To protect or forget? Comparing species at risk legislation across Canada’s common-law provinces

Species across the globe are at risk of disappearing due to a human-driven extinction crisis. One of the most important tools for combating biodiversity loss is species at risk legislation. Of Canada’s nine common law provinces, only five have enacted legislation specifically designated to address species at risk protections. The other four have their protections included within nonspecies at risk laws and regulations. In this research, we compared the content and completeness of species at risk protections among the provinces. To achieve this, we assessed the language of each province’s legislation using statutory interpretation and legal analysis and made a rubric to assign numerical scores to each province based on the thoroughness of their protections. We also examined how many provinces that had listed species at risk had corresponding conservation plans, a demonstration that a government is taking action to protect and conserve at risk species. We find that jurisdictions with designated species at risk legislation significantly outscore those without designated legislation. This indicates that they have more comprehensive and stronger protections for species at risk.