Canada's biodiversity under attack, federal-provincial report finds

By Margaret Munro
Montreal Gazette


One of 15 black-footed ferrets released into the Canadian prairies in
Grasslands National Park On September 23, 2010.
Photograph by: Calgary Zoo submitted Photo, Calgary Herald



The most comprehensive report ever on the state of Canada's biodiversity calls for action to ''maintain functioning ecosystems" from B.C.'s forests to the Prairies grasslands to the St. Lawrence River.

The report, Canadian biodiversity: ecosystem status and trends 2010, was quietly posted on the web Friday by the federal, provincial and territorial governments for the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-10) which began Monday in Japan.

Environment Canada, which routinely issues media releases about Minister Jim Prentice's activities and announcements, did not alert the public to the report, which has been years in the making and is the most detailed assessment ever on the status of Canada's landscape, wildlife and wild places.

Environment Canada media officer Mark Johnson says posting such reports on the web "is a normal process, which demonstrates that the Government of Canada is committed to transparency and keeping the public informed on important work being done on conservation."

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