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BC government plan for endangered species all talk, no actionOctober 25, 2004 - VANCOUVER - Environmental groups are condemning today’s announcement by the province on endangered species recovery planning in BC. The announcement provides a mere $800,000 to accelerate progress on recovery planning for spotted owl, mountain caribou, and marbled murrelet. But the funding is too little and plans too vague to save species on the brink of extinction, say environmental groups. "After decades of science, years of citizen activism, international condemnation, provincial lawsuits and the threat of a federal court case, the BC government may finally have woken up to the extinction crisis in BC," commented Candace Batycki of ForestEthics."Unfortunately, they woke up and hit the snooze button." The announcement comes 8 years after BC first promised recovery planning for the spotted owl; since then owl habitat has been decimated and its population has declined by 67 percent."With only eight breeding pairs of spotted owls left in Canada and 23 birds in total, we expected action, not words. We are very disappointed" says Cheri Burda of the David Suzuki Foundation. "This is more about what the province didn’t do than what they did do," said Devon Page, staff lawyer, Sierra Legal Defence Fund. "They didn’t protect the species or its habitat, they didn’t release recovery plans that were finished last year and they didn’t act on scientists’ recommendations to stop logging that were made almost two years ago." "This is all about fending off the federal government," said Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee, "The BC Government doesn’t give a damn about endangered species. We need to remember that the BC government is the largest logger of spotted owl habitat under its Timber Sales program. Today’s announcement is about issue management, it has nothing to do with protecting endangered species." "They’re going to study these species to death," said Rachel Plotkin of the Sierra Club of Canada, "If the government is acting in good faith they will go out tomorrow and protect the habitat of the spotted owl, mountain caribou and marbled murrelet." British Columbia has the most biodiversity of any province in Canada. Over two hundred species of birds breed in BC and the province is home to three-quarters of Canada’s mammals. Currently, over 1,000 species are provincially listed as at risk. For more information and interviews, please contact: Cheri Burda, David Suzuki Foundation, 604-732-4228
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