Phone, fax or mail

While the mining industry and its associations do little or nothing, twenty environmental groups are mobilizing their members and the general public to support Environment Minister David Anderson’s proposed legislation to “protect” endangered species. Check out the full page ad in the Feb. 16 The Globe and Mail (page A8).

What’s the harm in that, you ask? After all, protecting endangered species is a good thing. Sure it is. We have nothing against protecting species, endangered or not, but Anderson’s proposal puts plants and animals ahead of humans, even on privately owned land. It also could put the mining industry and other resource industries out of business and turn property-owners into criminals if they put their needs ahead of an endangered mouse or cockroach.

We’re not exaggerating, either. If enacted, Anderson’s proposal would not only make it a crime to destroy habitat on privately owned land; it would give anti-development organizations a powerful obstructionist tool to stop or stall every new development project in the country. If the experience south of the border is any example, the law courts will be used to terrorize companies and ordinary citizens into submission. It’s high-minded tyranny and an assault on property rights that should be not be tolerated in a free country built on free enterprise.

Anderson’s fans will argue that Canada is merely playing catch-up with the United States, which has had legislation to protect endangered species since 1973. Yet little or nothing is heard about the program’s lack of success in fulfilling its mandate.

In 1998, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt held a press conference in Gill, Mass., to let the world know that efforts were under way to delist and downlist more than two dozen birds, mammals, fish and plants that had achieved recovery or near-recovery. “In the near future, many species will be flying, splashing and leaping off the list. They made it. They are graduating.”

However, subsequent studies found that at least eight of the species listed never improved at all. Either their range or population was underestimated, or a threat was overestimated. Most were removed from the list because of “data error,” meaning they should not have been listed in the first place. Some species were added to the list by accident, only to be delisted when it was found that they belonged to a more common species. Worse yet, five species included in the announcement won’t be flying, splashing or leaping anywhere . . . because they are extinct.

Even environmental groups have sadly concluded that the Endangered Species Act discourages private property owners from providing habitat for endangered species. Michael Bean of the Environmental Defense Fund has noted: “There is increasing evidence that at least some landowners are actively managing their land so as to avoid potential endangered species problems. Now it’s important to recognize that all of these actions . . . are not the result of malice toward the red-cockaded woodpecker, not the result of malice toward the environment. Rather, they’re fairly rational decisions motivated by a desire to avoid potentially significant economic constraints.”

There are horror stories about the law’s heavy-handedness. Take the case of John Pozsgai, a Hungarian immigrant and self-employed truck mechanic living in Morrisville, Pa. He was convicted in 1998 for cleaning up an old dumpsite zoned light industrial after he bought it in order to build a garage for his two-man business. The EPA found that parts of the old dumpsite contained “wetlands of marginal ecological value.” Pozsgai was sentenced to three years in prison and fined US$200,000 — the longest term and the largest fine every imposed for any environmental violation (including the dumping of toxic waste) up to that time.

Even one of the law’s proponents, a wetlands consultant who operated a non-profit wildlife rescue service, was jailed for six months for violating wetlands red tape, despite having created 44 acres of wetlands.

Do we really want a law that penalizes and terrorizes humans for being human? Do we really want to place a powerful obstructionist tool in the hands of extremists, some of whom have argued that “eradicating smallpox was wrong because it played an important part in balancing ecosystems,” and that “enemies” of wildlife should be driven “into oblivion.”

Support for Anderson’s proposals will be driven by special interest groups, particularly those in the business of raising funds for environmental activism. They are bombarding Anderson’s office with phone calls and letters in an attempt to give the impression that his proposal has the support of the people.

If you care about the rights of resource industries and property owners, then do what all the environmental groups are doing as you read this: Pick up the phone and call David Anderson at 819-997-1441 and let him know your views. Also, phone your federal member of parliament. You can get your MP’s name and number by calling Elections Canada at 1-800-463-6868. Or cut out this editorial and mail it with your comments to David Anderson, Canada’s Minister of the Environment, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6.

Then get your friends, employees and neighbours to call and write. If the industry does nothing, it may well transpire that it will have nothing left to lose.