Part 2: Conservationists, scientists fear Fisheries Act changes

 Otto Langer, a retired biologist who worked for the federal Fisheries
 Department for 32 years, believes the Conservative government’s 
plan to limit protection of fish habitat will result in a 
major setback to conservation efforts in Canada.

Photograph by: Ian Lindsay , Vancouver Sun

Part 2: Conservationists, scientists fear Fisheries Act changes

Second in a four-part series

By Larry Pynn

Vancouver Sun

June 7, 2012

Otto Langer has devoted his adult life to protecting fish habitat.

Now he wonders if it was all for nothing.

The retired head of habitat assessment and planning for the federal Fisheries Department in B.C. and Yukon describes the Conservative government’s planned changes to the Fisheries Act as the biggest setback to conservation law in Canada in half a century.

And he takes it very personally.

“I feel I have wasted my lifetime, that I should have done something else,” says Langer, who now predicts a gradual decline in fish habitat if the changes take effect.

Through a massive package of proposed laws in Bill C-38, Ottawa plans to limit federal protection of fish habitat to activities resulting in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, sport or aboriginal fishery. Across the country, hundreds of scientists have condemned the change.

“It’s going to remove freshwater protection for most fishes in Canada, which can’t be a good thing,” says University of B.C. zoology department professor Eric Taylor, who also co-chairs a federal committee that advises the government on species at risk.

“Habitat is not just a place to live; it’s a place to breed, rest, avoid predators, get food.”

Taylor argues the Fisheries Department should be fighting for biodiversity. “They should have an interest in protecting Canada’s aquatic biodiversity — for all Canadians. They now seem to be abandoning that.”

Read more here