COP15: Adding monarch butterfly to endangered list could help preserve Technoparc: Guilbeault

The federal government hopes efforts to add the monarch butterfly to Canada’s endangered species list will help it preserve the nature-rich Technoparc near Trudeau airport, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Wednesday.

Guilbeault said the federal government is “actively working” on the issue with the Aéroports de Montréal airport authority, municipalities and local groups.

“We have launched consultations to include the monarch butterfly on the federal government’s endangered list,” Guilbeault said at a Montreal press conference linked to the United Nations COP15 biodiversity conference.

“That will give us extra powers to protect the habitat of butterflies, notably on federal land, including land under the administration of Aéroports de Montréal.”

Conservationists want to ensure the airport authority does not develop the land, a refuge for monarch butterflies and other at-risk pollinators. Environmental groups and multiple cities and boroughs in Greater Montreal are also pushing to safeguard the area.

Calls to save the Technoparc from development grew this past summer after the airport authority razed thousands of milkweed plants that monarch butterflies rely on.

In October, Guilbeault indicated Ottawa was looking at eventually integrating the Technoparc into a new urban national park.

Groups that want to preserve the area were hoping the federal government would make an announcement about the Technoparc at or before COP15.

Ottawa has so far refused to protect the land, rejecting a recent petition that garnered more than 1,800 signatures.

The area known as the Technoparc is an ecologically sensitive area that includes wetlands and is home to more than 200 species of birds, 14 of which are considered at risk by the federal government. Species sighted in the area include grassland passerines, American kestrels and red-tailed hawks. The area is a wintering ground for short-eared owls. 

Roughly the size of Mount Royal Park, the Technoparc is spread across 215 hectares of contiguous land that includes marsh, forest and field habitats.

Most of the land — 155 hectares — is owned by the federal government. The rest is under the control of the city of Montreal and private interests.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Ottawa will spend up to $800 million to support major Indigenous-led conservation projects in British Columbia, Ontario, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Some countries at COP15, including Canada, are pushing for an international commitment to preserve 30 per cent of the world’s land and water by 2030.

Critics have suggested that to reach that goal, Quebec and Ottawa are relying too heavily on land in remote areas, where biodiversity is at lower risk.

At the press conference, a reporter asked Trudeau about demands that Ottawa also preserve nature in such urban areas as the Technoparc.

“We know that if we want to reach the 30-per-cent goal, we will have to do a lot more than what you’re seeing here,” he answered.

Trudeau said reaching the 30-per-cent goal will require many partnerships.

In addition to Indigenous communities, “we must work with other levels of governments, provinces and cities and we’re there to do the work. There are many projects that we’re looking at.”

He said the federal government will continue to be “aggressive” as it strives to expand conservation areas.

“We must conserve for future generations and we have to show an example to other countries of the world.”

ariga@postmedia.com

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