'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
If global biodiversity — the subject of a huge international meeting in Montreal this week — is too much of a mouthful, try thinking instead about the white-throated sparrow.
Their cheerful "Dear Sweet Canada, Canada, Canada" song brightens backyards and parks across the country. Except not so much anymore.
"It's a classic case in point," said Peter Davidson of Birds Canada, one of many groups that will be watching the upcoming two weeks of COP 15 meetings like, well, hawks.
"It's a common and widespread bird, but they are declining at a rapid rate. It's an indicator," he said of the white-throated sparrow.
That's the kind of decline that 196 countries are hoping to halt at this week's meetings by reaching a refreshed Convention on Biological Diversity that contains real goals and real money. Referring to the international deal that created the same for greenhouse gases, advocates say they're hoping for a "Paris moment."
"What happened in Paris was pretty much every country agreed there was a climate crisis and they had to take action," said Mary MacDonald of the World Wildlife Fund.
"It was a moment that pulled everyone together and that is what we're lacking for the convention."
Evidence that such a moment is required is not scarce.
Davidson points out North America has lost about one-third of its birds in the last 50 years. That's three billion birds not filling the skies.
The United Nations has concluded that one million species worldwide are threatened with extinction. The pace is increasing.
Canadian habitats from prairie grasslands to eastern woodlands are rapidly vanishing, says the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Studies suggest 90 per cent of ecosystems worldwide have been altered.
As nature thins, so does its ability to provide humans with everything from clean water to pollinated crops. So does its ability to help with climate change, something the federal government is counting on to help meet its greenhouse gas targets.
Ottawa is spending $631 million a year over the next decade to help forests, marshes, peatlands and pastures sock away up to four megatonnes of greenhouse gases annually. But they won't if those environments aren't preserved.
"You cannot have a conversation about tackling climate change without talking about the importance of biodiversity," said Dawn Carr, conservation director at the Nature Conservancy of Canada and a member of the Canadian delegation to COP 15. "They're really totally inseparable issues."
Diplomats have thrashed out 22 different targets for the Montreal meetings. They include reducing invasive species and pesticide use, cutting food waste, ensuring fair access and sharing of genetic resources and ending government subsidies that harm biodiversity.
But federal Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault said four of them would be enough for something Parisian.
"We want to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030," he said. "We need to protect at least 30 per cent of lands and oceans by 2030.
"There needs to be a real serious conversation about resource mobilization to help developing countries achieve their targets.
"And in the case of Canada, it needs to be done in partnership with Indigenous people, provinces and territories."
That's a lot, Guilbeault admits.
Last time he checked, there were 1,200 "bracketed" items — spots in the text where the wording isn't settled.
"It is not a small feat to accomplish."
Nor, he said, can negotiators pick and choose among those four items. They're closely linked and dropping one affects the others.
"I doubt that we can have an agreement on protecting 30 per cent by 2030 without a robust conversation on resource mobilization," he said.
Guilbeault said it would be just as hard to talk about protecting lands without including the Indigenous people.
The talks will be slow and painstaking, said Carr.
"They will literally go around country to country to country and they will wordsmith the draft text until there's consensus."
The stakes are high. Brackets where consensus isn't achieved are simply removed and, among the bracketed items, is the crucial 30 per cent by 2030 point.
"If those brackets don't get removed, the measurable aspect will be lost," Carr said.
COP 15, which stands for Conference of Parties, will create a small city in itself. Organizers say there are 17,000 registered attendees with 900 reporters accredited to cover their deliberations.
Critics say such mammoth events are too unwieldy to produce results and deliver little beyond unenforceable feel-good communiqués. They point out targets set at such meetings are rarely met and ask if there isn't a better way to respond to environmental crises.
But Guilbeault said there's still value in bringing the world together to discuss shared problems.
He points out that 10 years ago, scientists said the world was on track for between four and six degrees Celsius of warming. Now, after a decade of COP climate meetings, that range is 1.7 C to 2.4 C — not good enough, but better.
"There's no doubt in my mind that countries meeting year after year, comparing plans, comparing strategies … played a key role," Guilbeault said. "We need the same type of international movement on nature and that's what I'm hoping Montreal will be."
Hope echoes through any talk of COP 15 like the song of a white-throated sparrow.
"I think there's a lot of interest and hope around it," said MacDonald. "Nature is very hopeful."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2020
This is a corrected story. A previous version cited a spokesperson from an organization referred to as the Nature Conservancy. The organization's proper name is, in fact, the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.