U.S. and Canada Seek to Bridge Differences on Wildlife
4/4/97
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
U.S., Canada Seek to Bridge Differences on Wildlife
Accord on Endangered Species Is Among Issues Clinton, Chretien Will
Address Next Week
By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 4 1997; Page A17
The Washington Post
TORONTO, April 3 -- The United States and Canada
are expected to agree next week on measures to jointly protect endangered
species, addressing complaints from environmental groups that it
makes little sense for one country to shelter animals such as the grizzly
bear that can be legally hunted in the other.
An agreement on "the protection and recovery of wild species" is
nearing completion in advance of a meeting in Washington next week between
President Clinton and Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Canadian and U.S.
officials said today.
Officials said the measure will likely be among a package of
environmental steps scheduled for their approval, including U.S.
commitments to reduce air pollution drifting north into Canada from
American manufacturing plants, and increased efforts to reduce toxic
chemicals in the Great Lakes.
Chretien and an entourage of Canadians arrive in Washington on Monday
for what is expected to be three days of upbeat meetings led by two
politicians who, in the words of one U.S. official, "play golf together
and can banter."
Other items on the agenda include discussion of international
matters, such as NATO enlargement, on which Canada and the United States
typically agree; work on such logistical matters as speeding the shipment
of goods across the two nations' increasingly busy border; and,
inevitably, some wrangling over the few divisive issues, notably Cuban
trade policy.
U.S. environmental groups have been urging the Clinton administration
to raise the endangered species issue with Canada, which is debating its
first endangered species law. Officials said today that the two countries
should have a cooperative arrangement ready for Clinton and Chretien to
sign.
"We have species that cross the border," said Roger White, a
spokesman for Canada's environment minister. "We wish to work
cooperatively to protect and conserve them."
What the agreement will mean in practice is uncertain. White said
that, at the least, it will allow U.S. and Canadian regulators to work
more closely in monitoring the fate of species whose habitat straddles the
border, as many do.
Environmentalists say further measures may be needed, particularly as
Canada moves toward passage of an endangered species bill they feel
is deficient.
Canada's lack of an endangered species law has been a persistent sore
point for environmentalists here. The United States enacted a federal law
on the issue in 1973, but the vastness of Canada's wilderness and its
comparative lack of dense development did not produce the same urgency
over the issue.
Instead, the country took a less formal approach, appointing a
committee of scientists to create a list of species at risk but offering
no federally sanctioned protections for them.
But the list is now up to 276 and includes "charismatic" species,
such as the wolverine and the burrowing owl, that generate popular support
for protection. In addition, Canada pledged at the Rio Earth Summit in
1992 to enact an endangered species law.
The Chretien government's response to that pledge is pending before
the Canadian Parliament, and environmental groups in both countries argue
that it falls short in a key area: protecting habitat. As written, they
contend, the legislation leaves too much authority over endangered species
in the hands of Canada's provinces and territories. And while
prohibiting harm to individual animals or their specific nesting grounds,
it does not necessarily protect the animal's broader environment.
"This is certainly not the best way to do it," said Catherine Austen,
campaign coordinator of the Canadian Endangered Species Coalition.
Between federal and provincial authorities "it is more a fight over who is
going to watch species go extinct than who is going to spend their budgets
to protect biodiversity."
The coalition is pushing Canada to follow a U.S. model that tightly
restricts development projects that destroy habitat and gives citizens,
environmental groups and others access to the courts to see that the law
is enforced.
Hunting advocates in Canada reject the comparison, saying that some
species have not been depleted here as in the United States and that
Canada therefore should not be expected to adopt similar legislation.
While threatened in the continental United States and treated as a
symbol of disappearing wilderness, for example, grizzly bear populations
are felt to be healthy throughout the Canadian Rockies to the point
where, for a few weeks each year, they are hunted.
The grizzly hunt opened in Alberta this week, with the province planning
to issue 150 permits. Out of that, perhaps a dozen hunters will
actually kill a bear by the season's end in May, said Andy von Busse,
president of the Alberta Fish and Game Association.
"The U.S. model has been very confrontational," von Busse said. "You can
have a set of values, but back them up with what is reality" and don't
apply U.S. standards to a country with far larger amounts of wilderness,
he said.
Canadian environmental officials contend that their current proposals give
them the best of all worlds: basic federal standards, flexibility
for the provinces to tailor their own endangered species programs, the
ability to institute broader habitat protections if necessary and,
now, cooperation with the United States.
"No one is attempting to suggest that habitat is not essential, but it is
clearly not an exclusive feature. . . . This is trying to be very
practical and pragmatic," tailored to Canada's circumstances, said Robert
Slater, Canada's assistant deputy minister for environmental conservation.
"Look at the bottom line on what percentage of Canadian mammals are at
risk or birds are at risk. It is significantly less than a fair
number of other countries," he said, adding that the suggestion that
Canada should impose ever stricter rules in the face of that fact "is sort
of like being a thin man going to a fat man's convention and finding you
had to go on a diet."
c Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company