Protecting Canada's Endangered Spaces: An Owner's Manual

William A. Waiser is a professor of history at the University of
Saskatchewan, and the author of Saskatchewan’s Playground: A History
of Prince Albert National Park and Park Prisoners: The Untold Story of
Western Canada’s National Parks, 1915–1946.

Protecting Canada’s Endangered Spaces is a report card on the success
of the World Wildlife Fund Canada campaign to establish a representative
network of Canada’s ecological regions by the year 2000. It was an
ambitious—some might argue unrealistic—target in 1989, and the
prospect of success is even more remote today, thanks in no small part
to the empty rhetoric of the current Liberal government.

The book tackles the matter of protected spaces from three
perspectives. First, in the “Tool Kit for Success” section, various
conservationists review the question of why natural regions in Canada
need to be preserved in their wild state and how this noble goal is to
be achieved. In the second section, “Thirteen Blueprints for
Survival,” the situation at the federal and at the provincial or
territorial levels is assessed (what, if anything, has been achieved
since 1989 and what remains to be done?). The last section, “Lessons
Learned,” is a call for action; readers are encouraged, among other
things, to sign the Canadian Wilderness Charter to lend further support
to the Endangered Spaces campaign goal.

The book makes for sober reading; it confirms that Canada’s record on
environmental matters—especially preservation—is generally one of
indifference, if not neglect, in all but a few areas. It also proposes
an important philosophical shift, by suggesting that Canadians are
proprietors of an unrivalled natural heritage (hence, the book’s
subtitle). Since the 1960s, the standard line in environmental thinking
has been that humankind belongs to nature and not vice versa. It remains
to be seen whether this more traditional emphasis on stewardship will
make any difference.