There is an ongoing worldwide extinction crisis linked primarily to human activity. One of the most important tools for combating biodiversity loss is species at risk (SAR) legislation. British Columbia has no such legislation despite being the Canadian province with the most biodiversity and the highest number of SAR. In this thesis, I argue that BC should implement designated SAR legislation, as the current laws in the province are not providing sufficient protection to vulnerable species. I compared BC’s SAR conservation efforts to those of other Canadian provinces using existing legislative regimes, species listing decisions, and recovery
action plans as proxy effectiveness indicators. BC scored near the bottom of all provinces on all these measures. The provinces without legislation also performed worse on average than those with legislation in most of the tests. I also examined court decisions concerning SAR and found that provinces without legislation had slightly more favourable court decisions than provinces with legislation. Focusing on the situation in BC, I analyzed the history of the province’s legislature relating to SAR. I found that any progress towards enacting new SAR legislation in the near future is unlikely. Finally, I interviewed stakeholders from the conservation community about their experiences with BC’s SAR. These findings suggested that most were dissatisfied with the current state of conservation in the province.
