by Gwen Barlee

Deep in the coastal forests of southwestern British Columbia, a northern spotted owl calls out for its mate. Its call echoes through an isolated stand of old-growth forest but there is no answer for this is the lonely sound of a species nearing extinction.
One hundred years of commercial logging has taken its toll on the spotted owl, decimating the old-growth habitat where it lives. Government scientists now acknowledge that the owl is in critical condition but astoundingly the BC government still allows industrial logging in owl habitat under a provincial “management” plan that has seen the owls’ population decline by more than 70 percent in just a decade. In 2005 just eight pairs of spotted owls were found in all of British Columbia, the only place in Canada in which they occur.
Unfortunately, the sad story of the spotted owl is not an isolated one. Why is this happening? Although BC has the richest and most abundant wildlife of any province in Canada we are one of the few provinces to have no strong, clear endangered species legislation. Instead we rely on a patchwork of weak legislation and voluntary measures that are simply not doing the job. In fact, the provincial government is itself the largest logger of spotted owl habitat, and one of the largest loggers of the endangered mountain caribou habitat, through its timber sales program.
What we need is a made-in-BC endangered species law because we cannot rely on Canada’s recently enacted federal Species at Risk Act. SARA is weak legislation that offers little hope for our endangered wildlife. It only applies to federal lands, which make up less than 5 percent of the land base in BC.
We live in a time where our action, or inaction, will make a tremendous difference to all future generations of human beings and all other species, for all time. Will we leave our children a province with fresh air, clean water and healthy ecosystems? Or will we leave them a province that is biologically impoverished, polluted and unhealthy? The choice is ours to make.

Gwen Barlee is policy director for Western Canada Wilderness Committee www.wildernesscommittee.org
See also www.environmentalleadership.org