Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Representatives from nearly 200 countries are to begin the real work Wednesday at a crucial meeting on global biodiversity -- hard talks on hard targets for saving enough of the world's ecosystems to keep the planet functioning.
"We need governments to develop ambitious national action plans that protect and preserve our natural gifts and put our planet on a path to healing," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said as the meetings got underway.
Observers say they're optimistic the 196 countries at the COP15 meeting in Montreal can agree that nearly a third of Earth's lands and waters should come under some form protection by 2030.
"There is huge support for it," said Stephen Woodley of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a high-profile group of governments and civil society organizations advising conference delegates.
"I believe there is really significant support for 30 per cent in quality areas."
The 30-per-cent goal is the result of years of scientific study and consensus.
"Scientists have studied this for years and years, and we know with a great deal of evidence that 30 per cent is the lower limit," said Aerin Jacob of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Momentum toward that goal has been building for years. It's been endorsed by the G7 industrialized countries and is supported by 112 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, including Canada.
Other major goals include helping to fund the promotion of biodiversity in developing countries.
"We need developed countries to provide meaningful financial support for the countries of the Global South as custodians of the world's natural wealth following centuries of exploitation and loss," said Guterres.
Estimates of how much money is required range widely, from about $200 billion a year to more than $700 billion.
"Much remains to be done. The text on conservation targets being debated by delegates has more brackets in it than agreed wording.
"We've made some progress," said Woodley. "It's tough sledding."
Some of the disputed text concerns Indigenous people.
"There is a significant group who want to ensure that protecting 30 per cent of the Earth is not negative on Indigenous people or community-owned lands," Woodley said. "It certainly has been in the past, in some cases."
Others want to ensure that areas being conserved actually contribute to saving species, promoting ecosystem function, protecting against floods or wildfires or storing carbon.
"Those are all value judgments," said Jacob.
"I would argue we need to protect ourselves against all those things. We can't pick and choose."
Other issues to be settled include what constitutes protection. It doesn't need to be a park. It could be what is known as "other effective area-based conservation measures," known in COP-speak as OECMs.
The Vancouver watershed, managed to ensure water quality, is an OECM. So is Manitoba's wildlife-rich Canadian Forces Base Shiloh.
Private groups or land trusts will protect some lands. Others will be conserved by Indigenous management, an approach on which Canada is increasingly relying.
Woodley's group recognizes seven different types of conservation areas, some allowing limited resource extraction, with four different governance models.
In developed countries where natural areas are scarce and small, efforts will focus on restoration.
"There are so many solutions," Jacob said. "It's about making sure those things can survive and thrive."
And much will depend on how any plan is implemented. Discussions on finance are to begin later this week.
"An agreement without any action won't help us protect the life of the planet," said Jacob.
But both she and Woodley agree some kind of deal on conservation targets is likely to happen.
"We absolutely have to do this," Jacob said.
"It's not a question of no agreement. It's more a question of what the agreement will look like."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 7, 2020.
-- By Bob Weber in Edmonton
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.