift fox and prairie rattlesnake – have declined the most on average, reflecting the historical impact of habitat loss because of agricultural activity.

Elsewhere, invasive species, pollution and climate change effects are adding to pressures that are more directly linked to human activities and infrastructure.

Mr. Snider said that a striking takeaway from the report is that efforts to conserve endangered species have not stopped new and sometimes iconic creatures from joining the ranks of those already listed.

A case in point is the snowy owl, Quebec’s provincial bird. Last May, for the first time, the scientific panel that advises the government on the status of Canada’s wildlife said that the owl should now be listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act.

The owl is one of many species that also carry cultural significance for Indigenous peoples. In its latest iteration, the WWF report includes interviews with Indigenous community members speaking about changes in species populations that have occurred within the collective memories of their communities.

One such participant, Kiarra Bear-Hetherington, is a water protector with the Wolastoqey Nation in New Brunswick and a graduate student in marine management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. As part of her role, she has gathered information from elders about the historic abundance of Atlantic salmon on the Wolastoq (Saint John) River prior to the construction of hydroelectric dams starting in the 1950s. The salmon population has crashed since then and there is currently a ban on commercial and recreational fishing of the species, which has affected Indigenous communities on the river.

Ms. Bear-Hetherington said support for Indigenous-led conservation projects has been a positive development that benefits species and also links communities to their heritage.

“We have so many young people that are wanting to recreate that connection back to our river, our waterway. That gives me hope,” she said.

Compared with the Living

Planet Index that WWF International prepares as a global snapshot, the Canadian version has a much higher proportion of its vertebrate species represented and is better able to capture the variability in population numbers, said Jessica Currie, a senior specialist with WWF Canada.

To some extent, this can help reduce oversensitivity to small changes in species with low population numbers, which otherwise could make the overall trends seem more dire than they really are.

Ms. Currie said the WWF Canada report includes some methodological changes designed to strengthen its statistics. The changes were made in consultation with Environment and Climate Change Canada officials who use a version of the index to track changes in Canada’s biodiversity.

Protecting that biodiversity has proved a challenge in Canada, in part because of delays in implementing the federal species law, as well as differences with provincial governments who often have more direct control over the habitat on which many species depend.

Among the provinces, for example, British Columbia does not have its own species legislation while Ontario’s government has recently amended its laws to weaken species protections.

Chris Johnson, a professor of conservation and wildlife ecology at the University of Northern British Columbia, who was not involved in the WWF report, said the current political situation underscores the need for maintaining laws that protect individual species at risk, a position supported by a study he co-authored earlier this month in the journal Facets.

“It’s about having those lastditch policy and legislative tools to keep those species from falling off the cliff,” Dr. Johnson said.

During the briefing Mr. Snider said that while the federal government prioritizes economic development to counter threats from the United States, it cannot afford to lose sight of the country’s natural assets.

“As we look forward to building our economic sovereignty, our broader security, we also need to be considering the biodiversity and nature impacts in that decision-making process,” he said.

Hun­dreds of baby turtles hatch across the city

Indi­gen­ous­led group behind ini­ti­at­ive to pro­tect amphi­bi­ans in Toronto’s urban envir­on­ments

This article was written by Kristjan Lautens and was published in the Toronto Star on September 9, 2025.

Indi­gen­ous­led group behind ini­ti­at­ive to pro­tect amphi­bi­ans in Toronto’s urban envir­on­mentsSaveListenSharePrintMore

If you’re walk­ing in Toronto parks this sea­son, watch your step.

More than 980 baby turtles have hatched across the city since Aug. 17 under the watch­ful eye of the Turtle Pro­tect­ors, an Indi­gen­ous­led group mak­ing sure all of Toronto’s smal­lest neigh­bours sur­vive in an urban space where they are at risk of fall­ing prey.

Hatch­ing sea­son for snap­ping turtles, and some mid­land painted turtles, typ­ic­ally begins in late August or Septem­ber, stretch­ing to late Octo­ber before the amphi­bi­ans go into a sleep state for the winter.

Thou­sands of volun­teer hours and sev­eral boxed nest pro­tect­ors rest­ing around areas of water are vir­tu­ally the turtles’ only chance of sur­vival, accord­ing to Jenny Davis, the co­founder of the organ­iz­a­tion.

“In urban envir­on­ments like Toronto, close to 100 per cent of turtle nests will get dug up because we’ve cre­ated per­fect places for rac­coons, coyotes, skunks and foxes to thrive,” Davis said. “They would be like `free food!’ ”

Davis, who doesn’t want any­body to blame those anim­als because they’ve been eat­ing turtles for thou­sands of years, says they need to pro­tect the turtles, which are endangered, from the pred­at­ors who have other food sources.

The group star­ted in 2021 when Davis, who was work­ing at the High Park Nature Centre, got a call from her friend and future co­founder, Car­o­lynne Craw­ley. They had dis­covered a giant mama snap­ping turtle, whom they call the actual founder, in the park.

“We didn’t really know much about turtles. We think she’s nest­ing, but we truly don’t know. Then it was COVID, so there was no one in their offices,” Davis said. “We real­ized that in Toronto, there’s no turtle pro­tec­tion pro­gram, and all eight spe­cies of turtles that live in Ontario are all at risk.”

“We actu­ally have to do something about this.”

It began with pro­tec­tion in Hyde Park and has spread to seven other parks, includ­ing Hum­ber, Don Val­ley Brick­works, Col­onel Sam Smith, Smyth, Ren­nie, Kings­mill and Etienne Brule.

The whole pro­cess starts, for both the turtles and their pro­tect­ors, with the moth­ers lay­ing the eggs in May or June in well­drained, south­w­est­facing soil to keep their eggs warm. The organ­iz­a­tion then plants their low­to­the­ground boxes over them, which have a three­by­one­inch cut­out on each side that, to the hatch­lings, look like “giant gar­age doors,” accord­ing to Davis.

The respons­ib­il­ity then shifts to a volun­teer to watch over the boxes that can have about 30 to 50 sib­lings stuffed inside. The nests are checked four times a day and pro­tect­ors approach excitedly “with their fin­gers crossed,” hop­ing to see a safe trans­ition, Davis said.

If you’re lucky, you would look straight down and see “the bravest of the brave” dig their way through a loonie­sized emer­gence hole, pok­ing their head above the soil like a sub­mar­ine’s peri­scope scout­ing uncharted land before their sib­lings fol­low behind them, accord­ing to Davis.

“When we do our volun­teer train­ing, we’re like step one, mar­vel, because it will be magical.”

When the hatch­lings come out, they get gently scooped up by the volun­teers in a con­tainer when they are given a tra­di­tional nat­ive greet­ing, wel­com­ing them to the world, before they are placed in the nearest body of water.

Davis calls on every­body to help out, often urging people she meets to “meet your neigh­bours.” For her, the name and the shirt, which looks like a super­hero crest sprawled across the chest, serve as a call to arms.

“Wherever you live in Toronto, if you have water in your local park, regard­less of whether pro­tect­ors oper­ate there, this is hap­pen­ing,” Davis said. “All you need to do is start look­ing down and pay­ing atten­tion.”

The Ontario Turtle Con­ser­va­tion Centre says that less than one per cent of the turtles make it to adult­hood, so Davis says they need all the help they can get to pro­tect the endangered spe­cies.

They are hop­ing to expand to 10 parks by next sea­son, but say that because they are an Indi­gen­ous­led organ­iz­a­tion, they can only grow at a rate that will let them con­tinue to be Indi­gen­ous­led.

“We’re an Indi­gen­ous grass­roots col­lect­ive, so we’re not even a not­for­profit. The most beau­ti­ful thing about turtle pro­tect­ors is on paper, we’re actu­ally noth­ing,” Davis said.

They run a hot­line from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. dur­ing nest­ing sea­son, and Davis says every day she finds new people check­ing in on the hatch­lings, mak­ing sure they’re OK and com­ing back again the next day and the next.

Volun­teers have put more than 4,000 hours into help­ing the babies get past their infancy.

More than 980 baby turtles have hatched across the city since Aug. 17 under the watch­ful eye of Indi­gen­ous­led group Turtle Pro­tect­ors.

Build­ings cut from 100­year flood map

Camp Mys­tic’s FEMA appeal could have been bid to lower insur­ance, experts say

This article was written by Ryan J. Foley, Christopher L. Keller, and Jim Mustian, and was published in the Toronto Star on July 13, 2025.

Fed­eral reg­u­lat­ors repeatedly gran­ted appeals to remove Camp Mys­tic’s build­ings from their 100 year flood map, loosen­ing over­sight as the camp oper­ated and expan­ded in a dan­ger­ous flood plain in the years before rush­ing waters swept away chil­dren and coun­sel­lors, a review by The Asso­ci­ated Press found.

The Fed­eral Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (FEMA) included the pres­ti­gi­ous girls’ sum­mer camp in a “Spe­cial Flood Haz­ard Area” in its National Flood Insur­ance map for Kerr County in 2011, which means it was required to have flood insur­ance and faced tighter reg­u­la­tion on any future con­struc­tion projects. That des­ig­na­tion means an area is likely to be inund­ated dur­ing a 100­year flood — one severe enough that it only has a one per cent chance of hap­pen­ing in any given year.

Loc­ated in a low­lying area along the Guada­lupe River in a region known as flash flood alley, Camp Mys­tic lost at least 27 campers and coun­sel­lors and long­time owner Dick East­land when his­toric flood­wa­ters tore through its prop­erty before dawn on July 4.

The flood was far more severe than the 100­year event envi­sioned by FEMA, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off guard in a county that lacked a warn­ing sys­tem.

But Syra­cuse Uni­versity asso­ciate pro­fessor Sarah Pralle, who has extens­ively stud­ied FEMA’s flood map determ­in­a­tions, said it was “par­tic­u­larly dis­turb­ing” that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemp­tions from basic flood reg­u­la­tion.

Camp Mys­tic didn’t respond to emails seek­ing com­ment and calls to it rang unanswered. The camp has called the flood an “unima­gin­able tragedy” and added in a state­ment Thursday that it had restored power for the pur­pose of com­mu­nic­at­ing with its sup­port­ers.

In response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s build­ings from the haz­ard area. Records show that those build­ings were part of the 99­year­old Camp Mys­tic Guada­lupe, which was dev­ast­ated by last week’s flood.

After fur­ther appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mys­tic struc­tures in 2019 and 2020 from the des­ig­na­tion. Those build­ings were loc­ated on nearby Camp Mys­tic Cypress Lake, a sis­ter site that opened to campers in 2020 as part of a major expan­sion and suffered less dam­age in the flood.

Campers have said the cab­ins at Cypress Lake with­stood sig­ni­fic­ant dam­age, but those nick­named “the flats” at the Guada­lupe River camp were inund­ated.

Experts say Camp Mys­tic’s requests to amend the FEMA map could have been an attempt to avoid the require­ment to carry flood insur­ance, to lower the camp’s insur­ance premi­ums or to pave the way for renov­at­ing or adding new struc­tures under less costly reg­u­la­tions.

Pralle said the appeals were not sur­pris­ing because com­munit­ies and prop­erty own­ers have used them suc­cess­fully to shield spe­cific prop­er­ties from reg­u­la­tion.

Regard­less of FEMA’s determ­in­a­tions, the risk was obvi­ous.

At least 12 struc­tures at Camp Mys­tic Guada­lupe were fully within FEMA’s 100­year flood plain, and a few more were par­tially in that zone, accord­ing to an AP ana­lysis of data provided by First Street, a data sci­ence com­pany that spe­cial­izes in mod­el­ling cli­mate risk.

Jeremy Porter, the head of cli­mate implic­a­tions at First Street, said FEMA’s flood insur­ance map under­es­tim­ates flood risks. That’s because it fails to take into account the effects of heavy pre­cip­it­a­tion on smal­ler water­ways such as streams and creeks. First Street’s model puts nearly all of Camp Mys­tic Guada­lupe at risk dur­ing a 100­year flood.

The build­ings at the newer Cypress Lake site are farther from the south fork of the flood­prone river but adja­cent to Cypress Creek. FEMA’s flood plain doesn’t con­sider the small water­way a risk.

However, First Street’s model, which takes into account heavy rain and run­off reach­ing the creek, shows that the major­ity of the Cypress Lake site lies within an area that is at risk dur­ing a 100­year flood.

In a state­ment, FEMA down­played the sig­ni­fic­ance of the flood map amend­ments.

“Flood maps are snap­shots in time designed to show min­imum stand­ards for flood­plain man­age­ment and the highest risk areas for flood insur­ance,” the agency wrote. “They are not pre­dic­tions of where it will flood, and they don’t show where it has flooded before.”

Prop­erty own­ers chal­len­ging FEMA’s map des­ig­na­tions hire engin­eers to con­duct detailed stud­ies to show where they believe the 100year flood plain should actu­ally be drawn. That is a “pretty ardu­ous pro­cess” that can lead to more accur­ate maps while mak­ing it easier for future con­struc­tion, said Chris Steu­bing, exec­ut­ive dir­ector of the Texas Flood­plain Man­age­ment Asso­ci­ation, an industry group that rep­res­ents flood­plain man­agers.

A study she pub­lished in 2021 with researcher Devin Lea ana­lyzed more than 20,000 build­ings that had been removed from FEMA flood maps. It found that the amend­ments occurred more often in places where prop­erty val­ues were higher, more white people lived and build­ings were newer.

Federal climate strategies fall short: report

This article was written by Ivan Semeniuk and was published in the Globe & Mail on June 11, 2025.

Natural spaces key to sustaining species could be eliminated before their significance is fully known or appreciated, commissioner finds

Inconsistent planning, insufficient data and a lack of concrete actions are among the problems plaguing some of Canada’s key environmental efforts and strategies, a series of independent audits has found.

In three reports issued Tuesday, Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Jerry DeMarco examined the federal government’s progress on climate adaptation, species protection and facilitating sustainable use of ocean resources. A fourth report from Mr. DeMarco considers why the government has largely failed to deliver on its sustainable development goals over the past three decades.

The reports found deficits in the way Ottawa has approached its environmental and sustainable development challenges, which have hindered the government’s objectives.

The audits come as Prime Minister Mark Carney is seeking to fast-track infrastructure projects, including those designed to improve Canada’s competitiveness in the energy and resource sectors. Without more robust and better-informed federal actions on environmental matters, such projects could come at a cost.

“In order to make decisions that don’t have unforeseen consequences or that don’t mortgage the future, it’s important to have a good information base,” Mr. DeMarco told The Globe and Mail.

First established in 1995, the commissioner’s role falls under Canada’s Office of the AuditorGeneral. Successive commissioners have repeatedly prodded the government to enact and then stand by policies that relate to the country’s natural assets. The long-running dynamic formed the backdrop to several of the findings in the commissioner’s latest release.

For example, a previous commissioner first recommended that Canada create a national climate-adaptation strategy nearly 20 years ago, something the federal government accomplished in 2023. (In comparison, Germany has done it four times.)

Calling the strategy “an important first step,” Mr. DeMarco said that urgent attention is still required for it to produce meaningful action.

His report found that the strategy does not adequately prioritize different climate-change risks in Canada nor create a process for it to be updated. In areas related to human health, the strategy also omitted some risks, such as the spread of Lyme disease, and did not propose dedicated actions to address others, including the effects of wildfire smoke.

What this report is really highlighting is even with policy in place, even with the law in place, we’re not actually doing much of what we said we were going to do.

KAREN HODGES PROFESSOR OF CONSERVATION BIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA OKANAGAN

Blair Feltmate, who heads the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation and who provided input to the report, said he did not agree that climate risks are not prioritized in the national adaptation strategy. Rather, he said, the strategy “zeroed in on preparedness for flooding and wildfire, which are Canada’s two most financially costly perils, and extreme heat, the most lethal peril.”

Dr. Feltmate said he partially agreed with the commissioner that no economic analysis was done to assign adaptation resources. And while the commissioner’s reports typically do not propose new policy actions, Dr.

Feltmate said that the federal government should consider creating a chief resiliency officer to lead the adaptation strategy going forward and to “prepare Canada for extreme weather that will otherwise prove unaffordable.”

A separate report on critical habitat was the latest and final instalment in the commissioner’s look at how Canada lists and protects its most threatened wildlife species.

Previously, that examination has found bottlenecks and other problems at virtually every stage in the process.

The identification of critical habitat is a step that occurs after a species has already been listed and the government must, by law, develop a recovery strategy for the species and an action plan.

Based on a sampling of 47 species, the latest report found that government departments charged with protecting those species had only identified critical habitat for about one-third of them. There are also significant gaps in monitoring areas where species at risk are known to exist.

The resulting information deficit means that natural spaces that are crucial to sustaining various species in Canada could be eliminated before their significance is known or fully appreciated.

“What this report is really highlighting is even with policy in place, even with the law in place, we’re not actually doing much of what we said we were going to do,” said Karen Hodges, a professor of conservation biology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

She said the report underscored the need to reframe the national conversation around species, and to get past arguments that weigh nature against profits rather than considering the economic and societal benefits of growth within the context of environment and sustainability.

Mr. DeMarco echoed the same point when discussing the report on integrated oceans management. Without adequate knowledge and planning of marine environments, he said, it will be difficult to make wise decisions about the placement of offshore wind generators or shipping corridors, for example.

He added that while Canada may be paying a price for not having been more pro-active with environmental protection and planning in the past, that should not be a rationale for delaying action now.

“We could cry over spilled milk because we haven’t done it yet,” he said. “But we might as well accelerate the efforts to fill in these gaps in our knowledge and increase the chances of making better and more informed decisions when these projects do get proposed in the coming years.”

Experts sound alarm over Snowy owl’s decline

Ott­awa to decide whether to list spe­cies as threatened

This article was written by Morgan Lowrie and was published in the Toronto Star on May 26, 2025.

A sci­entific com­mit­tee’s decision to assess the snowy owl as threatened is yet another con­cern­ing sign of the changes shap­ing Canada’s Arc­tic, two experts say.

The Com­mit­tee on the Status of Endangered Wild­life In Canada, an advis­ory body to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, announced earlier this month it was recom­mend­ing a change of status for the emblem­atic north­ern spe­cies, which is also Que­bec’s offi­cial bird.

That recom­mend­a­tion has been passed on to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, which will decide whether to list the snowy owl as threatened under the Spe­cies at Risk Act.

Louise Blight, co­chair of the sub­com­mit­tee over­see­ing birds, said snowy owl obser­va­tions have declined about 40 per cent over the last three gen­er­a­tions, or 24 years. She says cli­mate change — as well as dir­ect threats such as vehicle strikes and pois­on­ing — are to blame.

“Not only does this spe­cies nest in a region with one of the fast­est­chan­ging cli­mates on the planet, but when it heads south for the winter it faces addi­tional threats — col­li­sions, elec­tro­cu­tion, rodenti­cide pois­on­ing, and dis­eases like avian influ­enza,” she wrote in a news release.

Blight, who is also an adjunct asso­ciate pro­fessor at the Uni­versity of Vic­toria’s School of Envir­on­mental Stud­ies, said in a phone inter­view that cli­mate change reduces sea ice, which the birds use for rest­ing and hunt­ing. It has also led to increased shrub cover in the wide­open tun­dra hab­itat where the owl breeds, and there have been sug­ges­tions the pop­u­la­tion cycles of lem­mings — its main prey — are being affected, she said.

She said it’s hard to meas­ure the spe­cific impacts of cli­mate change on the owls, in part because the hab­itat changes are hap­pen­ing so quickly.

The owl, she said, is one of many spe­cies that are declin­ing at “really con­cern­ing rates” for a num­ber of dif­fer­ent reas­ons.

David Rodrigue, bio­lo­gist and exec­ut­ive dir­ector of the Eco­mu­seum Zoo west of Montreal, said the com­mit­tee’s recom­mend­a­tion should be a “ral­ly­ing cry” to accel­er­ate efforts to pro­tect Canada’s biod­iversity.

He says Que­bec has yet to begin its own formal pro­cess to assess the status of its offi­cial bird.

Rodrigue says a gov­ern­ment decision to des­ig­nate the spe­cies as threatened would trig­ger meas­ures to help it, includ­ing an oblig­a­tion to cre­ate a recov­ery plan and some hab­itat pro­tec­tion.

In Canada, “threatened” means a spe­cies is likely to become endangered if noth­ing is done to reverse the factors lead­ing to its dis­ap­pear­ance.

`They’ve just taken us back 50 years’

Envir­on­ment­al­ist, First Nations groups decry pro­vin­cial bill to speed devel­op­ment

Critics warn the proposed Bill 5 legislation could destroy habitats of threatened species like the bobolink, above, and curtail consultations with First Nations communities.

This article was written by Kristin Rushowy and Noor Javed, and was published in the Toronto Star on May 18, 2025.

Endangered spe­cies will be at fur­ther risk under a new bill that envir­on­mental groups also say gives the gov­ern­ment too much power to fast­track min­ing and infra­struc­ture projects any­where it wants.

Premier Doug Ford has said that Bill 5 is required to speed up much­needed invest­ments and projects — like the Ring of Fire min­eral site in north­ern Ontario, or even a plan to poten­tially tun­nel under High­way 401 to ease traffic con­ges­tion in Toronto — espe­cially as the province tries to weather ongo­ing eco­nomic threats from the U.S.

Envir­on­ment­al­ists say the pro­posed changes could des­troy endangered spe­cies’ hab­it­ats and cur­tail con­sulta­tions with First Nation com­munit­ies, though the gov­ern­ment says that’s not the case.

Anna Bag­gio, con­ser­va­tion dir­ector for the Wild­lands League, said “the pre­tence is gone — we’re not even try­ing to save spe­cies any­more.

“You don’t even need to be much of an expert to see they’ve just taken us back like 50 years … repeal­ing (the Endangered Spe­cies Act), nar­row­ing the defin­i­tion of hab­itat — basic­ally, for­get sci­ence. This is just a super­charged devel­op­ment agenda.”

The bill would allow the province to cre­ate “spe­cial eco­nomic zones” exempt from the usual laws to get shovels in the ground on projects, which Ford has said can take years to start because of the neces­sary 30­plus per­mits or approvals.

In a state­ment to the Star, the premier’s office said “we are main­tain­ing high envir­on­mental stand­ards, labour laws and duty to con­sult. Any asser­tion oth­er­wise is false,” adding that work­ing with First Nations and com­munit­ies across the province has “never been more import­ant” and will con­tinue.

But oppos­i­tion crit­ics said the gov­ern­ment is doing little to ensure neces­sary safe­guards.

Indi­gen­ous New Demo­crat MPP Sol Mamakwa (Kii­wet­inoong) said the bill should be called “`Ontario first, First Nations last,’ because we are just an after­thought.”

Bill 5, he added, “will severely under­mine con­sti­tu­tion­ally pro­tec­ted Indi­gen­ous rights to con­sulta­tion, accom­mod­a­tion and con­sent for any kind of project before it starts. The very concept of fast­track­ing infra­struc­ture on Indi­gen­ous lands, on our home­lands, con­tra­dicts the legal prin­ciple of free, prior and informed con­sent.”

He said there are many projects in his rid­ing where min­ing com­pan­ies “do not con­sist­ently engage with affected First Nations from the begin­ning of the projects. We have to under­stand that con­sulta­tion is not just check­ing a box.”

New Demo­crat MPP Jamie West (Sud­bury) said there’s noth­ing wrong with a more co­ordin­ated approach for per­mit­ting projects, but there have to be guard­rails.

Last Fri­day, more than 100 envir­on­mental and con­ser­va­tion groups sub­mit­ted a let­ter to the province out­lining their con­cerns. Among the biggest: rede­fin­ing spe­cies “hab­itat” to imme­di­ate dwell­ings like dens and nest­ing sites — which will remove pro­tec­tions from large areas of hab­itat upon which spe­cies depend for sur­vival.

“We can’t sup­port scrap­ping the Endangered Spe­cies Act and bring­ing in an act that just talks about where they live today, right now — it’s like say­ing that your house is pro­tec­ted, but it’s OK if we tear down everything around your house,” West said in the legis­lature.

“… You can’t replace something solid with something incred­ibly watered down. Can you improve it? Yes, abso­lutely. But don’t pre­tend this is improv­ing it. This is des­troy­ing the Endangered Spe­cies Act.”

Giv­ing the province respons­ib­il­ity for provid­ing a list of endangered spe­cies instead of leav­ing that to an inde­pend­ent body is also cause for con­cern, allow­ing developers and industry to poten­tially remove spe­cies at will, mak­ing it impossible to “assess, mit­ig­ate and avoid harms to spe­cies,” said the let­ter.

“Bull­doz­ing their pro­tec­tions is only going to unleash more prob­lems for future gen­er­a­tions,” reads the let­ter signed by groups includ­ing Ontario Nature, the Ontario Biod­iversity Coun­cil and the David Suzuki Found­a­tion.

In a state­ment to the Star, the Min­istry of the Envir­on­ment said the legis­la­tion that replaces the Endangered Spe­cies Act will include “improv­ing enforce­ment to limit activ­it­ies that have neg­at­ive impacts on spe­cies” and “intro­duces tougher pen­al­ties, includ­ing hefty fines, jail time and addi­tional com­pli­ance tools, ensur­ing no tol­er­ance for bad act­ors.”

The gov­ern­ment also plans “an enhanced Spe­cies Con­ser­va­tion Pro­gram, which will dir­ectly invest $20 mil­lion each year in projects to con­serve and pro­tect spe­cies across Ontario, quad­rupling cur­rent fund­ing,” the state­ment said.

The pro­posed Bill 5 legis­la­tion, now at second read­ing and head­ing to a com­mit­tee for input, has also received wide­spread cri­ti­cism from civil rights groups, labour groups and First Nation com­munit­ies.

“This (bill) will give cab­inet the power to ignore laws, skip con­sulta­tion and approve devel­op­ment without con­sulta­tion,” said Cristina McCoy, with McCoy Arche­olo­gical Ser­vices. “It’s say­ing Indi­gen­ous con­sulta­tion is red tape, and envir­on­mental pro­tec­tion is bur­eau­cracy.”

But Ford said last week that “you can’t change (the pro­cess) without work­ing col­lab­or­at­ively with all sorts of sec­tors, groups of people.”

“If we just stand still, we’re dead in the water,” he said.

Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Min­is­ter Vic Fed­eli has accused the oppos­i­tion of “fear­mon­ger­ing.”

The spe­cial eco­nomic zones, “espe­cially with the Ring of Fire, will help pave the way for these projects to go ahead … You just simply can­not have projects that take 10 or 15 years to come to fruition.”

But the bill “essen­tially gives the cab­inet the power to over­ride any law or change any law … within these zones,” said Laura Bow­man, a law­yer with Eco­justice, an envir­on­mental law char­ity. “And within those zones, to exempt any trus­ted pro­ponent or project from any applic­able law.”

She said that because it is so broad, it could mean that any envir­on­mental, labour or muni­cipal laws could be over­rid­den.

“What we have seen with the Green­belt, (min­is­ter’s zon­ing orders) and Ontario Place, the poten­tial for the law to be abused is very high,” she said, refer­ring to devel­op­ment con­tro­ver­sies the gov­ern­ment has faced.

“The poten­tial for there to be favour­it­ism toward cer­tain groups or cer­tain pro­ponents without any policy rationale … is very high. That is really con­cern­ing.”

RAIN OFFERS SOME HELP FOR CREWS BATTLING DEADLY WILDFIRES IN EASTERN MANITOBA

This article was written by the Canadian Press and was published in the Globe & Mail on May 17, 2025.

Rain offered some help in the battle against forest fires in eastern Manitoba on Friday, but the effort remained far from over.

Steady rain hit areas including the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet, where a fire this week destroyed 28 homes and cottages and left two people dead.

“It’s been coming down pretty good,” said Loren Schinkel, the municipality’s reeve.

A section of one evacuated area was reopened Thursday night to permanent residents. But Mr. Schinkel said the fire in nearby areas is still burning and there was no word on when people might get back in.

“I was in the area this morning where the fire started … and you still see tons of hot spots.”

Word emerged Friday of rescues that involved provincial staff and a private helicopter operator on Tuesday night as the fire raged.

Six people were extracted from an area near Lac du Bonnet, as were a family of four from Garner Lake and three stranded boaters from Shoe Lake, the province said. The latter two locations are in Nopiming Provincial Park, northeast of Lac du Bonnet.

“With fire conditions rapidly deteriorating, provincial staff from the Manitoba Wildfire Service and Conservation Officer Service, with the help of a local helicopter pilot, were able to make a series of dramatic rescues in very dangerous conditions,” a government statement said.

The fire near Lac du Bonnet claimed the lives of a man and his wife, identified as Richard and Sue Nowell, who were stranded by the flames.

The Manitoba Conservation Officers Association said one of the couple’s sons, Ryland Nowell, is a patrol captain with the service.

“Nowell had been assisting with the wildfires in Whiteshell Provincial Park in the days prior,” said a post on the association’s Facebook page.

It also said he helped last year with evacuations and protecting properties during the Cranberry Portage fire in northern Manitoba, “saving countless cottages and lives.”

Doug Ford is running roughshod over the environment and the law. Sound familiar?

This opinion was written by Tanya Talaga and was published in the Globe & Mail on May 10, 2025.

The entire country loves Ontario Premier Doug Ford when he stands up for Canada against U.S. President Donald Trump’s expansionist fantasies. Canadians have swooned and cheered when our bully goes toe-to-toe with America’s.

But lately, Mr. Ford has been acting like Mr. Trump himself, here in Ontario – using his party’s majority government to live by his own rules, trampling over existing laws and introducing new ones that allow reckless, unchecked development without any say from First Nations peoples, whose treaties make up the province of Ontario. And don’t worry, municipal governments: you’ve been left out, too.

It’s a failure that’s as big as Mr. Ford’s disastrous efforts to develop the Greenbelt, but with one key difference: the development here is happening largely out of sight, as the legislation is aimed at the swath of the province that lies north of Thunder Bay and stretches out to Hudson Bay, James Bay and the Manitoba border.

His government has put forward Bill 5 – the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025 – and it is even audacious in its title. The substance of this bill does not protect Ontario; it pulverizes it. It promises to enact what Mr. Ford has trumpeted in television ads and in media clips: that he will not wait any longer, expediting the process by which companies can pluck out those critical minerals Mr. Trump and the world crave to make their electric car batteries and hightech devices.

If passed – the omnibus legislation has been rammed through second reading and is now in committee – it would gut the Endangered Species Act and create new “special economic zones” that are immune to the provincial rules, policies and regulations that are enforced everywhere else in Ontario, all so that new mines can move forward and highways can be built. These new zones would exempt “trusted proponents” and certain areas from both municipal oversight and any regulations.

In effect, Mr. Ford is creating lawless carveouts – places where the mining industry can bypass environmental protections and, potentially, the constitutional duty to consult with First Nations people. It’s an egregious attack on Aboriginal and Treaty rights.

It even tosses out environmental assessments that companies have already agreed to undertake. Bill 5 goes so far as to name individual existing projects, such as Wyloo’s Eagle Nest mine in the Ring of Fire, and negate their requirements. Does this mean that all new mines in Ontario will no longer need any environmental review moving ahead? The bill is dangerously unclear on the question.

And what if developers encounter archeological sites, evidence of First Nations communities from thousands of years ago? In Rome, development would stop, tents would be put up and evidence of human life would be lovingly handled. The attitude in Ontario, based on what is laid out in this bill, seems to be the opposite; developers would ask the minister in charge, and he or she would have sole discretion on deciding whether what is found is worth saving.

But these lands are not for Ontario to do with as it wishes, says Donny Morris, Chief of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug. “Whatever Ford and his government might want their base to think,” he said in an April 24 statement, “nothing is happening up here without our consent.”

As First Nations people, it is our sacred duty to speak for the four-leggeds. Under Bill 5, those protected species living in the Ring of Fire area – caribou, wolverines, migratory birds, fish – will have protections removed. Instead, cabinet will be authorized to make new regulations, listing species that are classified as “extirpated species, endangered species, threatened species or special-concern species.”

What audacity the province has, to consistently ignore and pay lip service to the treaties that built this country and the First Nations peoples who know how to defend it. What happens when Mr. Trump and his threats of takeover and punishing tariffs have subsided or are no longer relevant? You won’t be able to bring back all the animals that have died or become habitat-less in the name of prosperity. You can’t regrow a boreal forest or peat moss in a couple of years to serve as a carbon sink for a dangerously warm planet.

Is this what the Ontario government has come to – transforming the province into a place where government deems itself as the only one qualified to make the rules, and where science and Indigenous knowledge are dismissed?

It’s a spirit that sounds dangerously similar to what is being wrought by the current White House. It’s ironic – and tragic – that Mr. Ford appears to be transforming into the very threat he says he is trying to defend Canadians against.

Environmentalists accuse province of further gutting endangered-species protections with recent bill

This article was written by Jeff Gray and was published in the Globe & Mail on April 24, 2025.

Ontario’s proposed changes would scrap a policy announced in 2019 that gives developers the choice of putting money into a conservation fund instead of taking steps to protect a small list of species, including the eastern meadowlark.

Proposed legislation that Ford says will speed up permits for mining projects will further gut protections for endangered species, experts warn

Proposed legislation from Premier Doug Ford that he says would unleash Ontario’s economy by speeding up permits for mining and other projects would also dramatically weak en the province’ s endangered- species legislation, environmentalists warn.

The changes, included in a bill unveiled last week and aimed at boosting growth in the face of U.S. tariffs, would give cabinet final say over which animals and plants are designated for protection, instead of a committee of experts, and narrow the legal definition of habitat essentially to an animal’s nest.

If passed, the legislation would do away with the existing permit process for most projects, replacing it with a registration-based system for activities that would destroy habitat or harm endangered species. But the government says registrants would have to follow regulations, which have yet to be drafted, or face “tough fines.”

The proposed changes would also scrap an alternative endangered-species permitting system the government first announced in 2019 – but which has yet to properly get off the ground – that environmentalists have long decried as “pay to slay.”

The policy allows developers to choose to put money into a conservation fund instead of taking steps on their own to protect a small list of species, including the Blanding’s turtle and eastern meadowlark.

The money was supposed to be used for research or the protection of habitat elsewhere. But six years later, the agency set up by the government to dole out this cash has yet to deliver any funding toward a single environmental project, despite collecting several million dollars.

The government says its suite of endangered-species changes will leave “robust” environmental protections in place while cutting red tape and delays for businesses. Business groups welcomed the changes.

Environmentalists argue the move amounts to a gutting of endangered-species protections that Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government had already watered down.

“Instead of pay to slay, now it’s just slay,” Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, said in an interview.

Other parts of the bill introduced last week include the power to designate “special economic zones” where “trusted proponents” could be exempt from the need for approvals or permits, or get them faster. The details have not been revealed.

Mr. Ford said he could use this provision to speed up mining in the Ring of Fire area in Northern Ontario, although he could not say how much faster mines would be opened there. He also said he could use the power to clear the way for his controversial, uncosted plan to build the world’s longest traffic tunnel under Highway 401 through Toronto, which experts have warned could come with a $60-billion-to$120-billion price tag.

The bill would rename Ontario’s Endangered Species Act, which environmentalists praised as leading-edge when it was enacted in 2007, as the Species Conservation Act. The legislation would rewrite the purpose of the endangered-species law, dropping the goal of recovering populations of at-risk species and saying the legislation needs to take “economic considerations” into account.

Mr. Ford has long lamented delays in issuing permits for mines, which he said can be as long as 15 years, and for housing. He has also previously singled out endangered-species rules, saying that development should not be stalled “because there’s a grasshopper in a field and everyone has to stop and wait for that grasshopper.”

In a recent posting on Ontario’s online environmental registry, the government outlines its proposed endangered-species changes in more detail. It says the current approach is “complicated, takes too long to complete, and causes unnecessary delays and costs for housing, transit, and critical infrastructure.”

It also reveals that the Species Conservation Action Agency, which was set up in 2021 to spend money collected from developers on habitat restoration or other projects, has focused on “starting up its operations and has not spent any funds on projects.”

According to the SCAA’s 2023-24 annual report, it had collected $3.4-million since 2022, had recently hired a chief executive officer and planned to launch its funding program this year.

Alex Catherwood, a spokesperson for Environment Minister Todd McCarthy, said in an e-mail that “outstanding funding from the SCAA will be used to protect and restore listed species.”

She also said the proposed legislation will allow for “robust environmental protections by creating clear, enforceable rules for businesses to follow” that will include “tough fines for non-compliance.” Plus, she said, the government is committing $20-million a year for conservation projects, more than four times its current spending.

Environmental groups were particularly concerned about allowing cabinet to determine what species are protected and the narrowing of the definition of habitat to little more than an animal’s dwelling.

“Any animal needs to eat and drink and do other basic activities of life beyond having a nest or a den,” said Connie O’Connor, a biologist and the director of the Ontario Northern Boreal Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, calling the new definition “absurd.”

Laura Bowman, a lawyer at Ecojustice, said there is little evidence that endangered-species rules are holding up many projects, pointing to a 2021 report by Ontario’s Auditor-General that concluded the province was “failing in its mandate to protect species at risk.”

The report showed that from 2009, when the Endangered Species Act came into effect, to 2020, permits issued allowing an impact on species shot up more than 6,200 per cent, with 827 in 2020. Only a handful of charges against violators had been laid under the act each year, with none in 2020.

“This is just the scapegoating of vulnerable species as slowing down economic progress,” Ms. Bowman said. “It doesn’t have a basis in reality and it’s the species that are going to pay for this.”