Environmental advocates are taking the federal government to court over new rules to protect the habitat of an endangered shorebird species known as the piping plover.
Ecojustice Canada, representing the Federation of Nova Scotia Naturalists and the East Coast Environmental Law Association, filed a lawsuit on Oct. 31 seeking a judicial review of a habitat protection strategy mapped out by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.
“The minister has adopted a ‘bounding box’ approach to critical habitat identification that fails to clearly describe the location or boundaries of plover critical habitat,” the statement reads. “Instead, the amended recovery strategy maps out locations containing critical habitat using grid squares and identifies critical habitat, not as the entirety of each square, but as any areas within those squares that possess certain vaguely described ‘biophysical attributes.
“It leaves huge sections of the beach vulnerable to the activities that we know are harmful to plovers and their habitat, like residential development and pollution and that sort of thing.”“The amended Recovery Strategy does not identify critical habitat to the greatest extent possible, or with any degree of geographic precision,” the statement of claim reads.
They were listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act in 2003, according to the lawsuit. Between 2006 and 2016, the Canadian plover population declined another 30 per cent to 174 breeding pairs.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Environmental group takes federal government to court over rules meant to protect endangered shorebirdEcojustice Canada files lawsuit seeking a judicial review of a habitat protection strategy for endangered piping plover shorebirds
Read more »
Environmental group takes federal government to court over piping plover habitatEnvironmental advocates are taking the federal government to court over new rules to protect the habitat of an endangered shorebird species known as the piping…
Read more »
Environmental group takes federal government to court over piping plover habitatEnvironmental advocates are taking the federal government to court over new rules to protect the habitat of an endangered shorebird species known as the piping…
Read more »
Organizations honoured for environmental commitment
Read more »
Activists throw maple syrup at Emily Carr painting at Vancouver art gallery protestA spokesman for the environmental group Stop Fracking Around said two activists splashed maple syrup on Carr’s painting “Stumps and Sky,” which is on display at the gallery.
Read more »
Opinion: Greenwashing Egypt's human rights record with COP27The COP27 meeting has drawn criticism due to the human rights and environmental records of its host country
Read more »