The federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) has particular specifications for Indigenous people, hunters, fishermen, trappers, and individual citizens. If a species at risk is found at any time in your community or if your community uses the species as a resource in any way you may have a responsibility to undertake a Species at Risk Assessment. The provincial Endangered Species Act (2007) also affords legal protection to designated species at risk and their known habitats.
What is SARA?
The species at risk act (SARA) is a piece of Canadian federal legislation designed to help protect:
- Endangered species
- Threatened species
- Special concern species (at risk)
- Extirpated species (no longer exist in the Canadian wild but exist elsewhere in the wild)
SARA has been developed to help at risk or endangered organisms from disappearing or who are being threatened as a result of human activity. The goal of SARA is to help provide the necessary measures of protection to help recover and preserve at risk or endangered organisms in their natural habitats.
SARA applies to all Federal land including First Nations territories and the act can help:
- Identify First Nations responsibilities
- Determine if there are species at risk on First Nations lands or territories
- Identify the necessary action to comply with SARA
- How to protect species at risk on First Nations lands or territories
Land owners and managers must ensure that their actions do not have a negative impact on these species or their habitat. Increasingly, Species at Risk (SAR) assessments are becoming a requirement of municipalities prior to building permit issuance in areas of known or suspected species at risk habitat.
Cambium Aboriginal can assist your community with a Species at Risk Assessment to determine if there are species at risk in your First Nations community. Where it is determined that impacts to an at risk species are likely to occur, Cambium Aboriginal can prepare mitigation and habitat management plans, make recommendations for compensation habitat and/or guide the client through the permitting process under the ESA.
To understand how SARA affects your First Nation, please contact us for a FREE consultation. We can explain how the legislation works and how it can affect your First Nation.
Contact us today for a FREE consultation at:
705.657.1126 (Telephone)
Note**Cambium Aboriginal is now Cambium Indigenous Professional Services! We offer all of the same services plus other new and exciting service categories. You can visit our new website at: https://www.indigenousaware.com/
If you need to contact CIPS please call: (705) 657-1126 or email: spirit@indigenousaware.com
Thank you
Cambium Indigenous Professional Services
1109 Mississauga Street, Curve Lake First Nation, Ontario K0L 1R0