The United States and Canada: Transboundary Environmental Cooperation
The United States and Canada -- partners in the world's largest trading relationship -- work to maintain a secure and efficient border that is conducive to mutual economic growth and prosperity.8 More than $1.2 billion in goods and services cross the border on a daily basis, and while this activity is beneficial to both economies, it has been historically taxing on the regional environment. Both countries have been committed to cooperating on environmental policies since the 1980s, and in response to increased degradation the two governments signed the Air Quality Agreement (AQA) in 1991, which required both the us and Canada to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions -- contributing toxins to acid rain. In 2000, after the noticeable reduction of acid rain over the previous decade, the nations amended the AQA to include an Ozone Annex, the aim of which was to address ground-level ozone, a significant component of smog. The most recent biennial report of the AQA's progress shows that transboundary smog emissions have decreased since the implementation of the Ozone Annex, a success that encouraged the neighbors to sign the Border Air Quality Strategy in 2003, which builds further upon previous pacts made under the AQA, with a primary focus on pilot projects along the border that have launched coordinated efforts for air quality management and examinations of air pollution's effects on human health.
The area in dark gray is "Cascadia," a region of the United States and Canada which cooperate on a variety of environmental and tourism campaigns.
Along the western edge of the us-Canadian border many communities have gone beyond the environmental commitments made by the two federal governments in a unique relationship of cooperation uniting a cross-border bioregion. The recently dubbed "Cascadia" -- a territory composed of several northwestern states in the us and British Columbia and Alberta in Canada -- has developed regional environmental protection programs, tourism campaigns, cross-border transportation, and economic integration of the Pacific Northwest.9 Cascadia is considered a bioregion because of the common geological, ecological, and climatic patterns found in the area. Certain scholars also assert that a similar political ideology and social consciousness link the inhabitants of the region together, despite international and state boundaries.10 In the recent past, cross-border coalitions in this region have proved to be more efficient than the two countries' respective governments when confronting regional environmental issues and disasters. A 1988 oil spill off the Pacific coast provides the perfect example of a cross-border response initiative, where representatives from the West Coast Border States assembled the International Oil Spill Task Force due to dissatisfaction with the federal authorities' reaction to the problem. 11 Its success has produced a snowball effect of increased cross-border collaboration among the local governments, and today the bioregion serves as a model of coalition-building and progressive cross-border environmental initiatives for the rest of the world.
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FOOTNOTES:
8. Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/can-am/main/front_page/relationshipen.asp (accessed Sept. 7, 2006, link no longer available).
9. Joachim Blatter, "Cross Border Regions: A Step Toward Sustainable Development? Experiences and Considerations from Examples in Europe and North America," in Paul Ganster, ed., Cooperation, Environment and Sustain-ability in Border Regions (San Diego: San Diego University Press and Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias, 2001).
10. The Cascadia Institute, http://www.columbiana.org/cascadia_institute.htm (accessed Sept. 7, 2006, link no longer available).
11. Blatter, "Cross Border Regions."