Conclusion

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The debate over how best to protect endangered species in this country is an emotional one because Canadians care deeply about wildlife. Their concern is expressed through the work of hundreds of non-profit organizations that receive the support of thousands of individual Canadians as well as governments and corporations. It is also reflected by existing government initiatives that emphasize co-operation with other government agencies and non-profit organizations such as the Committee on the Recovery of Nationally Endangered Wildlife (RENEW).

This largely decentralized approach to protecting wildlife in Canada has been tremendously successful. While we still have a number of species in this country that, for a variety of reasons including natural ones, are in some danger of extinction, there have been no recently recorded extinctions of mammals or birds and the recovery of most species at risk is underway through existing initiatives. Contrary to the rhetoric of the federal government, there are not many species currently "falling through the cracks" of a "patchwork" system. Rather, the patchwork has been an efficient and effective way to direct society's limited resources.

Fortunately, although Canada's human population has expanded, the number of wildlife extinctions has not increased. In addition, many of the threats to wildlife in the past, such as over-hunting and the use of potent pesticides like DDT, have been eliminated. This can, at least in part, be attributed to affluence. As incomes increase, so do concerns about environmental amenities, including wildlife. As a result, people are willing to donate money and time to nature organizations. Corporations, in order to keep their customers happy, put more emphasis on being environmentally responsible.

There are those environmental groups, however, who let emotion overwhelm reality. They "cry wolf" to get attention for their cause and paint a bleak picture of the condition of wildlife in Canada and of Canadians' commitment toward protecting that wildlife. Because they have no faith that the many initiatives by individual people, non-profit organizations and corporations will be enough to provide a reasonable degree of protection for Canada's wildlife, they insist that more centralized government intervention is necessary. They are so convinced that this heavy-handed approach to conservation is necessary that they are unwilling to consider the possibility that this may not be the best way to protect wildlife although, as the evidence in the United States suggests, it may actually further threaten them. Besides these extreme environmental groups' "crying wolf," the media that get more attention when they report a crisis, politicians and corporations anxious to appear "green," and bureaucrats with incentives to expand their empires increase the support for more command-and-control-style regulation.

Unfortunately, the command-and-control approach to wildlife protection fails to be a reasonable solution. First, the adversarial approach that it takes with landowners will surely be a threat to species. Many ranchers and farmers in this country, for example, have already expressed their distaste for the legislative approach. They work closely with the land and are, for the most part, very good stewards. Many of them find the legislation insulting and wonder whether it will threaten their property rights. Thus, a centralized approach may actually threaten the work of non-profit organizations working to preserve habitat and wildlife, first, because landowners may not want to co-operate with these groups for fear of losing the use of their land and, second, because, as the government devotes more resources towards conservation, they may "crowd out" private giving. That is, people will be less willing to make donations to non-profit charities when more of their tax dollars are going towards conservation through government initiatives.

Finally, it is difficult to imagine that dollars spent on inventing new regulations to support the legislation, on monitoring and enforcing those new regulations is the best way to spend resources to protect wildlife. It is undoubtedly better to put those resources directly into habitat protection or innovative programs that work with landowners to improve their land management practices. Indeed, the plethora of private initiatives that exist have to be taken as a reflection of the will of Canadians to protect their wildlife without a centralized government having to do it for them.

Policy recommendations

1. Avoid "crying wolf"

   Create a list of species at risk in Canada that is free of inflation. Such a list should not contain species at the northernmost part of their range in Canada that are plentiful in other countries, or subspecies, distinct populations, extinctions or populations that are vulnerable. These groups should be on separate lists.

2. COSEWIC should remain scientific in its approach

   The Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada should be composed of independent scientists only. It should not include representatives from environmental organizations who believe that lobbying for more regulation is the best approach to species protection; this is a clear conflict of interest. It should also not include bureaucrats associated with Environment Canada or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Again, the potential incentives for the corruption of sound science are too great.

3. The list of species at risk should give the likely cause of the species' decline and indicate the reliability of the listing

   COSEWIC's annual report should include a discussion of why particular species are considered at risk and how certain these estimates are. In some cases, there is considerable uncertainty about the size and range of populations of species at risk. The extent of this uncertainty should be indicated in each listing. This is important because in both the United States and Canada, species have been listed and then delisted when it is discovered that populations of the species at risk are higher than originally suspected. In some cases in the United States, this has caused serious financial hardship to landowners and industries without any benefit to society. Since COSEWIC completes status reports for each species on its list, including this information should not be difficult.

4. Collection of data on conservation carried out by non-profit organizations and individuals

   Non-profit organizations have a variety of approaches to protecting wildlife but there is little information available about their activities. For example, there is no aggregated information available about the total number of groups working to protect wildlife in Canada, the amount of land and number of species that these groups protect or the success of their conservation efforts.

5. Reduce tax burdens

   Reduce tax burdens so that individual Canadians will have more after-tax dollars to support non-profit organizations. One important point that is often neglected in the debate about whether or not to introduce legislation is how it would affect private conservation groups. The higher tax rates needed to support additional government activity can "crowd out" private donations to non-profit groups.

   When high-income families perceive themselves to be unfairly overtaxed, they (1) have less disposable income left to give, and (2) do not feel so generous. People may also react to punitive tax brackets in ways that reduce their ability to be generous--one spouse drops out of the labor force, the other retires early (Reynolds 1997: 24).

   Evidence suggests that lowering marginal tax rates, on the other hand, encourages contributions.

6. Abandon the legislative approach

   This approach has failed in the United States; we do not need to import that failure to Canada. Even with modifications that include compensating landowners, this approach is a recipe for disaster.

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