Earth Day 2001

By Daniel LeBlanc
Sentinelle Petitcodiac Riverkeeper
April 22, 2001

On April 22nd, the world will mark Earth Day, 2001.Three decades of work to foster environmental awareness has produced some of the most ecologically enlightened citizens to inhabit this planet. Timing for this is good, since we are now faced with the most challenging environmental issues this world has ever known.

And what a difference even a decade can have on a planet.

The melting of the arctic ice caps and the glaciers of our national parks, the gradual loss of the world's coral reefs; when did this global warming trouble begin to happen?

More worrying, in whose able hands have we entrusted the responsibility of taking care of this global problem?

I have been fortunate in my lifetime to travel about our great planet, discovering some of its rich natural wonders, like the coral reefs of the Pacific and the Caribbean. As a direct casualty of global warming, coral reefs are disappearing at an alarming rate on our planet. It saddens me to think that I may soon no longer be able to see this underwater paradise, nor will our kids when they grow up.

Here in our picture province, as part of our contribution to the loss of the world's natural legacy, the last decade has seen us deliver yet another beating on New Brunswick's natural inheritance.

Our last remaining large tracks of old growth forest, located in the "remote" Christmas Mountains of central New Brunswick, were hacked to pieces four years ago.

This is at about the same time that New Brunswickers began looking more attentively at a proposal to protect some of this province's unique natural heritage for the sake of present and future generations.

An international agreement signed by the Government of Canada in Rio in 1992, called on this country, its provinces and territories to legally protect at least 12 % of our lands and coastal features from logging, mining and hydro-electrical development, as part of our contribution to protecting world bio-diversity.

While other provinces, like British Columbia (11.4% protected) and Ontario (8.8% protected), eventually acted on repeated public demands to meet this commitment by the year 2000, the Province of New Brunswick to this day is undecided on whether it will set aside a meager 2% to add on the miniscule 1.4% portion of our territory which is currently protected (3.4 % in total if this strategy is approved).

One of the reasons why this protected areas strategy seems so limited in scope is that there are, literally, no longer any tracks of unfragmented wilderness (larger than 25,000 ha.) left to be protected in New Brunswick.

In Canada, no other province has such a desolate record in setting aside protected areas for world bio-diversity than New Brunswick. Internationally, there are dozens of third world countries that, despite the formidable challenges that those societies face, have managed to protect 5 to 10 times more than we have. So what's our excuse in New Brunswick?

Closer to home here on the Petitcodiac, the last decade has seen our favorite causeway bring about the extinction of the first clam species in Canada, the Dwarf wedge mussel.

Along with the disappearance of this little creature of apparently no commercial value, six species of fish that used to migrate to this river system in great numbers were also listed as "officially eliminated" in the last decade, while provincial and federal governments continued to study the issue of restoring our river further.

If this sounds like a depressing story to be telling on Earth Day, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there are few if any environmental success stories to have come out of New Brunswick in the past decades.

Growing up as a teenager in the seventies, I remember hearing wise women and men of this province urging us all to think or do something for "future generations". Good plan that was; too bad no one acted on it then.

The first of these "future generations" has begun arriving on our planet now. And as these kids grow up, they will come to understand that the environmental legacy that they are inheriting is very different from the one that their parents and grandparents received.

Some of them will probably also take part in rescuing and salvaging what is left to be protected of our province's natural heritage, restoring some of the habitats that have been lost, and cleaning up some of the toxic muck left behind by long-past generations.

Earth Day 2001 provides us with an opportunity to reflect once again on what we are doing to protect our planet in New Brunswick, and where we need to go from here.

And anytime soon, don't be surprised if "future generations" of this province feel the urge to ask some tough questions.