Peace in our time, habitat forever?

Yet the conservation movement persists in the strategy of designating land as “forever” protected in the face of runaway growth, creating an illusion of achievement proven false by historical trends. Nature Conservancy Canada boasts that it has saved two million acres but many times that has been developed more intensively outside park boundaries where a good number of endangered wildlife actually live, while Ducks Unlimited Canada boasts that it has conserved nearly one million acres of wetlands in Ontario though 60-90 per cent of wetlands in the more populated southern region of the province has been lost.

The longer these organisations have been in business, the greater the net loss in habitat. Imagine if the Coast Guard bragged about saving ten boaters this year but neglected to mention the 100 who had drowned.

In their 2005 Report, the National Refuge Association of the US revealed that “many endangered or threatened species are not even found on the refuges, including 40 per cent of all listed mammals, birds and reptiles, 75 per cent of listed fish and amphibians, and about 85 per cent of listed plants and invertebrates.” The area outside refuges will be more and more a killing zone. Much of the 40 per cent of all housing units that will exist in America in 2030 will be built on previously open lands, and “lands within five miles of fully 78 per cent of the western refuges have been mined, drilled, offered to or otherwise controlled by mining, oil and gas interests.”

And nearly 40 per cent of refuges have greater than 50 per cent human-impacted landscape within 5 to 40 miles. Particularly vulnerable are the 20 per cent of wildlife refuges smaller than 1,000 acres, or refuges fragmented into small parcels that can’t adequately defend the ranges of the species that need protection. Wildlife conservation behind paper fortresses is a pathetically deficient stratagem. The conservation movement needs to go on the offensive and attack the root cause of habitat loss.

Moreover, aside from their displacement behaviour, that is, their focus on saving habitat rather than fighting development, the business model of conservation organisations is flawed. To protect nature reserves, expensive on-going maintenance is needed. Ducks Unlimited Canada, for example, requires $3.5 billion to restore over 700,00 acres of wetland to sustain waterfowl populations, not including the many needs to replace water control structures, mend beaver fences and repair dykes, while Nature Conservancy requires park wardens, maintenance crew and legal funds to prosecute park violators.

All this assumes a “growing” economy to supply funding to fight the consequences of growth, funding that must come from government revenues and the portfolios of private donors. Ironically, this growth drives up the value of adjacent land making the protected land more attractive to developers and more costly to pay taxes for. Quite the bind.

The hard truth is, as long as economic growth runs loose like a mad dog, no land of any size is safe from predation. Growing populations and growing development envelop pristine sanctuaries, reach a tipping point, and then the resources that these sanctuaries are harbouring will be ravaged. Just as the BC government set aside this Mountain Cariboo habitat, the US Congress once established Yosemite National Park. When mining and logging interests came knocking at the door, with the stroke of a pen, Congress released 1,400 hectares of the precious park for their exploitation. Any wildlife sanctuary made by law can be unmade made by law. Overnight.

One day soon, in a country near you, when the price of oil is in triple digits and power down, there will be a desperate and ruthless scramble to use up resources wherever they can be found, even behind the sacrosanct walls of conservation lands. And government will pave the way.

First it was the tiny Sudetenland, then it was Poland and then it was the vast steppes of Russia. Feed a crocodile a morsel and he becomes stronger and bolder, coming back for more and more. The only safety for nature is to slay the beast, not to hide from it within the confines of a National Park. Economic growth must be stopped and a steady state economy instituted. Now.

Until then, remaining wilderness will soon be deemed a luxury.