The peregrine falcon is listed as a special concern species by the Government of Canada.
In late September, Environment Canada announced budget cuts to several important wildlife programs.
The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Network, which observes changes in ecosystems, has lost 80 per cent of its budget; the Migratory Bird Program, which monitors the health of bird populations, has seen its budget cut by 50 per cent; and the National Wildlife Areas, a program that protects nationally significant habitats for wildlife and birds, has had its budget slashed to zero from $1.9 million. The reason for these cuts was given by Environment Minister John Baird as prioritizing spending for climate change initiatives.
“The government has been clear that its priorities are being a climate change champion, and taking real action to provide clean air and clean water for Canadians,” Baird said.
So, apparently, Baird is of the opinion climate change and air and water quality affect only people. A migratory bird program to monitor the health of bird populations clearly has nothing to do with water quality or climate change.
We have only one Earth, only one environment and it is not possible to compartmentalize the issues like this. The climate is changing. Look around. It’s changing. So, as the climate changes, ocean currents will change, vegetation patterns, precipitation — all these things will change and are changing. This is going to mean drastic changes to ecosystems, beyond what we can predict at this point. The changes in ecosystems are going to impact us and we don’t know how. All we can do is try to find out what is happening as soon as possible.
Perhaps we should monitor ecosystems rather than cut 80 per cent of the budget from those programs already doing that. Similarly, with all these changes going on, animals are going to have to adapt or go extinct. It’s possible we can help prevent some extinctions by timely intervention. However, we won’t know where to intervene, what to do or even which species are threatened unless we monitor them.
Finally, stresses on wildlife are going to be huge as the climate changes. They are going to need all the help they can get, including some habitat set aside for them. Almost like National Wildlife Areas — if only someone hadn’t eliminated the budget!
We understand climate change and clean air and water should be priorities. Canadians have made it clear the environment is a huge priority for most of us. But cutting the budgets for existing programs to fund new programs makes no sense. We need to increase our earthly efforts rather than redistributing the same amount of effort. If we picture the Earth as a sick person, what Baird is doing is taking money that was spent on nutritious food and spending it on medicine. We are going to need both if we are going to get better.
We don’t claim to be experts on government spending, but it just seems since the economy is, by all accounts, doing pretty well, we ought to be able to find the extra money to fight climate change and clean our air and water without taking it away from the animals.
Andrew Laursen is an assistant professor at Ryerson University, studying ecosystem ecology. Sophia Dore is an environmental scientist with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, an environmental consulting company.
