Canada and Australia - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 160

the Montreal Protocol. It sponsored the 1988 Toronto conference on global
warming that set the pattern for the Framework Convention and the Kyoto
Protocol. The 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty was the first to control water
pollution and supply. The 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, besides protect-
ing birds, was the first time Canadian diplomats were allowed to play a
part in negotiations. Previously, the British Foreign Office had handled
the Dominion's international affairs. Australia, at least in part due to its
remote location in the Antipodes, has been less active diplomatically. It did
send a delegation to the Stockholm summit, generating concern at home.
Lacking apparent authority under its constitution, it used adherence to the
World Heritage Convention to legitimate protection for the Great Barrier
Reef. Prime Minister Howard's outspoken rejection of the Kyoto Protocol
isolated the commonwealth. Howard's successor, Kevin Rudd, was a career
diplomat who won instant plaudits for immediately signing the Protocol.
Inspired by Yellowstone, both Canada and Australia established
national parks: Banff and Royal, respectively. During the Environmental
Decade they passed laws controlling air and water pollution. The
Canadian group—Greenpeace—has grown to be the largest in the world.
The first green party in the world—United Tasmanian Group—was one of
Australia's contributions.
NOTES
1. Herman Melville, Quotation at the entrance of the Sydney Maritime Museum.
2. Conservative Party of Canada, Policy Declaration , National Convention, November
15, 2008.
3. Clifford Krauss, “In Canada's Wilderness, Measuring the Cost of Oil Profits,” Ne w Yo r k
Times, Oct. 9, 2005; Sierra Club of Canada, “Oil Sands Strategy a Comprehensive
Abdication of Government's Environmental Responsibilities,” October 27, 2005, Web.
4. David Crane, “Chretien's Environmental Slide,” he Toronto Star, October 23, 1997.
5. Wade Roland, The Plot to Save the World (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1973), pp. 35-37.
6. Drew Hutton and Libby Connors, A History of the Australian Environmental Movement
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 35.
7. Hutton and Connors, pp. 33-35.
8. Ian Tyrrell, True Gardens of the Gods: Californian-Australian Environmental Reform
1860-1930 (Univ. of California Press, 1999), pp. 88-89, 56.
9. Dorothea Mackeller, “My Country,” 1904.
10. Hutton and Connors, p. 54.
11. Nicholas Economou, “Backwards toward the Future: National Policy Making,
Devolution and the Rise and Fall of the Environment,” in Australian Environmental
Policy, 2 ed., Kenneth J. Walker and Kate Crowley (Sydney: University of New South
Wales Press, 1999), pp. 67-68.