No surprise, then, that monarchs are the poster species for the 1995 Canada/ Mexico/U.S. Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management, a model for cooperative continental conservation across a shared array of ecosystems, habitats and species. Along with other conservation endeavours spanning the continent, the agreement does so in the spirit of neighbour-supporting-neighbour. An often-fractious jigsaw of inter and intranational jurisdictions, agencies, Indigenous nations, NGOs and special interest groups work together for the good of all who occupy these landscapes. Though the monarch’s spectacular journey represents an ancient rhythm, it’s one increasingly buffeted by gusts of development, habitat loss and pollution, leading to its listing as an endangered species. And now there’s another headwind — politics. Malign actions of the current U.S. administration have opened up a country-sized conservation hole in the middle of the monarch’s migration route, affecting not only this butterfly but the conservation and collective management of ecosystems and myriad species from waterfowl to wolverines to whales.

While unjustified tariffs that threaten the well-being of all North Americans were dominating the news cycle, Trump 2.0 was simultaneously taking a wrecking ball to international institutions concerned with health, science and the environment. This included replacing directorships with manifestly unqualified individuals, overt ideological politicization of formerly non-partisan institutions (supported by disinformation emanating directly from the Oval Office — transgenic mice, anyone?), indiscriminate mass firings and layoffs, Orwellian restrictions on research and communication that make Stephen Harper’s muzzling of government scientists seem like a sandbox scrap, and funding cuts and grant freezes involving hundreds of millions of dollars that disproportionately affect graduate students and early career researchers — literally an entire generation of American science. These actions had immediate effect on everything from world-leading biomedical research to life-saving international development work and pollution vigilance, from key science-and-education funding to land and park management, and from critical atmospheric, ocean and weather data to natural disaster relief. 

The virtual gutting of America’s main climate agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saw former chief scientist Craig McLean lament that U.S. science now risked becoming a “backwater enterprise.” Venerable British journal Nature cast a broader net with the headline “An assault on science anywhere is an assault on science everywhere.” 

“There are many ways the pointless and bizarre antics of the president are undermining relationships with Canada in general that are also detrimental to species shared between our nations — or the land, air and water they occupy,” says Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity in Washington, D.C. “We’re still trying to figure out where the worst on-the-ground impacts will be, so our biggest question is: how bad are things going to get?” 

“Ten years ago, we held a big international meeting on transboundary conservation where someone brought up the difference between negative peace — the absence of conflict — and positive peace — the action of working together to resolve shared challenges and opportunities,” recalls Jodi Hilty, president and chief scientist at Yellowstone to Yukon. “That has really come back around for me today because it makes transboundary conservation, which is all about shared values and efforts, more meaningful than ever; something we always took for granted in the Y2Y region now holds a new significance.” 

Transboundary conservation efforts can also be fiendishly complex. The International Porcupine Caribou Agreement between Canada and the U.S. is a legally binding 1987 treaty to coordinate conservation of the large transnational Porcupine caribou herd that migrates annually between Alaska, Yukon and Northwest Territories. The herd’s more than 250,000-square kilometre range comprises 12 areas within which five different agencies (Canadian Wildlife Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Alaska, Yukon and N.W.T. departments dedicated to fish and game) have jurisdiction. Thus, herd governance, by both a multinational board and technical committee, involves two federal and three state/territorial governments, eight Indigenous land claim agreements, six national and territorial parks or preserves, and two wildlife management areas. A model of co-operative management, it has also been successful. 

Herd management is based foremost on aerial censuses. And while a 2017 effort estimated more than 200,000 animals — the highest since the 1970s — recent attempted updates have been hampered by issues both ecological (e.g., the herd not fully aggregating) and environmental (e.g., heat and wildfire smoke).

And out east, with fewer than 380 of their kind remaining, North Atlantic right whales endangered by ship strikes and fishing-gear entanglements now face the added danger of indifference from U.S. policy. “This is a species, like any wild animal, that doesn’t recognize borders, so what happens in the U.S. can impact in Canada,” Kim Elmslie, campaign director for Oceana Canada, told CBC. “Rolling back or changing measures in the U.S. could hasten this species’ decline and potential extinction.”

Although pushback is coalescing in the U.S., it’s hampered by many in the scientific establishment being intimidated into silence by the threat of further job loss. And while the 100-plus lawsuits filed against the Trump administration by everyone from worker’s rights groups to Hartl’s Center for Biological Diversity can claim a few early wins, it’s mostly a glacial process in a time of urgency. Fortunately, there’s the energy of youth to counter. Launched by five early-and mid-career scientists, “Stand Up for Science” became an instant national movement to defend the discipline as a public good and central pillar of social progress. March 7 saw official protests in 32 U.S. cities and statements of support from international organizations, like Canada’s Evidence for Democracy, who understand such assaults as very much about their own country’s internal politics.