February 28, 2024 • 55 mins
Hot on the heels of our caribou science conversation with Justina Ray, we turn to the policy side of the equation with Wildlands’ own in-house policy expert on Caribou conservation, Anna Baggio. You’ll hear her unvarnished take on implementation of both the federal Species At Risk Act and Ontario’s Endangered Species Act. In spite of agreements and lofty goals, governments continue to prioritize harmful industrial activities in threatened habitat instead of giving caribou time and space to recover. All is not lost though. Anna shares her passion and drive and how you can make a difference.
Tell your Member of Parliament to protect habitat in Ontario here.
Make sure to check out the show notes on the podcast webpage for more links and helpful resources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Janet Sumner (00:00):
Welcome to the ClearCut.
Hi, I'm Janet Sumner, ExecutiveDirector at Wildlands League.
Kaya Adleman (00:08):
And I'm Kaya Adelman, Carbon Manager at
Wildlands League.
Janet Sumner (00:14):
Wildlands League is a Canadian conservation
organization working onprotecting the natural world.
Kaya Adleman (00:21):
The ClearCut is bringing to you the much needed
conversation on Canadian forestmanagement and how we can better
protect one of Canada's mostimportant ecosystems, as our
forests are reaching a tippingpoint.
Janet Sumner (00:41):
So good afternoon to you, Kaya.
It's been over a week since wehad our interview with Anna and
I've had a few travels betweennow and then, so we're going to
introduce the episode and givepeople a little bit of a
connection to the last episodethat we did For the last couple
of episodes.
(01:01):
We were talking to JustineArray, the head of WCS, the
Wildlife Conservation Society,Canada, and also an expert in
caribou conservation, and shewas reminding us of the Federal
Species at Risk Act, whichrequires the protection of
critical habitat, and thatcaribou habitat has been defined
as more than 65% needs to beundisturbed and only a maximum
(01:28):
of 35% disturbance.
And even at that number, thescience says that it's a 60%
probability of persistence, or,if you flip that around, the
more dangerous is, it's a 40%probability of the caribou not
surviving or not remaining inthat area and being locally
extirpated.
So that's kind of a chillingfact that she left us with, and
(01:53):
now we're moving into thecaribou policy.
Kaya Adleman (01:57):
Right.
So we heard the science and ifyou haven't yet listened to
those two episodes, they're areally good precursor to the
conversation that we had withAnna, so highly recommend that
you check that out and then comeback and check back in with us.
Yeah, so I think it's importantto see how all of that
(02:17):
information that we have aboutcaribou as a species on the
biological side translates intothe policy side and I think, as
you'll find out, as a precursor,we have some laws in place that
don't do a very good job atreflecting what the science says
.
Janet Sumner (02:37):
No, especially when you exempt industries from
those laws that are supposed tobe an implementation of that
federal science.
The other thing that I likeabout this episode is you're
going to hear some fun factsabout the formative careers of
Kaia and Anna, so we get intothat a little bit, which is kind
(02:57):
of fun.
It's nice to know a little bitabout the people that are
working on these issues andtheir very real career
trajectories and where they aretoday.
Kaya Adleman (03:07):
Yeah, some Anna and Kaia lore if you will.
Janet Sumner (03:10):
Yes, absolutely, Kaia.
You and I have been doing thispodcast for I don't know several
months now.
We started in September and westarted thinking about it
probably in August.
We've been putting thistogether and the entire concept
for this was that it was goingto be both you and I talking
(03:30):
about these issues, and I saidone of the important things for
me was to have you on thepodcast with me, because I've
got lots of miles underneath meand a long time on these issues.
But you're new to these issuesand you're young and you've got
your life and your career aheadof you and I mean, you're
(03:54):
another generation from me andare several generations from me
and just being able to bringyour youth and energy into this,
and I'm hoping that this newfeature that we have will
actually bring all thegenerations out and engage them
to be on our podcast.
Can you tell us a little bitabout what we're adding to the
podcast?
Kaya Adleman (04:15):
Yes, so we're actually discussing ways in
which we could make this podcastmore accessible and interactive
for all of our listeners,whatever generation or age you
may fall into.
We realized that there might besome things that we talk about
on here that you might havequestions about, or things that
(04:35):
you would like to have answeredfrom an expert on these issues.
So we've introduced thisfeature to our podcast.
It's called Speak Pipe.
It's up on our website.
You can go to our website,wwwwildlandsleagueorg.
Slash the clear cut and there isa button on there that will
(04:57):
allow you to access the featureand you can record your voice
and ask a question or have acomment or say whatever you want
to say, and you can have thechance to be featured on the
clear cut podcast, which is very, very exciting.
We've had the chance to betatest this feature with some
(05:17):
people, so you might hear someof that sprinkled into this
episode.
So stay tuned and if you likewhat you hear or if you feel
that in the future you have aquestion that comes up, you know
, go to our website, record yourquestion or comment and, you
know, have a chance to be on thepodcast.
Yeah, tell us what you think ofsome of the topics we've talked
(05:37):
about.
Janet Sumner (05:40):
Let us know.
If there's something we shouldbe explaining a little bit
better or you have a differentopinion about, we'd love to hear
those.
We'd also like to hear if youhave an issue that we think we
should feature on the podcast,or perhaps you've got somebody
that you'd really like us tointerview and we'd like to have
that conversation as well.
So if you're listening in onthe podcast, we'd love to hear
from you.
Let us know.
(06:02):
We think it's going to add anew dynamic.
This will have the interviews,as we always do, but we'd love
to hear the voices across thecountry and, in fact, from all
the six continents that we arenow broadcasting to, because
we've got six continents thathave now downloaded the podcast
and we'd love to hear yourquestions.
Maybe you have just even aquestion about Canada's forests
(06:24):
or things like that, and if Kaiand I can't answer it, then
we'll try to find an expert thatcan, and we're going to try and
feature answers to thequestions on each of the
forthcoming podcasts as we roll.
So thanks very much for sendingthose in, and if you do go to
the website,wwwwildlandsleagueorg, slash the
(06:47):
clear cut.
You'll see on the right handside there's actually like a
little button or kind ofsomething that points out and
you get to record your voice.
And that's the other greatthing is we actually get to hear
you ask the question, so thiswill be terrific.
Thanks very much for adding tothe quality of the podcast that
we're doing.
Kaya Adleman (07:07):
Yeah, and for adding to the conversation,
thank you.
Janet Sumner (07:10):
Yeah, looking forward to it.
So today we are very pleased tohave Anna Mazzio, who is the
conservation director forWildlands League, with us, and
we're going to be talking aboutcare of policy.
But and this is where I wantAnna to Tell us all of the great
(07:34):
things about Anna, because Iknow she's a terrific human
being and people are going tojust love her- I'm very excited
that we finally got Anna on thepodcast.
I know it's good, isn't it?
Kaya Adleman (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, everyone's in for a treat.
Janet Sumner (07:46):
I know, I know, and we've encouraged Anna to
speak her mind and prod us andwe may be in for a rough ride.
I don't know, kai, we mighthave to use a team to keep this
under control.
But we'll see, we'll see whereit goes.
And I'll just say for everybodyI've known Anna for 20 years,
so more than 20 years now.
(08:06):
So it's been a very beautifulrelationship and at least on my
part I may be feeling otherwise,but for me it's been a
beautiful relationship ofco-creation and making a
difference in the world.
So, anna, maybe you can givethe audience a little bit about
who you are and some backgroundon you.
Anna Baggio (08:26):
Well, thanks Janet, and thanks Kai, and right back
at you, sumner.
It's been a hell of a ride andhopefully you'll have a few more
turns.
Yeah, so you know it's been agreat privilege to work at
Wildlands League.
I've been here now, for I thinkthis is year 23 for me and,
(08:47):
yeah, it's a bit of a yeah, wow,quite a long time, but I love
the work and I love the peopleand I really care about our
planet and I care about ourenvironment.
And what really gets my juicesgoing is and sometimes people
might be like, where does sheget this fire from?
Or this desire to and I have togive a lot of credit to my
(09:09):
mother.
I have an Irish mother Her nameis Bernadette and you know
she's got a really strong senseof justice and she's passed it
on to me and what I did is Ishe's a retired nurse Irish
mother really cares about herfamily, cares about the planet,
cares about people and reallyshaped me as a person, and so I
(09:32):
thank her for that and also sowhat I've done and kind of how
I've developed my career, isjust take that justice, that
strong sense of justice, andapply it to the environment and
apply it to doing right bypeople and Indigenous peoples
too.
So you know, I have anundergraduate degree in biology
from McMaster University.
So I do, I am trained inscience.
(09:54):
It helps a lot in the work thatwe do to have that background.
Funny enough, I thought I wasgoing to be a doctor.
You know, I went into biologyand I thought I was going to do,
you know, focus on anatomy andphysiology and those kinds of
courses and they kind of weren'tfor me and I had.
One really important experiencewas I was working at a national
(10:17):
park in Georgian Bay, georgianBay Islands National Park.
It's a beautiful area, smallislands, but in a very busy
landscape.
The bay is very busy and I wastracking turtles and they asked
me to track the spotted turtlein the early 90s and back then
it was considered specialconcern in terms of its ranking,
of whether or not it's how introuble it was.
(10:39):
But not a lot of other turtleswere on the list.
There was some, but you know itwasn't as dire as the situation
is today and I was asked totrack these turtles on another
island.
So I would spend every day, getinto a boat and track the
turtles.
I became known as turtle girl Ihad people calling me all over
(10:59):
the bays wanting me to go, move,move turtles, see turtles, look
at snakes, look at MassaSagrada snakes.
And I also want to give a shoutout to the wardens at the
national park because theyreally taught me how to talk to
people outside park boundariesand how to be respectful of
cottage owners and also, like,really open my eyes to what does
(11:20):
it mean?
Our parks aren't big enough andso you have to work with
neighboring landowners, and sothat, for me, was a.
They taught me so much.
I was, I just and they and theydid a wonderful job of speaking
to those land, thoseneighboring landowners, and yeah
.
So I was the turtle girl fortwo years in my early university
years and just really formed meand and and helped shape me
(11:41):
into the, into part of theperson I was and got me going
and yeah.
So, after I spent a couple ofsummers tracking turtles, one
time I had this anatomy classand it was amic master and you
know it was very.
There was only about 15 or 16students could get into this
anatomy class and I justfinished the summer being, you
(12:03):
know, looking like, holding upturtles and being like look how
amazing they are and getting atcottagers and kids to learn
about their education.
Anyways, I go into this anatomyclass and it's all about
learning about the functions ofthe body.
And one week we show up andthere are anise ties, turtles,
on the lab desks for all of usto manipulate.
(12:25):
And at that point I don't thinkI fully appreciated, like, what
was going on in this anatomyclass.
I thought at that, I thought Iwas going to be a doctor and I
thought I was going to, likelearn about the body, and but I
show up in this class and all ofa sudden there are turtles.
They're on their backs andthey're we've cut out the.
Someone's cut out the shells.
The plastron is the lower shellof a turtle.
They've cut that.
We're going to take that off.
(12:46):
We're going to splash water onthe heart and we're going to
learn about the cardiovascularsystem of these turtles.
And I was horrified.
In that moment my whole world'scame crashing down on my heads
and I'm like what am I doing andwhy am I here?
And I went green and my TA saidto me Anna, do you really?
Are you okay?
And at that point I'm like Ijust have to power through this.
And I did.
(13:07):
But I gave up medicine rightfrom that moment on and I
realized that I loved ecologymore than I loved anatomy.
And that's one of the earlyexperiences for me was just that
horrific feeling ofmanipulating turtles on the on
the bench of a McMaster lab.
Yeah, I did.
I did a masters atenvironmental studies at York
(13:27):
university.
Fabulous program gives you alot of leeway to um, let's,
let's just pause there.
Janet Sumner (13:32):
I just I just want to say that was a life altering
experience, right Like that,that, all the course of your
life, the thing about theturtles being on the lab, the
bench of the of the absolutelylike.
Anna Baggio (13:45):
You can't imagine how shocking it is to like have
spent your whole summer and forthose summers back then were
four months right, cause you'rein between your university years
like learning about the turtles, wanting people to care about
turtles, cause they were beingalso run over.
So I had a small project aboutlike counting the number of
turtles that I could see on theroad that were run over on my
(14:06):
weight and to and from work.
It was just it just kind oflike shook me and made me ill
and but at the same time I waslike I have to finish this
course.
And it was.
And then I was like, yeah, Igot to finish this course.
I'm like, okay, I'll finish thecourse, but I'm never doing
that again.
Janet Sumner (14:23):
It's not like a you mean between your heart and
your head.
Anna Baggio (14:28):
It is definitely a crisis and in the moment, and
when you're young, you're,you're kind of thinking you have
to plow through on maybe anolder and I might have a
different response, but ayounger and I was like I think
I've got to just keep going andthen, you know, do the reckoning
after.
Janet Sumner (14:46):
I can kind of imagine what the older Hannah
might do.
There might have been a protestor two, or something would have
happened at the university.
I wanted to look at theendangered species status of
those turtles.
What are you doing?
Yeah, and, and you know I did.
Anna Baggio (15:04):
I did.
I did find my home in fourthyear.
I did some.
I did an ecology project and Igot to look at how much
pesticide use was happening onthe grounds at the university.
So I made it my point to gotalk to the grounds people and
interview them and learn andthey were all great, they were
all forthcoming and that wasawesome.
Knocked that one out of thepark and didn't, didn't feel
(15:26):
like I was sacrificing my valuesand and help just kind of kind
of springboarded me to the next,the next stage.
Janet Sumner (15:36):
I'm going to go back to you, but I just want to
reflect on that, because one ofthe reasons that Kaya is working
with us is she did a universityproject that I found
interesting.
Do you want to mention whatthat was?
Kaya Adleman (15:47):
Yeah, um, so I did an honors thesis at McGill uh,
which is my undergraduate degreein environment and development.
Um, and it's actuallyinteresting, I was working at
this um health nonprofit uh overCOVID.
That was kind of like my summerinternship and it turned into a
(16:09):
longer uh internship that I didthroughout that whole COVID
year of university whereeverything was online and it's
actually so.
My supervisor um at thisorganization she was actually an
animal rights attorney.
That was her background and soshe was in this evidence-based
(16:30):
medicine organization.
Um, that was really interestedin also looking at the director,
was interested in looking atthe links between dietary
patterns and their environmentalfootprints, so that was kind of
like her interest and that waskind of the project that we were
working on with a bunch ofother um doctors and uh
(16:52):
nutrition researchers.
So then kind of the researchthat I was doing there on the
side uh for this kind of overallproject.
Um, we were looking at subsidiesand uh government subsidies in
the U?
S that were going towardsdifferent uh uh agricultural
producers, food producers.
(17:13):
How much money is going towardsum agricultural production in
the US?
It was interesting because Iwould sit in these comment
meetings from all thesedifferent organizations would
come to a government meetingabout what should the government
nutrition guidelines be, forinstance, there would be all of
these lobbyists from the foodand beverage industry saying we
(17:38):
did this side research that saysthat soda in moderation is
actually really good for you.
We think soda should beincluded in the federal
government guidelines.
That got me interested inagricultural subsidies with an
(17:58):
environmental lens, because I'vealways been interested in
environmental issues.
I ended up looking atagricultural consolidation,
which is a huge theme in the US,huge economic trend in the US
and also in Canada, where farmsare getting larger and larger
but the number of farms, so thenumber of businesses, are
(18:21):
becoming smaller and smaller.
So we have these hugeagricultural producers that are
being consolidated into thesecooperatives.
They are receiving huge amountsof government subsidies because
the agricultural lobby is hugein the United States.
I was looking at the trendbetween those subsidy patterns
and whether larger agriculturalproducers are more likely to
(18:43):
engage in greenwashing behaviors.
So that hadn't been actuallyresearched really before If
there was an index forgreenwashing, how much
greenwashing a company couldparticipate in.
So I had to develop agreenwashing index that took
into account a variety offactors.
Then I had to survey farmers toask questions about whether or
(19:08):
not they were part of anagricultural cooperative which
would be associated with agreenwashing score If they would
like more government subsidiesto actually implement more
sustainable agriculturalinitiatives.
So that was actually veryinteresting work.
A lot of farmers, as it turnsout, don't have email or don't
(19:30):
like responding to email, so alot of the surveying was over
the phone, so I don't think Iended up getting enough survey
responses to make a significantconclusion, but I think it
turned out that the moresubsidies a farm received, the
more likely they were to engagein greenwashing behaviors.
(19:52):
Was what the results of myfindings were, but it was very
interesting.
Anna Baggio (20:00):
How did that shape you?
Kaya Adleman (20:03):
I think it definitely became more
interested or more aware, Ithink, in how governments can
influence economic behaviors andeconomic outcomes and also
production outcomes those aretied to sustainability, have
(20:25):
sustainability implications.
I think it's important thatthere's groups out there that
are drawing awareness or thatare holding governments to
account to better allocatetaxpayer money.
Janet Sumner (20:41):
For me, one of the reasons when I heard about this
work when we were in the hiringprocess was, I mean, maybe that
influenced Kaya.
But what I saw in Kaya was morethis well, you know what?
I'm just going to go find out,I'm going to make it happen, I'm
going to ask questions,construct something and actually
create the model from which wecan actually start to make a
(21:04):
benchmark, this and figure itout.
Is there a relationship?
And so we were asking her to dosome of the same things on
forestry and asking her tofigure out some of these
equations and start this podcast, and so we have needed all of
that skill set for Kaya to beable to go out and just go.
Well, I'm just going to make it.
She's a self-starter, she'sgoing to make it happen, she's
(21:26):
going to find out and she'sgoing to unearth some of the
gems.
And I often say on the podcastthat I show up and Kaya's done
all the work to get everythingready and figure out who
everybody is and all the rest ofit.
So for me, one of the reasons Iwant to start with this
question is because those earlydays really shape you and really
(21:46):
motivate you, and Anna gave alot of credit to her mother and
I would have to say that isabsolutely right.
Her mother is what?
Maybe five foot, maybe five two, and she is a force.
Anna Baggio (21:59):
I mean whenever I met.
Janet Sumner (22:01):
Mama Baggio.
It's been like I get halfquestions I have to answer,
including about my ownsustainability, like how come
you're traveling so much andmaybe you shouldn't do that.
And I get questions throughAnna Like is Janet taking care
of herself?
Like Mama Baggio is a force,there's no question.
Anna Baggio (22:18):
She's a force and a delight and I think part of
where I get my advocacy fromcertainly my grandfather on my
mother's side is he was a bigadvocate for a United Ireland
and so and he was a politician.
So I think some of that isgenetic and then also just this
sense of you know right andwrong and then that's so.
(22:39):
I think maybe I don't fall thatfar from the tree on that one.
Janet Sumner (22:42):
Yeah, I would say so.
It's very accurate.
Kaya Adleman (22:48):
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You can actually support ourwork by going to our website,
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(23:09):
description below.
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Janet Sumner (23:15):
Okay, so let's dive into this issue.
We wanna get to talking aboutcaribou, but I wanna actually
maybe unpack a little bit of whywe do the work on species at
risk or endangered species andI'm actually because you
mentioned about turtles being aspecies of special concern but I
actually want you to tell mewhat those different categories
(23:36):
are to start with, because formost people they're go well, is
it endangered or not?
And that's the only metric wehave, right, or that's the only,
I guess, understanding of ametric, and you have a much
better understanding of that andwhat it means.
And because endangered speciesor species at risk in Canada
(23:56):
will influence a great deal ofhow we are supposed to operate
on the land base and sometimesit's not influencing it enough.
I would suggest is maybe a lotof times not influencing it
enough, but that is one of theguardrails, if you will species
at risk.
That's supposed to be there forall of the land uses, including
(24:17):
forestry, that we have, and sothat's why we work on species at
risk.
But maybe you could just talk alittle bit about that.
Anna Baggio (24:25):
So historically we have been really poor at taking
care of wildlife in Canada andsome people get confused and
they think well, if deer aredoing okay, then doesn't that
mean everything's doing okay?
Like, people get confused aboutthe different parts of our
biodiversity basket and somespecies just have very specific
(24:50):
needs and habitat needs orrequirements.
And when they start to dopoorly, scientists can measure
that and you start to go oh,this species is not reproducing
enough, this species has losthabitat and we have a bit of a
scale.
So scientists rely on a scaleof threat, threaten-ness or
endangered-ness, I guess youwanna call it and the first
(25:12):
warning sign is special concerns.
So the minute you start tocrawl up the ladder and
something isn't going right foryou like maybe you rely on a lot
of water and your habitat is,there's a lot of pollution
coming into that water or it'sbeing drained Sometimes that's
so you might be a species ofspecial concern.
That initial one means we needto start paying attention to you
(25:35):
because you're in trouble, butit doesn't necessarily offer
habitat protection at that stage.
So it's kind of like a warningsign.
This is a species that'sstarting to be in trouble.
We need to pay attention as thesituation gets more dire.
Then you then go up the ladderand then threatened is the next
stage, and there are metricsassociated with what's your
(25:55):
threatened level, related to howmany are reproducing over how
many generations.
And part of the threatenedlevel is if we don't act now,
this species will soon becomeendangered.
And then endangered is the nextlevel up, and then that's when
the red lights should be goingoff and it should be like holy
cow for fire.
(26:15):
You know, fire alarm.
Here we need to take actionbecause this species is perhaps
hanging on, is right on theprecipice, and for those species
it's absolutely critical thatwe address what their specific
needs are.
And if it's habitat, we need toaddress the habitat.
If it's, you know, are theybeing collected?
We need to make sure thatstopped.
Are they being hunted?
Is it pollution?
(26:36):
Is it contamination?
Whatever it is, that's wherethese plants come in and you
tailor to the needs of thespecies.
And then, of course, the laststage and you want no species to
get there is extirpation, andthat means they no longer exist
in the wild in Canada, and wedon't want species to get there.
And so we have this list andit's a warning sign for us, as
(27:00):
Canadians to, and certainly wehave.
We have another list in Ontario,that kind of mimics the
national one about what speciesare doing in Ontario, and so the
challenge for us is that weneed to pay attention and that
the law is supposed to be thelast line of defense for these
species.
The Endangered Species Act issupposed to be the last line of
(27:20):
defense because all the otherpieces of legislation have
failed, and all those otherpieces of legislation are called
resource statutes, which meanswe want to log the forest, we
want to drain wetland, we wantto build a road, we want to dam
a river, and then we're going tomitigate our impacts hopefully,
maybe, but that's it.
(27:41):
It's like a mitigation standardin those pieces of legislation,
and what we've learned overmany years is that it doesn't
work.
Species still, especially thesespecies, at risk.
They fall through the cracks,and that's why we needed an
Endangered Species Act thatwould be tailored to protecting
these species and giving them achance at survival and thriving.
Janet Sumner (28:05):
So you said it works as an early warning system
.
How do Canadians get that earlywarning?
Like if you're, you know you'renot following the science like
does, like we got daily warningsabout the pandemic and you know
it was pretty clear where wewere.
(28:26):
But what happens with thespecies at risk?
Are we this early warning?
How is it supposed to happen?
Kaya Adleman (28:34):
Are we warned?
Anna Baggio (28:37):
We are warned and I think we could we could be
warned in a better way.
For sure, it also depends ondoes the government really want
us to be warned about them?
So I think that's a bit of aseparate question.
But scientists have a processby which they evaluate species
and species health and thenreport on it, and they also are
very they're getting much betterat also working with indigenous
(28:58):
peoples and incorporatingindigenous knowledge too.
So it's not just the best ofWestern science.
And so there is supposed to bea publication of lists, right?
So you're supposed to havethese lists published every year
.
You know updated lists, andthen there's supposed to be
recovery strategies.
These things may not necessarilybe made public.
Like you know, you don't godown to the corner store and be
(29:21):
like hey, who's on the list thisweek?
You know you.
You have to go and look for itonline and you may.
You know your first encounteras a member of the public.
You may encounter that aspecies is in trouble.
For example, if you see, ifyou're in a pond and it supports
blanding turtles, you might seea sign that says no fishing
because you don't want to impactthe blanding's turtle.
So that might be one of yourfirst encounters of a endangered
(29:43):
species, or if you're at yourfavorite park and it says, you
know, careful, there's somehabitat here for snake, or you
know fish or a bird, that mightbe how you start to learn about
these endangered species.
And certainly if you're afarmer, maybe your farm fields
overlap with an endangeredspecies and you're doing
everything you can to give themspace to survive and then maybe
(30:07):
have your farm operate as well.
So those are some of the entrypoints.
And then you know groups likeours try and get the word out.
So we talk to citizens.
You know, if you're, if this issomething you're interested in,
you can find a lot about itonline.
I think we can do a lot of.
We can do a much better job ofit, because not that we
necessarily care about a singlespecies Like we're not I don't
(30:28):
want this to be like we have afetish about a particular
species, but sometimes they meansomething.
Their health means something tous, and so in the case of the
boreal caribou, it's anindicator of a healthy boreal
forest, and so it tells us thatthere's something not right in
the way that we're managing theboreal forest, and so we have to
look for these indicators andour biodiversity.
(30:50):
And so this is the phrase thatpeople use, and if you haven't
heard it before, it's just shortfor biological diversity.
It's the sum of all life onearth, whether it's, you know,
very small or very big, and allthe ecosystems that come
together.
That's our biodiversity, andit's central to who, to us as
living, as human beings, and wedon't know that, and governments
tend to not tell us that, andso those are some of the things,
(31:14):
some of the, some of the waysthat you know we can learn about
it, but certainly there's a lotmore we can do better on.
Janet Sumner (31:22):
Yeah, and I'm maybe going to make a
distinction here, like thespecies at risk act is the
federal legislation and then inOntario we have the Endangered
Species Act and differentprovinces have different pieces
of legislation and some don'thave any endangered species
legislation but the FederalSpecies at Risk Act, as you said
(31:44):
, there's a group of scientiststhat grade.
You know where differentspecies are, and many people in
Southern Ontario and acrossCanada will be concerned about
the monarch monarch butterfly.
It's one of the species that ischarismatic.
People love it.
You know, you see themigrations and you just you're
kind of in awe of how far theyfly and how beautiful they are
(32:07):
and things like that.
And we've seen them bedisappearing over the last few
decades and so people areactually now trying to bring
them back, plant milkweeds etcetera, because there's pretty
active campaigns on that.
But you mentioned the borealcaribou and I know that you're
not a boreal woodland caribouscientist but from your
(32:27):
perspective, can you just tellus why, for example, wildlands
League cares about borealwoodland caribou?
Anna Baggio (32:37):
Yeah.
So boreal caribou this is aniconic animal in Canada
stretches right across thiscountry in the boreal forest and
it relies on healthy, intactforests, unbroken forests, for
as far as the eye can see, onthe scale of millions of
hectares.
That's what it relies on tosurvive and to live, and we
(33:00):
don't do a good job in ourcountry of actually providing it
with habitat.
Our country is so big that Ithink other countries must be
shaking their head going, butyou can't share the land and
leave some habitat alone forboreal caribou.
And we say yes, it's because wethink and I say we, I mean our
(33:22):
leaders insist on handing it allover to industry, and so this.
So our challenge and so why wefocus on it is A it's an
indicator of a healthy borealforest and B we're failing
terribly.
I'm like we know what thespecies needs, the scientists
have told us.
We know what's threatening thespecies and we know what needs
to be done, and so that's whywe're standing up and pounding
(33:43):
the pavement and talking tocommunities and elevating
indigenous voices and makingsure that the best of the
science and the best of thepolicy can be brought to these
discussions.
It is extremely frustrating andit is one of the longest
campaigns that we've worked onand we haven't been successful
yet because we are fighting somevery strong forces strong
(34:06):
forces and well-funded forcesthat represent the interests of
industry and they have shapedpolicy, including in Danger
Species Act legislation andpolicy, and so we're struggling
to find a champion within ourprovince in Ontario to leave
some room to share the land.
I mean, the species is on acollision course right now with
(34:29):
industry and the resource sector, because the resource sector
wants all those trees, themining sector wants it for
critical minerals, people wantto build roads, people want to
have transmission lines.
All that is carving up thehabitat, fragmenting the habitat
, destroying the habitat,degrading the habitat.
And so we keep fighting becausewe think there's a better way
and we're not anti-development,we're not trying to shut down
(34:51):
industry all over the place.
We're saying we need to leavesome space and leave them alone
and give them a chance.
And we can do that.
We just need some politicalwill and that's where we come in
pound that beat, hit that drumand hopefully create some
conditions where we can getconservation.
Hello.
Janet Sumner (35:08):
Phil Goodwin.
Here I have a question.
Well, was Algonquin Parkoriginally created as an area of
protection and conservation, orwas it an area for logging?
Dave Pearce (35:26):
Hello Wildlands League.
It's Dave Pierce, Senior ForestConservation Manager at
Wildlands League, and I'mresponding to a question on the
clear cut by Phil Goodwinwhether Algonquin Park was
established for forestry or toprotect against forestry.
And I'm looking actually at theFriends of Algonquin Park
website.
(35:46):
And Algonquin was actuallyestablished in 1893 as a
response to the Royal Commissionreport and recommendation that
oh and now, park should beestablished to maintain water
supply.
It's the head.
Algonquin is the headwaters ofmany water systems flowing into
the Ottawa River on the one sideand Georgia Bay on the other,
(36:08):
predominantly.
And it's the headwaters.
And so they were concernedabout farming in particular
encroaching on these headwatersand they knew the erosion and
the impact that farming had onwater supply.
So they were anxious toconserve the forest, but also
for the preservation of aprimeval forest.
And what they meant by primevalat that time.
(36:31):
I don't know if it's what weenvision now as sort of
untouched, but I know that theyactually did want to manage the
forest for forestry purposes andto continue logging there.
One of the other purposes,according to the commissioners,
was the protection of birds andanimals.
(36:52):
Again, what kinds of birds andwhat kinds of animals and what
kind of protection.
We know that the Rangers inAlgonquin at the beginning and
for the first few decades wouldshoot wolves.
They'd shoot loons because thewolves ate the deer and they
actually harvested deer and sentthem out during World War I and
maybe in World War II as well,but definitely World War I they
(37:14):
harvested deer, sent them downto the city for food,
supplemental food, and wewouldn't allow that in a park
these days.
So the protection of animals andprimeval forests that they
envisioned at that time I thinkis very different than what we
consider now and we think aboutecological integrity and then
need to have a more holisticsense of protection.
The commission also envisioneda field for forestry experiments
(37:40):
, a place of health resort.
We know there are many hotelsopened up during that time.
People mostly came by train upuntil the 1930s when the
highways was put in, and thebeneficial effects on climate.
It's interesting they had thatvision.
I don't know what that meant,whether they envisioned climate
changes and the way we do now.
(38:01):
I don't think so.
I don't think they wereexperiencing those impacts, but
probably thinking about the rolethat trees had in shading and
transpiration and coolingeffective trees and, of course,
on the water system.
I think the vision was verydifferent now and the vision for
protected areas has evolved sothat ecological integrity is the
(38:26):
primary purpose of protectedareas in Ontario by law
no-transcript Provincial Parksand Conservation Reserves Act
and in our understanding of that, it shouldn't include
commercial forestry, becausethat is not a purpose that
promotes ecological integrity,which is the full flourishing
and health of the ecosystem.
So those are my two thoughts.
(38:49):
So, although Algonquin wasn'tfounded to keep out forestry of
the day of the 1890s, itdefinitely should function that
way now.
Kaya Adleman (39:04):
I'm just curious about do you know, like when the
species at risk act, when thatcame into law, and was there
like an optimism about it?
Or was the way that it workedwhen it was first enacted
different than than it is now,or like I don't know?
Can you speak to maybe like thehistory about it a little bit?
Anna Baggio (39:24):
So the federal one, I believe what came into came
came into force around 2002,2003, and there was a lot of
optimism around that one.
The provincial one, we actuallyhad a bird's eye view on
because we helped to bring it in, because we had seen the
failure up until in, you know,throughout his history, of the
(39:47):
its predecessor, and so wesupport there was an expert
group you know we were.
We were some of the groups onthe outside, you know, calling
for changes, supporting these.
Really thoughtful, like smartpeople got around a table and
really and gave the governmentsome great advice on how to have
a new endangered species act inOntario and they did it and
(40:08):
they had multi-party support inthe legislature and it passed in
2007 and it was considered thegold standard in North America.
It was.
It was the optimism was waslike we were like wow, here's a
government, they've done theright thing we are going to do.
We're finally going to givethese species at risk some
habitat protection.
Because the whole point of thislegislation was we are not
(40:31):
going to just permit industryeverywhere.
We were going to have thepresumption of protection.
We were going to finally givethese species protection and
that was going to be our default, that we were actually going to
protect first.
And Then implementation happenedand and you know, we started
off.
We started off in the first fewyears going okay, I think we
(40:55):
can do this, I think it's gonnawork.
And then there was this graceperiod where a whole bunch of
species didn't get habitatprotection right away, but then
the five-year anniversary kickedin and at that five-year
anniversary, the rest of thatlist was gonna get habitat
protection.
And what happened on thefive-year anniversary, when all
those species were supposed toget habitat protection,
including boreal caribou, wasthe government brought in
(41:16):
sweeping Exemptions, regulatoryexemptions that basically took
loopholes and what we'resupposed to be like flexibility
mechanisms for you know, tinylittle things, little projects
that were gonna be harmful.
But if you did it in a smartway and created an overall
benefit, we would have this moremodernized, thoughtful approach
.
And they just took theseexemptions and went nope, we're
(41:38):
gonna ram through these, thesein these, these industries, and
give them these exemptions fromactually protecting habitat or
not being held to account onharming and harassing species.
And it's just gotten worse andworse since then.
Janet Sumner (41:51):
So you know language now is pay to slay
right.
Anna Baggio (41:56):
It's like pay to slay.
Janet Sumner (41:58):
I mean you can pay to get a permit to go ahead
with an activity.
So if, even if you know thatit's going to destroy habitat,
you can get a permit or anexemption basically to go ahead
and destroy that habitat andthat says a you pay a fee to
basically be allowed to go anddestroy the habitat.
Kaya Adleman (42:17):
Yeah, that's a horrifying scenario and sorry
when you got it.
When you initially said pay toslay like, my mind was like pay
to slay like.
Anna Baggio (42:30):
And that's just one of the things that this most
recent provincial government hasbrought in.
Like you know, so many of us,when our endangered species
legislation came in and we saidit was the gold standard of
North America, we had thesethoughtful mechanisms, these
flexibility mechanisms that wethought were going to be used
sparingly.
And this government, this mostrecent government, basically
(42:50):
Through that right out thewindow and said no, we're gonna
drive whole industries throughthese exemptions.
So now we have the entireforest industry Exempted from
protecting and recoveringspecies at risk, the entire
forest industry.
Like how, how can you even havea myth of sustainability if
your entire industry Isn't evenbeing asked to protect and
(43:14):
recover species at risk?
And then you add in the otherindustries.
You've got the earlyexploration industry.
Again, they've got a permanentexemption.
You've got, I mean, almost allthe industries have been
exempted.
There's only a handful thataren't.
And the presumption ofprotection has been flipped
entirely on its head.
And now it's the presumption of.
Everything goes ahead and wejust pretend and we just
(43:35):
mitigate and we just kill themless.
And so for me, this act is likebeen completely gutted and it's
not the endangered species act.
I'm like it's the we kill themless act.
Really.
That's what this is, and so I'ma bit at a loss at where we go
now, and so we can talk a littlebit more about some of our
(43:58):
options.
But yeah, it's like completelydisheartening.
Janet Sumner (44:02):
Yeah.
Kaya Adleman (44:03):
We're slaying, but we're not slaying.
Janet Sumner (44:06):
Yeah, yeah, we're not slaying the issue, we're
slaying the species totallyunder the name of saving the
species.
Anna Baggio (44:15):
That's the best part.
Janet Sumner (44:16):
Yeah, I know so.
Kaya Adleman (44:22):
Janet, has there been any exciting updates in the
podcast that we should tell ourlisteners about?
Janet Sumner (44:29):
Well, what's really fun is that I was
checking the numbers today andthis is actually before the
publication of our latestepisode.
So between last week and thisweek We've hit 3,000 downloads.
That's a nice little, you know,bump in the numbers for us, and
thank you to everybody aroundthe world who's listening in on
(44:52):
the podcast, downloading theepisodes and Making us very
happy that these are gettinglistened to 3000 so far and
we're still going it makes mefeel so much better that we're
not just speaking into the void.
Kaya Adleman (45:06):
So thank you, thank you for downloading and
listening to the podcast.
And if you have downloaded thepodcast and listen to the
podcast and you want to Showyour love a little bit more, you
can buy our merch.
You know we have.
If you go on to our website,wwwwildlandsleagueorg, we have a
(45:28):
shop and we have some really,really cool Schwag, as Janet
says, to buy.
There's we both have thesweatshirts and there's a mug.
You know there's lots of cool,clear-cut things to choose from.
Janet Sumner (45:43):
So yeah, what happened to that picture?
We took a picture of the two ofus.
Is it?
Have we loaded it up?
Is it somewhere?
Kaya Adleman (45:50):
I've heard that it's somewhere in the Social
media post churning machine, somaybe, maybe people will get to
see that one to one day.
Janet Sumner (45:59):
I'm not sure it'll make people buy the sweatshirts
, but we certainly like oursweatshirts.
Kaya Adleman (46:04):
Yeah, very very comfy.
Yeah, so comfy, they're verysoft.
Janet Sumner (46:12):
It's.
It's deeply disappointing andRuinous in terms of on an
environmental level, like youtalked about.
I think it's really importantto understand that Wildlands
League is not an individual.
We're not, we're not like aspecies-driven Organization.
We're not out there to, I don'tknow, save the whales or
whatever, and not that that's.
(46:33):
Those aren't good causes.
But the reason that we work onspecies is because they actually
give you information and helpyou Design and decide how you're
managing the land, the, theecosystems.
And so when you see a specieslike caribou that's not doing
well, you know that that meansthe forest isn't doing well, or
(46:56):
the boreal forest is not doingwell.
So then, what do you do?
You actually have to takeaction.
And the Endangered Species Actwas designed and because I sat
on those committees and and Inegotiated many agreements and
and and I would draw this otherdistinction is there were
progressive industries,including some forestry folks,
who were very willing to come upwith solutions and ways that it
(47:18):
could work.
And that, I think, is what is,personally, the most
disheartening.
Because you think it might justbe.
Oh, it's because industries inopposition.
Oh, you know, that's an easyway to frame an issue, but the
reality was we had progressivecompanies who wanted to do some
of the right things.
They tried to work with us,come up with solutions.
(47:40):
We tabled those and those wereBasically wiped aside for the
lowest common denominator ofindustries who basically said no
, we just want an exemption.
We need an industryassociations, we just need an
exemption.
We don't want to be governed bythis and the.
The way they got around thatwas well.
We're already required tomanage for them and, as Anna
(48:00):
rightly pointed out, those weremitigation strategies, so
they're required to manage ormitigate their impacts.
But there's no legal problemwith it.
There's no.
It was going to lose theirlicense because they didn't do
the right thing.
Nobody's going to be requiredto do protection and that's the
and in the case of borealwoodland caribou, that's what's
(48:22):
proven to work is you actuallyneed to protect the habitat.
You can't just mitigate yourway out of the problem.
Anna Baggio (48:28):
You can still go extinct under a mitigation model
.
This is the problem.
Extinction is still thetrajectory.
Janet Sumner (48:36):
We're watching extinction happen.
That's what we're doing.
Kaya Adleman (48:40):
Well, I was just going to say, coming off the
heels of our episode with AmyWestland where we were talking
about joint resource managementplanning, it sounds like or it
seems like mitigation strategiesare very much they fit into the
same bill as the as thepermitting model, just taking a
(49:05):
very individualistic, like pieceby piece approach to lands and
resource extraction.
We're just going to look atthis one specific permit for
this and not look at the wholepicture and how there's kind of
like accumulative effects on thelandscape 100%.
Anna Baggio (49:23):
I mean, they talk a good game and you know Ontario
can talk a really good game.
Oh, we're managing cumulativedisturbance for caribou.
We have a range managementpolicy.
I'm like, give me a break.
I've sat in all those meetings.
I have looked people in the eye, I have poured over materials.
Trevor Hessling in our officeand I, we have gone up and down
(49:46):
and reviewed so many of theseprojects, whether they're
transmission line, forestry,mining projects, and at the end
of the day, none of those thingshold water.
They just don't.
They're not being implementedand they don't make a lick of
difference.
And so if you're looking to askyourself and say, is it
effective, they can point to allthe paper they want, but that
(50:07):
paper is not actually protectinghabitat.
And so you know, for CanadiansI would say yes, be extremely
disappointed and be frustratedbecause your government is not
doing what it needs to do forsomething as important and as
serious as biodiversity.
Janet Sumner (50:28):
That was quite incredible.
That last thing that Anna said.
I think it's a great place toleave this conversation and take
us to the next conversation.
Can you just restate it, justso everybody hears it again,
because it was kind of like amic drop moment for me?
Kaya Adleman (50:47):
Yeah, I mean Anna was saying that Ontario can talk
a really good game about howthey are managing for the
cumulative disturbance forcaribou, but she was saying that
she sat in those stakeholdermeetings and you know, these
plans that they're doing don'thold water and they're
continuously allowing industryto steamroll over the
(51:10):
expectation of critical habitatprotection for caribou.
And Canadians should bedisappointed about that and
frustrated because ourgovernment is not doing what it
needs to do for something asimportant, to quote, and as
serious as biodiversity.
Yeah, bone-chilling.
Janet Sumner (51:29):
Yeah, it is because under the Species at
Risk Act it's required toprotect critical habitat.
And what Ontario is doing ismanaging and moving around the
forestry and where it operates,but it's not doing protection.
(51:51):
It's doing studies, it's goingto do more measuring of
disturbance and of monitoring ofcaribou, but we still don't
have protection.
And it's more than a decade,more than a decade.
So it's not just thisgovernment, it's been more than
a decade and we still haven'tstepped up.
(52:11):
And again, for Wildlands League,this isn't.
I mean, yes, we care aboutcaribou, but the bigger reason
that we work on this is becauseit's about the very health of
the forest that belong to allCanadians, and so doing right by
caribou is doing right by allCanadians and our forests and
(52:32):
having a healthy forest.
And we need that healthy forestfor climate change as well as
for species.
All the climate models arebuilt on a presumption that we
will continue to absorb carbon,and if we are degrading these
systems and not protectingspecies and not having healthy
forests, then those forestscannot absorb carbon at the rate
(52:52):
that the planet needs.
Kaya Adleman (52:56):
Yeah, well said, Janet, and I will just add to
that not that I can add thatmuch more to that, but I will
say that this final quote fromAnna about the frustration of
being in these governmentstakeholder meetings we'll hear
a lot more of that, and I thinkthat's what we should all be
(53:19):
looking forward to in the nextconversation is we get kind of
some insight into what theprocess looks like and how
frustrating it can be.
So stay tuned.
Stay tuned for more.
Janet Sumner (53:32):
If you like listening to the clear cut and
want to keep the content coming,support the show.
It would mean a lot to Kai andI.
The link to do so will be inthe episode description below.
Kaya Adleman (53:43):
You can also become a supporter by going to
our website atwwwwildlandsleagueorg.
Slash the clear cut and alsomake sure to leave us a review
on your favorite podcaststreaming platform.
It would really help thepodcast and stay tuned for new
episodes by following us onsocial media.
That's at Wildlandsleaguecom.
Janet Sumner (54:05):
On Instagram, Twitter and Facebook or LinkedIn
, of course.
Kaya Adleman (54:10):
See you next time.
Dave Pearce (54:14):
Hi, this is a question for Wildlandsleague.
How much does Dave Pierce makeas your senior forest
conservation analyst?
Because it's probably too much.
I've heard him on the radio andhe doesn't seem like he knows
what he's talking about.
I mean not radio, but yourpodcast.
Okay, yeah, if you can answerthat, that would be great.
Janet Sumner (54:37):
That was Dave calling him with a sample
question.
I'm not sure that that's reallywhat Dave intended, but thanks,
Dave.
That was pretty funny.
Kai, what do you think?
Should we broadcast his salaryand then give him a pay
reduction?
Kaya Adleman (54:51):
Yeah, I think we should actually ask our
listeners.
We should give them a poll andlet them vote on what he should
be paid.
Janet Sumner (54:59):
Yeah, no, that's great.
Thanks, Dave, for the chuckle.
Welcome to the ClearCut.
Hi, I'm Janet Sumner, ExecutiveDirector at Wildlands League.
Kaya Adleman (00:08):
And I'm Kaya Adelman, Carbon Manager at
Wildlands League.
Janet Sumner (00:14):
Wildlands League is a Canadian conservation
organization working onprotecting the natural world.
Kaya Adleman (00:21):
The ClearCut is bringing to you the much needed
conversation on Canadian forestmanagement and how we can better
protect one of Canada's mostimportant ecosystems, as our
forests are reaching a tippingpoint.
Janet Sumner (00:41):
So good afternoon to you, Kaya.
It's been over a week since wehad our interview with Anna and
I've had a few travels betweennow and then, so we're going to
introduce the episode and givepeople a little bit of a
connection to the last episodethat we did For the last couple
of episodes.
(01:01):
We were talking to JustineArray, the head of WCS, the
Wildlife Conservation Society,Canada, and also an expert in
caribou conservation, and shewas reminding us of the Federal
Species at Risk Act, whichrequires the protection of
critical habitat, and thatcaribou habitat has been defined
as more than 65% needs to beundisturbed and only a maximum
(01:28):
of 35% disturbance.
And even at that number, thescience says that it's a 60%
probability of persistence, or,if you flip that around, the
more dangerous is, it's a 40%probability of the caribou not
surviving or not remaining inthat area and being locally
extirpated.
So that's kind of a chillingfact that she left us with, and
(01:53):
now we're moving into thecaribou policy.
Kaya Adleman (01:57):
Right.
So we heard the science and ifyou haven't yet listened to
those two episodes, they're areally good precursor to the
conversation that we had withAnna, so highly recommend that
you check that out and then comeback and check back in with us.
Yeah, so I think it's importantto see how all of that
(02:17):
information that we have aboutcaribou as a species on the
biological side translates intothe policy side and I think, as
you'll find out, as a precursor,we have some laws in place that
don't do a very good job atreflecting what the science says
.
Janet Sumner (02:37):
No, especially when you exempt industries from
those laws that are supposed tobe an implementation of that
federal science.
The other thing that I likeabout this episode is you're
going to hear some fun factsabout the formative careers of
Kaia and Anna, so we get intothat a little bit, which is kind
(02:57):
of fun.
It's nice to know a little bitabout the people that are
working on these issues andtheir very real career
trajectories and where they aretoday.
Kaya Adleman (03:07):
Yeah, some Anna and Kaia lore if you will.
Janet Sumner (03:10):
Yes, absolutely, Kaia.
You and I have been doing thispodcast for I don't know several
months now.
We started in September and westarted thinking about it
probably in August.
We've been putting thistogether and the entire concept
for this was that it was goingto be both you and I talking
(03:30):
about these issues, and I saidone of the important things for
me was to have you on thepodcast with me, because I've
got lots of miles underneath meand a long time on these issues.
But you're new to these issuesand you're young and you've got
your life and your career aheadof you and I mean, you're
(03:54):
another generation from me andare several generations from me
and just being able to bringyour youth and energy into this,
and I'm hoping that this newfeature that we have will
actually bring all thegenerations out and engage them
to be on our podcast.
Can you tell us a little bitabout what we're adding to the
podcast?
Kaya Adleman (04:15):
Yes, so we're actually discussing ways in
which we could make this podcastmore accessible and interactive
for all of our listeners,whatever generation or age you
may fall into.
We realized that there might besome things that we talk about
on here that you might havequestions about, or things that
(04:35):
you would like to have answeredfrom an expert on these issues.
So we've introduced thisfeature to our podcast.
It's called Speak Pipe.
It's up on our website.
You can go to our website,wwwwildlandsleagueorg.
Slash the clear cut and there isa button on there that will
(04:57):
allow you to access the featureand you can record your voice
and ask a question or have acomment or say whatever you want
to say, and you can have thechance to be featured on the
clear cut podcast, which is very, very exciting.
We've had the chance to betatest this feature with some
(05:17):
people, so you might hear someof that sprinkled into this
episode.
So stay tuned and if you likewhat you hear or if you feel
that in the future you have aquestion that comes up, you know
, go to our website, record yourquestion or comment and, you
know, have a chance to be on thepodcast.
Yeah, tell us what you think ofsome of the topics we've talked
(05:37):
about.
Janet Sumner (05:40):
Let us know.
If there's something we shouldbe explaining a little bit
better or you have a differentopinion about, we'd love to hear
those.
We'd also like to hear if youhave an issue that we think we
should feature on the podcast,or perhaps you've got somebody
that you'd really like us tointerview and we'd like to have
that conversation as well.
So if you're listening in onthe podcast, we'd love to hear
from you.
Let us know.
(06:02):
We think it's going to add anew dynamic.
This will have the interviews,as we always do, but we'd love
to hear the voices across thecountry and, in fact, from all
the six continents that we arenow broadcasting to, because
we've got six continents thathave now downloaded the podcast
and we'd love to hear yourquestions.
Maybe you have just even aquestion about Canada's forests
(06:24):
or things like that, and if Kaiand I can't answer it, then
we'll try to find an expert thatcan, and we're going to try and
feature answers to thequestions on each of the
forthcoming podcasts as we roll.
So thanks very much for sendingthose in, and if you do go to
the website,wwwwildlandsleagueorg, slash the
(06:47):
clear cut.
You'll see on the right handside there's actually like a
little button or kind ofsomething that points out and
you get to record your voice.
And that's the other greatthing is we actually get to hear
you ask the question, so thiswill be terrific.
Thanks very much for adding tothe quality of the podcast that
we're doing.
Kaya Adleman (07:07):
Yeah, and for adding to the conversation,
thank you.
Janet Sumner (07:10):
Yeah, looking forward to it.
So today we are very pleased tohave Anna Mazzio, who is the
conservation director forWildlands League, with us, and
we're going to be talking aboutcare of policy.
But and this is where I wantAnna to Tell us all of the great
(07:34):
things about Anna, because Iknow she's a terrific human
being and people are going tojust love her- I'm very excited
that we finally got Anna on thepodcast.
I know it's good, isn't it?
Kaya Adleman (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, everyone's in for a treat.
Janet Sumner (07:46):
I know, I know, and we've encouraged Anna to
speak her mind and prod us andwe may be in for a rough ride.
I don't know, kai, we mighthave to use a team to keep this
under control.
But we'll see, we'll see whereit goes.
And I'll just say for everybodyI've known Anna for 20 years,
so more than 20 years now.
(08:06):
So it's been a very beautifulrelationship and at least on my
part I may be feeling otherwise,but for me it's been a
beautiful relationship ofco-creation and making a
difference in the world.
So, anna, maybe you can givethe audience a little bit about
who you are and some backgroundon you.
Anna Baggio (08:26):
Well, thanks Janet, and thanks Kai, and right back
at you, sumner.
It's been a hell of a ride andhopefully you'll have a few more
turns.
Yeah, so you know it's been agreat privilege to work at
Wildlands League.
I've been here now, for I thinkthis is year 23 for me and,
(08:47):
yeah, it's a bit of a yeah, wow,quite a long time, but I love
the work and I love the peopleand I really care about our
planet and I care about ourenvironment.
And what really gets my juicesgoing is and sometimes people
might be like, where does sheget this fire from?
Or this desire to and I have togive a lot of credit to my
(09:09):
mother.
I have an Irish mother Her nameis Bernadette and you know
she's got a really strong senseof justice and she's passed it
on to me and what I did is Ishe's a retired nurse Irish
mother really cares about herfamily, cares about the planet,
cares about people and reallyshaped me as a person, and so I
(09:32):
thank her for that and also sowhat I've done and kind of how
I've developed my career, isjust take that justice, that
strong sense of justice, andapply it to the environment and
apply it to doing right bypeople and Indigenous peoples
too.
So you know, I have anundergraduate degree in biology
from McMaster University.
So I do, I am trained inscience.
(09:54):
It helps a lot in the work thatwe do to have that background.
Funny enough, I thought I wasgoing to be a doctor.
You know, I went into biologyand I thought I was going to do,
you know, focus on anatomy andphysiology and those kinds of
courses and they kind of weren'tfor me and I had.
One really important experiencewas I was working at a national
(10:17):
park in Georgian Bay, georgianBay Islands National Park.
It's a beautiful area, smallislands, but in a very busy
landscape.
The bay is very busy and I wastracking turtles and they asked
me to track the spotted turtlein the early 90s and back then
it was considered specialconcern in terms of its ranking,
of whether or not it's how introuble it was.
(10:39):
But not a lot of other turtleswere on the list.
There was some, but you know itwasn't as dire as the situation
is today and I was asked totrack these turtles on another
island.
So I would spend every day, getinto a boat and track the
turtles.
I became known as turtle girl Ihad people calling me all over
(10:59):
the bays wanting me to go, move,move turtles, see turtles, look
at snakes, look at MassaSagrada snakes.
And I also want to give a shoutout to the wardens at the
national park because theyreally taught me how to talk to
people outside park boundariesand how to be respectful of
cottage owners and also, like,really open my eyes to what does
(11:20):
it mean?
Our parks aren't big enough andso you have to work with
neighboring landowners, and sothat, for me, was a.
They taught me so much.
I was, I just and they and theydid a wonderful job of speaking
to those land, thoseneighboring landowners, and yeah
.
So I was the turtle girl fortwo years in my early university
years and just really formed meand and and helped shape me
(11:41):
into the, into part of theperson I was and got me going
and yeah.
So, after I spent a couple ofsummers tracking turtles, one
time I had this anatomy classand it was amic master and you
know it was very.
There was only about 15 or 16students could get into this
anatomy class and I justfinished the summer being, you
(12:03):
know, looking like, holding upturtles and being like look how
amazing they are and getting atcottagers and kids to learn
about their education.
Anyways, I go into this anatomyclass and it's all about
learning about the functions ofthe body.
And one week we show up andthere are anise ties, turtles,
on the lab desks for all of usto manipulate.
(12:25):
And at that point I don't thinkI fully appreciated, like, what
was going on in this anatomyclass.
I thought at that, I thought Iwas going to be a doctor and I
thought I was going to, likelearn about the body, and but I
show up in this class and all ofa sudden there are turtles.
They're on their backs andthey're we've cut out the.
Someone's cut out the shells.
The plastron is the lower shellof a turtle.
They've cut that.
We're going to take that off.
(12:46):
We're going to splash water onthe heart and we're going to
learn about the cardiovascularsystem of these turtles.
And I was horrified.
In that moment my whole world'scame crashing down on my heads
and I'm like what am I doing andwhy am I here?
And I went green and my TA saidto me Anna, do you really?
Are you okay?
And at that point I'm like Ijust have to power through this.
And I did.
(13:07):
But I gave up medicine rightfrom that moment on and I
realized that I loved ecologymore than I loved anatomy.
And that's one of the earlyexperiences for me was just that
horrific feeling ofmanipulating turtles on the on
the bench of a McMaster lab.
Yeah, I did.
I did a masters atenvironmental studies at York
(13:27):
university.
Fabulous program gives you alot of leeway to um, let's,
let's just pause there.
Janet Sumner (13:32):
I just I just want to say that was a life altering
experience, right Like that,that, all the course of your
life, the thing about theturtles being on the lab, the
bench of the of the absolutelylike.
Anna Baggio (13:45):
You can't imagine how shocking it is to like have
spent your whole summer and forthose summers back then were
four months right, cause you'rein between your university years
like learning about the turtles, wanting people to care about
turtles, cause they were beingalso run over.
So I had a small project aboutlike counting the number of
turtles that I could see on theroad that were run over on my
(14:06):
weight and to and from work.
It was just it just kind oflike shook me and made me ill
and but at the same time I waslike I have to finish this
course.
And it was.
And then I was like, yeah, Igot to finish this course.
I'm like, okay, I'll finish thecourse, but I'm never doing
that again.
Janet Sumner (14:23):
It's not like a you mean between your heart and
your head.
Anna Baggio (14:28):
It is definitely a crisis and in the moment, and
when you're young, you're,you're kind of thinking you have
to plow through on maybe anolder and I might have a
different response, but ayounger and I was like I think
I've got to just keep going andthen, you know, do the reckoning
after.
Janet Sumner (14:46):
I can kind of imagine what the older Hannah
might do.
There might have been a protestor two, or something would have
happened at the university.
I wanted to look at theendangered species status of
those turtles.
What are you doing?
Yeah, and, and you know I did.
Anna Baggio (15:04):
I did.
I did find my home in fourthyear.
I did some.
I did an ecology project and Igot to look at how much
pesticide use was happening onthe grounds at the university.
So I made it my point to gotalk to the grounds people and
interview them and learn andthey were all great, they were
all forthcoming and that wasawesome.
Knocked that one out of thepark and didn't, didn't feel
(15:26):
like I was sacrificing my valuesand and help just kind of kind
of springboarded me to the next,the next stage.
Janet Sumner (15:36):
I'm going to go back to you, but I just want to
reflect on that, because one ofthe reasons that Kaya is working
with us is she did a universityproject that I found
interesting.
Do you want to mention whatthat was?
Kaya Adleman (15:47):
Yeah, um, so I did an honors thesis at McGill uh,
which is my undergraduate degreein environment and development.
Um, and it's actuallyinteresting, I was working at
this um health nonprofit uh overCOVID.
That was kind of like my summerinternship and it turned into a
(16:09):
longer uh internship that I didthroughout that whole COVID
year of university whereeverything was online and it's
actually so.
My supervisor um at thisorganization she was actually an
animal rights attorney.
That was her background and soshe was in this evidence-based
(16:30):
medicine organization.
Um, that was really interestedin also looking at the director,
was interested in looking atthe links between dietary
patterns and their environmentalfootprints, so that was kind of
like her interest and that waskind of the project that we were
working on with a bunch ofother um doctors and uh
(16:52):
nutrition researchers.
So then kind of the researchthat I was doing there on the
side uh for this kind of overallproject.
Um, we were looking at subsidiesand uh government subsidies in
the U?
S that were going towardsdifferent uh uh agricultural
producers, food producers.
(17:13):
How much money is going towardsum agricultural production in
the US?
It was interesting because Iwould sit in these comment
meetings from all thesedifferent organizations would
come to a government meetingabout what should the government
nutrition guidelines be, forinstance, there would be all of
these lobbyists from the foodand beverage industry saying we
(17:38):
did this side research that saysthat soda in moderation is
actually really good for you.
We think soda should beincluded in the federal
government guidelines.
That got me interested inagricultural subsidies with an
(17:58):
environmental lens, because I'vealways been interested in
environmental issues.
I ended up looking atagricultural consolidation,
which is a huge theme in the US,huge economic trend in the US
and also in Canada, where farmsare getting larger and larger
but the number of farms, so thenumber of businesses, are
(18:21):
becoming smaller and smaller.
So we have these hugeagricultural producers that are
being consolidated into thesecooperatives.
They are receiving huge amountsof government subsidies because
the agricultural lobby is hugein the United States.
I was looking at the trendbetween those subsidy patterns
and whether larger agriculturalproducers are more likely to
(18:43):
engage in greenwashing behaviors.
So that hadn't been actuallyresearched really before If
there was an index forgreenwashing, how much
greenwashing a company couldparticipate in.
So I had to develop agreenwashing index that took
into account a variety offactors.
Then I had to survey farmers toask questions about whether or
(19:08):
not they were part of anagricultural cooperative which
would be associated with agreenwashing score If they would
like more government subsidiesto actually implement more
sustainable agriculturalinitiatives.
So that was actually veryinteresting work.
A lot of farmers, as it turnsout, don't have email or don't
(19:30):
like responding to email, so alot of the surveying was over
the phone, so I don't think Iended up getting enough survey
responses to make a significantconclusion, but I think it
turned out that the moresubsidies a farm received, the
more likely they were to engagein greenwashing behaviors.
(19:52):
Was what the results of myfindings were, but it was very
interesting.
Anna Baggio (20:00):
How did that shape you?
Kaya Adleman (20:03):
I think it definitely became more
interested or more aware, Ithink, in how governments can
influence economic behaviors andeconomic outcomes and also
production outcomes those aretied to sustainability, have
(20:25):
sustainability implications.
I think it's important thatthere's groups out there that
are drawing awareness or thatare holding governments to
account to better allocatetaxpayer money.
Janet Sumner (20:41):
For me, one of the reasons when I heard about this
work when we were in the hiringprocess was, I mean, maybe that
influenced Kaya.
But what I saw in Kaya was morethis well, you know what?
I'm just going to go find out,I'm going to make it happen, I'm
going to ask questions,construct something and actually
create the model from which wecan actually start to make a
(21:04):
benchmark, this and figure itout.
Is there a relationship?
And so we were asking her to dosome of the same things on
forestry and asking her tofigure out some of these
equations and start this podcast, and so we have needed all of
that skill set for Kaya to beable to go out and just go.
Well, I'm just going to make it.
She's a self-starter, she'sgoing to make it happen, she's
(21:26):
going to find out and she'sgoing to unearth some of the
gems.
And I often say on the podcastthat I show up and Kaya's done
all the work to get everythingready and figure out who
everybody is and all the rest ofit.
So for me, one of the reasons Iwant to start with this
question is because those earlydays really shape you and really
(21:46):
motivate you, and Anna gave alot of credit to her mother and
I would have to say that isabsolutely right.
Her mother is what?
Maybe five foot, maybe five two, and she is a force.
Anna Baggio (21:59):
I mean whenever I met.
Janet Sumner (22:01):
Mama Baggio.
It's been like I get halfquestions I have to answer,
including about my ownsustainability, like how come
you're traveling so much andmaybe you shouldn't do that.
And I get questions throughAnna Like is Janet taking care
of herself?
Like Mama Baggio is a force,there's no question.
Anna Baggio (22:18):
She's a force and a delight and I think part of
where I get my advocacy fromcertainly my grandfather on my
mother's side is he was a bigadvocate for a United Ireland
and so and he was a politician.
So I think some of that isgenetic and then also just this
sense of you know right andwrong and then that's so.
(22:39):
I think maybe I don't fall thatfar from the tree on that one.
Janet Sumner (22:42):
Yeah, I would say so.
It's very accurate.
Kaya Adleman (22:48):
Hey, are you liking the clear cut as much as
we like making it?
Your donation helps us bringmore of these important stories
to life.
You can actually support ourwork by going to our website,
wwwwildlandsleekorg.
Slash the clear cut, or you canclick the link in the episode
(23:09):
description below.
Your support means the world tous.
Janet Sumner (23:15):
Okay, so let's dive into this issue.
We wanna get to talking aboutcaribou, but I wanna actually
maybe unpack a little bit of whywe do the work on species at
risk or endangered species andI'm actually because you
mentioned about turtles being aspecies of special concern but I
actually want you to tell mewhat those different categories
(23:36):
are to start with, because formost people they're go well, is
it endangered or not?
And that's the only metric wehave, right, or that's the only,
I guess, understanding of ametric, and you have a much
better understanding of that andwhat it means.
And because endangered speciesor species at risk in Canada
(23:56):
will influence a great deal ofhow we are supposed to operate
on the land base and sometimesit's not influencing it enough.
I would suggest is maybe a lotof times not influencing it
enough, but that is one of theguardrails, if you will species
at risk.
That's supposed to be there forall of the land uses, including
(24:17):
forestry, that we have, and sothat's why we work on species at
risk.
But maybe you could just talk alittle bit about that.
Anna Baggio (24:25):
So historically we have been really poor at taking
care of wildlife in Canada andsome people get confused and
they think well, if deer aredoing okay, then doesn't that
mean everything's doing okay?
Like, people get confused aboutthe different parts of our
biodiversity basket and somespecies just have very specific
(24:50):
needs and habitat needs orrequirements.
And when they start to dopoorly, scientists can measure
that and you start to go oh,this species is not reproducing
enough, this species has losthabitat and we have a bit of a
scale.
So scientists rely on a scaleof threat, threaten-ness or
endangered-ness, I guess youwanna call it and the first
(25:12):
warning sign is special concerns.
So the minute you start tocrawl up the ladder and
something isn't going right foryou like maybe you rely on a lot
of water and your habitat is,there's a lot of pollution
coming into that water or it'sbeing drained Sometimes that's
so you might be a species ofspecial concern.
That initial one means we needto start paying attention to you
(25:35):
because you're in trouble, butit doesn't necessarily offer
habitat protection at that stage.
So it's kind of like a warningsign.
This is a species that'sstarting to be in trouble.
We need to pay attention as thesituation gets more dire.
Then you then go up the ladderand then threatened is the next
stage, and there are metricsassociated with what's your
(25:55):
threatened level, related to howmany are reproducing over how
many generations.
And part of the threatenedlevel is if we don't act now,
this species will soon becomeendangered.
And then endangered is the nextlevel up, and then that's when
the red lights should be goingoff and it should be like holy
cow for fire.
(26:15):
You know, fire alarm.
Here we need to take actionbecause this species is perhaps
hanging on, is right on theprecipice, and for those species
it's absolutely critical thatwe address what their specific
needs are.
And if it's habitat, we need toaddress the habitat.
If it's, you know, are theybeing collected?
We need to make sure thatstopped.
Are they being hunted?
Is it pollution?
(26:36):
Is it contamination?
Whatever it is, that's wherethese plants come in and you
tailor to the needs of thespecies.
And then, of course, the laststage and you want no species to
get there is extirpation, andthat means they no longer exist
in the wild in Canada, and wedon't want species to get there.
And so we have this list andit's a warning sign for us, as
(27:00):
Canadians to, and certainly wehave.
We have another list in Ontario,that kind of mimics the
national one about what speciesare doing in Ontario, and so the
challenge for us is that weneed to pay attention and that
the law is supposed to be thelast line of defense for these
species.
The Endangered Species Act issupposed to be the last line of
(27:20):
defense because all the otherpieces of legislation have
failed, and all those otherpieces of legislation are called
resource statutes, which meanswe want to log the forest, we
want to drain wetland, we wantto build a road, we want to dam
a river, and then we're going tomitigate our impacts hopefully,
maybe, but that's it.
(27:41):
It's like a mitigation standardin those pieces of legislation,
and what we've learned overmany years is that it doesn't
work.
Species still, especially thesespecies, at risk.
They fall through the cracks,and that's why we needed an
Endangered Species Act thatwould be tailored to protecting
these species and giving them achance at survival and thriving.
Janet Sumner (28:05):
So you said it works as an early warning system
.
How do Canadians get that earlywarning?
Like if you're, you know you'renot following the science like
does, like we got daily warningsabout the pandemic and you know
it was pretty clear where wewere.
(28:26):
But what happens with thespecies at risk?
Are we this early warning?
How is it supposed to happen?
Kaya Adleman (28:34):
Are we warned?
Anna Baggio (28:37):
We are warned and I think we could we could be
warned in a better way.
For sure, it also depends ondoes the government really want
us to be warned about them?
So I think that's a bit of aseparate question.
But scientists have a processby which they evaluate species
and species health and thenreport on it, and they also are
very they're getting much betterat also working with indigenous
(28:58):
peoples and incorporatingindigenous knowledge too.
So it's not just the best ofWestern science.
And so there is supposed to bea publication of lists, right?
So you're supposed to havethese lists published every year
.
You know updated lists, andthen there's supposed to be
recovery strategies.
These things may not necessarilybe made public.
Like you know, you don't godown to the corner store and be
(29:21):
like hey, who's on the list thisweek?
You know you.
You have to go and look for itonline and you may.
You know your first encounteras a member of the public.
You may encounter that aspecies is in trouble.
For example, if you see, ifyou're in a pond and it supports
blanding turtles, you might seea sign that says no fishing
because you don't want to impactthe blanding's turtle.
So that might be one of yourfirst encounters of a endangered
(29:43):
species, or if you're at yourfavorite park and it says, you
know, careful, there's somehabitat here for snake, or you
know fish or a bird, that mightbe how you start to learn about
these endangered species.
And certainly if you're afarmer, maybe your farm fields
overlap with an endangeredspecies and you're doing
everything you can to give themspace to survive and then maybe
(30:07):
have your farm operate as well.
So those are some of the entrypoints.
And then you know groups likeours try and get the word out.
So we talk to citizens.
You know, if you're, if this issomething you're interested in,
you can find a lot about itonline.
I think we can do a lot of.
We can do a much better job ofit, because not that we
necessarily care about a singlespecies Like we're not I don't
(30:28):
want this to be like we have afetish about a particular
species, but sometimes they meansomething.
Their health means something tous, and so in the case of the
boreal caribou, it's anindicator of a healthy boreal
forest, and so it tells us thatthere's something not right in
the way that we're managing theboreal forest, and so we have to
look for these indicators andour biodiversity.
(30:50):
And so this is the phrase thatpeople use, and if you haven't
heard it before, it's just shortfor biological diversity.
It's the sum of all life onearth, whether it's, you know,
very small or very big, and allthe ecosystems that come
together.
That's our biodiversity, andit's central to who, to us as
living, as human beings, and wedon't know that, and governments
tend to not tell us that, andso those are some of the things,
(31:14):
some of the, some of the waysthat you know we can learn about
it, but certainly there's a lotmore we can do better on.
Janet Sumner (31:22):
Yeah, and I'm maybe going to make a
distinction here, like thespecies at risk act is the
federal legislation and then inOntario we have the Endangered
Species Act and differentprovinces have different pieces
of legislation and some don'thave any endangered species
legislation but the FederalSpecies at Risk Act, as you said
(31:44):
, there's a group of scientiststhat grade.
You know where differentspecies are, and many people in
Southern Ontario and acrossCanada will be concerned about
the monarch monarch butterfly.
It's one of the species that ischarismatic.
People love it.
You know, you see themigrations and you just you're
kind of in awe of how far theyfly and how beautiful they are
(32:07):
and things like that.
And we've seen them bedisappearing over the last few
decades and so people areactually now trying to bring
them back, plant milkweeds etcetera, because there's pretty
active campaigns on that.
But you mentioned the borealcaribou and I know that you're
not a boreal woodland caribouscientist but from your
(32:27):
perspective, can you just tellus why, for example, wildlands
League cares about borealwoodland caribou?
Anna Baggio (32:37):
Yeah.
So boreal caribou this is aniconic animal in Canada
stretches right across thiscountry in the boreal forest and
it relies on healthy, intactforests, unbroken forests, for
as far as the eye can see, onthe scale of millions of
hectares.
That's what it relies on tosurvive and to live, and we
(33:00):
don't do a good job in ourcountry of actually providing it
with habitat.
Our country is so big that Ithink other countries must be
shaking their head going, butyou can't share the land and
leave some habitat alone forboreal caribou.
And we say yes, it's because wethink and I say we, I mean our
(33:22):
leaders insist on handing it allover to industry, and so this.
So our challenge and so why wefocus on it is A it's an
indicator of a healthy borealforest and B we're failing
terribly.
I'm like we know what thespecies needs, the scientists
have told us.
We know what's threatening thespecies and we know what needs
to be done, and so that's whywe're standing up and pounding
(33:43):
the pavement and talking tocommunities and elevating
indigenous voices and makingsure that the best of the
science and the best of thepolicy can be brought to these
discussions.
It is extremely frustrating andit is one of the longest
campaigns that we've worked onand we haven't been successful
yet because we are fighting somevery strong forces strong
(34:06):
forces and well-funded forcesthat represent the interests of
industry and they have shapedpolicy, including in Danger
Species Act legislation andpolicy, and so we're struggling
to find a champion within ourprovince in Ontario to leave
some room to share the land.
I mean, the species is on acollision course right now with
(34:29):
industry and the resource sector, because the resource sector
wants all those trees, themining sector wants it for
critical minerals, people wantto build roads, people want to
have transmission lines.
All that is carving up thehabitat, fragmenting the habitat
, destroying the habitat,degrading the habitat.
And so we keep fighting becausewe think there's a better way
and we're not anti-development,we're not trying to shut down
(34:51):
industry all over the place.
We're saying we need to leavesome space and leave them alone
and give them a chance.
And we can do that.
We just need some politicalwill and that's where we come in
pound that beat, hit that drumand hopefully create some
conditions where we can getconservation.
Hello.
Janet Sumner (35:08):
Phil Goodwin.
Here I have a question.
Well, was Algonquin Parkoriginally created as an area of
protection and conservation, orwas it an area for logging?
Dave Pearce (35:26):
Hello Wildlands League.
It's Dave Pierce, Senior ForestConservation Manager at
Wildlands League, and I'mresponding to a question on the
clear cut by Phil Goodwinwhether Algonquin Park was
established for forestry or toprotect against forestry.
And I'm looking actually at theFriends of Algonquin Park
website.
(35:46):
And Algonquin was actuallyestablished in 1893 as a
response to the Royal Commissionreport and recommendation that
oh and now, park should beestablished to maintain water
supply.
It's the head.
Algonquin is the headwaters ofmany water systems flowing into
the Ottawa River on the one sideand Georgia Bay on the other,
(36:08):
predominantly.
And it's the headwaters.
And so they were concernedabout farming in particular
encroaching on these headwatersand they knew the erosion and
the impact that farming had onwater supply.
So they were anxious toconserve the forest, but also
for the preservation of aprimeval forest.
And what they meant by primevalat that time.
(36:31):
I don't know if it's what weenvision now as sort of
untouched, but I know that theyactually did want to manage the
forest for forestry purposes andto continue logging there.
One of the other purposes,according to the commissioners,
was the protection of birds andanimals.
(36:52):
Again, what kinds of birds andwhat kinds of animals and what
kind of protection.
We know that the Rangers inAlgonquin at the beginning and
for the first few decades wouldshoot wolves.
They'd shoot loons because thewolves ate the deer and they
actually harvested deer and sentthem out during World War I and
maybe in World War II as well,but definitely World War I they
(37:14):
harvested deer, sent them downto the city for food,
supplemental food, and wewouldn't allow that in a park
these days.
So the protection of animals andprimeval forests that they
envisioned at that time I thinkis very different than what we
consider now and we think aboutecological integrity and then
need to have a more holisticsense of protection.
The commission also envisioneda field for forestry experiments
(37:40):
, a place of health resort.
We know there are many hotelsopened up during that time.
People mostly came by train upuntil the 1930s when the
highways was put in, and thebeneficial effects on climate.
It's interesting they had thatvision.
I don't know what that meant,whether they envisioned climate
changes and the way we do now.
(38:01):
I don't think so.
I don't think they wereexperiencing those impacts, but
probably thinking about the rolethat trees had in shading and
transpiration and coolingeffective trees and, of course,
on the water system.
I think the vision was verydifferent now and the vision for
protected areas has evolved sothat ecological integrity is the
(38:26):
primary purpose of protectedareas in Ontario by law
no-transcript Provincial Parksand Conservation Reserves Act
and in our understanding of that, it shouldn't include
commercial forestry, becausethat is not a purpose that
promotes ecological integrity,which is the full flourishing
and health of the ecosystem.
So those are my two thoughts.
(38:49):
So, although Algonquin wasn'tfounded to keep out forestry of
the day of the 1890s, itdefinitely should function that
way now.
Kaya Adleman (39:04):
I'm just curious about do you know, like when the
species at risk act, when thatcame into law, and was there
like an optimism about it?
Or was the way that it workedwhen it was first enacted
different than than it is now,or like I don't know?
Can you speak to maybe like thehistory about it a little bit?
Anna Baggio (39:24):
So the federal one, I believe what came into came
came into force around 2002,2003, and there was a lot of
optimism around that one.
The provincial one, we actuallyhad a bird's eye view on
because we helped to bring it in, because we had seen the
failure up until in, you know,throughout his history, of the
(39:47):
its predecessor, and so wesupport there was an expert
group you know we were.
We were some of the groups onthe outside, you know, calling
for changes, supporting these.
Really thoughtful, like smartpeople got around a table and
really and gave the governmentsome great advice on how to have
a new endangered species act inOntario and they did it and
(40:08):
they had multi-party support inthe legislature and it passed in
2007 and it was considered thegold standard in North America.
It was.
It was the optimism was waslike we were like wow, here's a
government, they've done theright thing we are going to do.
We're finally going to givethese species at risk some
habitat protection.
Because the whole point of thislegislation was we are not
(40:31):
going to just permit industryeverywhere.
We were going to have thepresumption of protection.
We were going to finally givethese species protection and
that was going to be our default, that we were actually going to
protect first.
And Then implementation happenedand and you know, we started
off.
We started off in the first fewyears going okay, I think we
(40:55):
can do this, I think it's gonnawork.
And then there was this graceperiod where a whole bunch of
species didn't get habitatprotection right away, but then
the five-year anniversary kickedin and at that five-year
anniversary, the rest of thatlist was gonna get habitat
protection.
And what happened on thefive-year anniversary, when all
those species were supposed toget habitat protection,
including boreal caribou, wasthe government brought in
(41:16):
sweeping Exemptions, regulatoryexemptions that basically took
loopholes and what we'resupposed to be like flexibility
mechanisms for you know, tinylittle things, little projects
that were gonna be harmful.
But if you did it in a smartway and created an overall
benefit, we would have this moremodernized, thoughtful approach
.
And they just took theseexemptions and went nope, we're
(41:38):
gonna ram through these, thesein these, these industries, and
give them these exemptions fromactually protecting habitat or
not being held to account onharming and harassing species.
And it's just gotten worse andworse since then.
Janet Sumner (41:51):
So you know language now is pay to slay
right.
Anna Baggio (41:56):
It's like pay to slay.
Janet Sumner (41:58):
I mean you can pay to get a permit to go ahead
with an activity.
So if, even if you know thatit's going to destroy habitat,
you can get a permit or anexemption basically to go ahead
and destroy that habitat andthat says a you pay a fee to
basically be allowed to go anddestroy the habitat.
Kaya Adleman (42:17):
Yeah, that's a horrifying scenario and sorry
when you got it.
When you initially said pay toslay like, my mind was like pay
to slay like.
Anna Baggio (42:30):
And that's just one of the things that this most
recent provincial government hasbrought in.
Like you know, so many of us,when our endangered species
legislation came in and we saidit was the gold standard of
North America, we had thesethoughtful mechanisms, these
flexibility mechanisms that wethought were going to be used
sparingly.
And this government, this mostrecent government, basically
(42:50):
Through that right out thewindow and said no, we're gonna
drive whole industries throughthese exemptions.
So now we have the entireforest industry Exempted from
protecting and recoveringspecies at risk, the entire
forest industry.
Like how, how can you even havea myth of sustainability if
your entire industry Isn't evenbeing asked to protect and
(43:14):
recover species at risk?
And then you add in the otherindustries.
You've got the earlyexploration industry.
Again, they've got a permanentexemption.
You've got, I mean, almost allthe industries have been
exempted.
There's only a handful thataren't.
And the presumption ofprotection has been flipped
entirely on its head.
And now it's the presumption of.
Everything goes ahead and wejust pretend and we just
(43:35):
mitigate and we just kill themless.
And so for me, this act is likebeen completely gutted and it's
not the endangered species act.
I'm like it's the we kill themless act.
Really.
That's what this is, and so I'ma bit at a loss at where we go
now, and so we can talk a littlebit more about some of our
(43:58):
options.
But yeah, it's like completelydisheartening.
Janet Sumner (44:02):
Yeah.
Kaya Adleman (44:03):
We're slaying, but we're not slaying.
Janet Sumner (44:06):
Yeah, yeah, we're not slaying the issue, we're
slaying the species totallyunder the name of saving the
species.
Anna Baggio (44:15):
That's the best part.
Janet Sumner (44:16):
Yeah, I know so.
Kaya Adleman (44:22):
Janet, has there been any exciting updates in the
podcast that we should tell ourlisteners about?
Janet Sumner (44:29):
Well, what's really fun is that I was
checking the numbers today andthis is actually before the
publication of our latestepisode.
So between last week and thisweek We've hit 3,000 downloads.
That's a nice little, you know,bump in the numbers for us, and
thank you to everybody aroundthe world who's listening in on
(44:52):
the podcast, downloading theepisodes and Making us very
happy that these are gettinglistened to 3000 so far and
we're still going it makes mefeel so much better that we're
not just speaking into the void.
Kaya Adleman (45:06):
So thank you, thank you for downloading and
listening to the podcast.
And if you have downloaded thepodcast and listen to the
podcast and you want to Showyour love a little bit more, you
can buy our merch.
You know we have.
If you go on to our website,wwwwildlandsleagueorg, we have a
(45:28):
shop and we have some really,really cool Schwag, as Janet
says, to buy.
There's we both have thesweatshirts and there's a mug.
You know there's lots of cool,clear-cut things to choose from.
Janet Sumner (45:43):
So yeah, what happened to that picture?
We took a picture of the two ofus.
Is it?
Have we loaded it up?
Is it somewhere?
Kaya Adleman (45:50):
I've heard that it's somewhere in the Social
media post churning machine, somaybe, maybe people will get to
see that one to one day.
Janet Sumner (45:59):
I'm not sure it'll make people buy the sweatshirts
, but we certainly like oursweatshirts.
Kaya Adleman (46:04):
Yeah, very very comfy.
Yeah, so comfy, they're verysoft.
Janet Sumner (46:12):
It's.
It's deeply disappointing andRuinous in terms of on an
environmental level, like youtalked about.
I think it's really importantto understand that Wildlands
League is not an individual.
We're not, we're not like aspecies-driven Organization.
We're not out there to, I don'tknow, save the whales or
whatever, and not that that's.
(46:33):
Those aren't good causes.
But the reason that we work onspecies is because they actually
give you information and helpyou Design and decide how you're
managing the land, the, theecosystems.
And so when you see a specieslike caribou that's not doing
well, you know that that meansthe forest isn't doing well, or
(46:56):
the boreal forest is not doingwell.
So then, what do you do?
You actually have to takeaction.
And the Endangered Species Actwas designed and because I sat
on those committees and and Inegotiated many agreements and
and and I would draw this otherdistinction is there were
progressive industries,including some forestry folks,
who were very willing to come upwith solutions and ways that it
(47:18):
could work.
And that, I think, is what is,personally, the most
disheartening.
Because you think it might justbe.
Oh, it's because industries inopposition.
Oh, you know, that's an easyway to frame an issue, but the
reality was we had progressivecompanies who wanted to do some
of the right things.
They tried to work with us,come up with solutions.
(47:40):
We tabled those and those wereBasically wiped aside for the
lowest common denominator ofindustries who basically said no
, we just want an exemption.
We need an industryassociations, we just need an
exemption.
We don't want to be governed bythis and the.
The way they got around thatwas well.
We're already required tomanage for them and, as Anna
(48:00):
rightly pointed out, those weremitigation strategies, so
they're required to manage ormitigate their impacts.
But there's no legal problemwith it.
There's no.
It was going to lose theirlicense because they didn't do
the right thing.
Nobody's going to be requiredto do protection and that's the
and in the case of borealwoodland caribou, that's what's
(48:22):
proven to work is you actuallyneed to protect the habitat.
You can't just mitigate yourway out of the problem.
Anna Baggio (48:28):
You can still go extinct under a mitigation model
.
This is the problem.
Extinction is still thetrajectory.
Janet Sumner (48:36):
We're watching extinction happen.
That's what we're doing.
Kaya Adleman (48:40):
Well, I was just going to say, coming off the
heels of our episode with AmyWestland where we were talking
about joint resource managementplanning, it sounds like or it
seems like mitigation strategiesare very much they fit into the
same bill as the as thepermitting model, just taking a
(49:05):
very individualistic, like pieceby piece approach to lands and
resource extraction.
We're just going to look atthis one specific permit for
this and not look at the wholepicture and how there's kind of
like accumulative effects on thelandscape 100%.
Anna Baggio (49:23):
I mean, they talk a good game and you know Ontario
can talk a really good game.
Oh, we're managing cumulativedisturbance for caribou.
We have a range managementpolicy.
I'm like, give me a break.
I've sat in all those meetings.
I have looked people in the eye, I have poured over materials.
Trevor Hessling in our officeand I, we have gone up and down
(49:46):
and reviewed so many of theseprojects, whether they're
transmission line, forestry,mining projects, and at the end
of the day, none of those thingshold water.
They just don't.
They're not being implementedand they don't make a lick of
difference.
And so if you're looking to askyourself and say, is it
effective, they can point to allthe paper they want, but that
(50:07):
paper is not actually protectinghabitat.
And so you know, for CanadiansI would say yes, be extremely
disappointed and be frustratedbecause your government is not
doing what it needs to do forsomething as important and as
serious as biodiversity.
Janet Sumner (50:28):
That was quite incredible.
That last thing that Anna said.
I think it's a great place toleave this conversation and take
us to the next conversation.
Can you just restate it, justso everybody hears it again,
because it was kind of like amic drop moment for me?
Kaya Adleman (50:47):
Yeah, I mean Anna was saying that Ontario can talk
a really good game about howthey are managing for the
cumulative disturbance forcaribou, but she was saying that
she sat in those stakeholdermeetings and you know, these
plans that they're doing don'thold water and they're
continuously allowing industryto steamroll over the
(51:10):
expectation of critical habitatprotection for caribou.
And Canadians should bedisappointed about that and
frustrated because ourgovernment is not doing what it
needs to do for something asimportant, to quote, and as
serious as biodiversity.
Yeah, bone-chilling.
Janet Sumner (51:29):
Yeah, it is because under the Species at
Risk Act it's required toprotect critical habitat.
And what Ontario is doing ismanaging and moving around the
forestry and where it operates,but it's not doing protection.
(51:51):
It's doing studies, it's goingto do more measuring of
disturbance and of monitoring ofcaribou, but we still don't
have protection.
And it's more than a decade,more than a decade.
So it's not just thisgovernment, it's been more than
a decade and we still haven'tstepped up.
(52:11):
And again, for Wildlands League,this isn't.
I mean, yes, we care aboutcaribou, but the bigger reason
that we work on this is becauseit's about the very health of
the forest that belong to allCanadians, and so doing right by
caribou is doing right by allCanadians and our forests and
(52:32):
having a healthy forest.
And we need that healthy forestfor climate change as well as
for species.
All the climate models arebuilt on a presumption that we
will continue to absorb carbon,and if we are degrading these
systems and not protectingspecies and not having healthy
forests, then those forestscannot absorb carbon at the rate
(52:52):
that the planet needs.
Kaya Adleman (52:56):
Yeah, well said, Janet, and I will just add to
that not that I can add thatmuch more to that, but I will
say that this final quote fromAnna about the frustration of
being in these governmentstakeholder meetings we'll hear
a lot more of that, and I thinkthat's what we should all be
(53:19):
looking forward to in the nextconversation is we get kind of
some insight into what theprocess looks like and how
frustrating it can be.
So stay tuned.
Stay tuned for more.
Janet Sumner (53:32):
If you like listening to the clear cut and
want to keep the content coming,support the show.
It would mean a lot to Kai andI.
The link to do so will be inthe episode description below.
Kaya Adleman (53:43):
You can also become a supporter by going to
our website atwwwwildlandsleagueorg.
Slash the clear cut and alsomake sure to leave us a review
on your favorite podcaststreaming platform.
It would really help thepodcast and stay tuned for new
episodes by following us onsocial media.
That's at Wildlandsleaguecom.
Janet Sumner (54:05):
On Instagram, Twitter and Facebook or LinkedIn
, of course.
Kaya Adleman (54:10):
See you next time.
Dave Pearce (54:14):
Hi, this is a question for Wildlandsleague.
How much does Dave Pierce makeas your senior forest
conservation analyst?
Because it's probably too much.
I've heard him on the radio andhe doesn't seem like he knows
what he's talking about.
I mean not radio, but yourpodcast.
Okay, yeah, if you can answerthat, that would be great.
Janet Sumner (54:37):
That was Dave calling him with a sample
question.
I'm not sure that that's reallywhat Dave intended, but thanks,
Dave.
That was pretty funny.
Kai, what do you think?
Should we broadcast his salaryand then give him a pay
reduction?
Kaya Adleman (54:51):
Yeah, I think we should actually ask our
listeners.
We should give them a poll andlet them vote on what he should
be paid.
Janet Sumner (54:59):
Yeah, no, that's great.
Thanks, Dave, for the chuckle.
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