Canada’s biodiversity is in serious decline, as is global biodiversity loss everywhere. One major reason for our failure to address our loss is the poor state of biodiversity law in our country. There are numerous biodiversity laws already existing, although several pre-date the Second World War and all pre-date the internet, climate change and current biodiversity science.
More critically, they legislatively fragment the environment into separate components and fracture accountability into multiple agencies, nor do they establish biodiversity goals, reporting mechanisms or mandates for biodiversity science (Swerdfager & Armitage, The Conversation), continuing to yield the same dysfunctional sub-optimal outcomes.
What we desperately need is a single unified law for biodiversity that would replace the existing nine laws. Read The Conversation article for the specific recommendations made. Tragically, there was little or no mention of the biodiversity crisis during the last election.
Photo source: Joshua J. Cotten from Unsplash