Foreword
LETTER FROM THE CANADIAN WILDLIFE DIRECTORS COMMITTEE
As members of the Canadian Wildlife Directors Committee (CWDC), we are conservation professionals representing federal, provincial, and territorial departments responsible for species at risk of extinction. Recovery of species at risk is of fundamental importance to our work. In this we are supported by the National Recovery Working Group which provides guidance and advice to the CWDC on recovery matters.
We all agree that one of the best aspects of our work is contact with the many generous and passionate people across this country dedicated to species survival.
As diverse as the species they help to recover, they include fishers on the east coast, corporate executives in almost every industry, and zookeepers from centres across the country. Some are schoolchildren, others are young at heart. They include scientists, hunters, birdwatchers, and shopkeepers. They are city-dwellers and rural landowners, artists and engineers. Increasingly, Canadians are participating in the recovery of species at risk and are taking individual responsibility for the health of our land.
This publication celebrates the tens of thousands of Canadians from all walks of life who are striving to save the wild in Canada. It celebrates their view of a natural world in which all things are precious and connected and crucial to our well-being, and it celebrates their commitment to doing something about it. These pages are also intended to promote a better understanding of the need for species at risk recovery in Canada and the ways in which people can participate in that process.
In an ideal world, we all would be working to maintain healthy and diverse habitats and preventing plants and animals from disappearing in the first place, rather than rescuing them from extinction. But the fact is that species recovery is an essential aspect of biodiversity conservation right now. We hope our work to recover wild species will prepare and motivate us to solve the broader causes of their decline and eventually put us out of the recovery business.
We offer this publication as a source of information and inspiration to encourage more Canadians to join us in saving the wild or indeed in working to conserve landscapes where all species can thrive.
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