Megan Leslie leaves politics behind to focus on wildlife protection

A former Halifax MP is putting politics on the back burner after accepting the position of president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada.

Megan Leslie has been working with WWF on and off for a couple of years, most recently out of their Halifax office on ocean conservation.

She told NEWS 95.7's The Rick Howe Show, when current president David Miller decided to step down, she put her name forward.

Leslie was the NDP environment critic for four years and thinks her political background will be an asset, allowing her to think beyond the science and policy side of the organization, and focus on communicating to Canadians.

“You think about strategic moments, like 'okay, maybe we need to push a little here, but maybe we need to pull back a little there,' and that's something I learned from my time as a member of Parliament,” she said.

Leslie said the biggest issue facing her when she starts her new job will be addressing the results of the WWF's most recent Living Planet Report, released last month, it assesses which species are on the rise and which are on the decline.

“The report showed that half, 50 per cent of our species in Canada, are in decline,” she explained. “And this is a country where we have all this space and all this nature, you wouldn't think we'd be in that bad of shape, but we are.”

She said habitat loss, climate change and pollution are the major contributing factors.

One of those species in decline is the endangered North Atlantic right whale, Leslie calls the situation “devastating' and not just emotionally.

“There are only 500 of these whales, when 2 per cent of the population goes, including reproductive females, it is a devastation to the population,” she said.

Leslie thinks the Department of Fisheries and Oceans acted quickly to put measures in place, like temporarily closing snow crab fishing grounds and slowing down ships in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

“We know they were dying because of human activity, but what we don't know is why were they're in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.”

She said altering shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy was successful for right whale conservation, but researchers don't know why they're not in that area anymore.

Leslie said we can't just put an end to all fishing in order to save the whales, we need to find a way to make people and nature thrive together, but she thinks more marine protected areas could help.

“Safe spaces in the ocean for wildlife, where there's limited human activity, where they can raise their young and get a little bit of respite from us humans,” she said.

Leslie said the one downside of her new job is having to leave Halifax, she'll be moving to Toronto when she takes over the helm on December 1st.

As for a potential return to politics, Leslie said there's no way to tell what the future holds, “but my immediate future is wildlife protection, this is something I'm really excited about and I hope to be here for a while.”