The following is the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance's input to the public engagement process on BC's $1.5 billion economic stimulus package:
To the BC Ministry of Finance/ Citizens Engagement Process
Re. Input regarding the $1.5 billion economic stimulus package, from the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance
A Covid-19 Stimulus and Recovery Package Must Fund the Protection of Nature.
The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, with about 13,000 British Columbian supporters at this time, would like to suggest several key items to include in an economic stimulus package.
Sustainability analysts around the world all point out that it’s critical that these funds do not provide a life jacket to keep destructive and dying industries afloat, like coal, tar sands, and oil and gas. Rather, the opportunity provided by the brief but major reductions in global emissions, the change in consumer behaviour, and the shift in global markets during the lockdown presents the most critical opportunity to redirect our societies’ path dependencies away from these destructive dead ends.
Indeed, it has been stated that the next 6 months will be the crucial moment in the battle for our planet’s future. This is due to the consequences of massive economic recovery spending that could “lock us in” to an economic and hence environmental trajectory for years to come, combined with the convergence of the two most important global environmental policy summits, the upcoming global negotiations at the UN Climate Summit and the UN Biodiversity Conference both in early 2021. Given the late hour to avert catastrophic change now, our primary economic path combined with our core environmental policies in this short window of literally months could greatly determine the likelihood of our ability to meet our international target to keep average global temperatures from a 1.5 degree Celsius rise - and thus divert our trajectory from the global collapse of most ecosystems and civilization.
The European Union has approved a green economic recovery package of $850 billion (USD) to invest in energy efficiency, clean energy, mass transit, electric vehicles, sustainable agriculture, and a just transition for fossil fuel industry workers into new green jobs.
However, lacking so far in most stimulus package plans has been any major emphasis on a critical, indeed foundational, part of the solution– the large-scale protection of our diverse native ecosystems.
The protection of nature is increasingly being recognized as a fundamental game-changer to help avert both the mass extinction crisis – which threatens the demise of at least a million species over the ensuing decades – AND also the climate crisis, that threatens both ecosystem and civilizational breakdown potentially within a few short decades and, according to an increasing number of projections.
Less obvious and intuitive to most people is that protecting nature is vital for a prosperous, diverse and resilient economy, as well as for our collective mental and physical health.
We believe that any economic stimulus package towards recovery from Covid-19 must include the protection of nature on a large scale for several reasons.
Numerous studies show that protected areas result in more diverse, resilient, and ultimately more prosperous economies by supporting and attracting a large variety of industries. These include, obviously, recreation and tourism industries (which in the more immediate Covid world will likely be more localized, but more intensive locally as people seek nature for their sanity and health), but also increased real estate values in communities near protected areas, clean water and wild fisheries (commercial and recreational), non-timber forest products (wild mushrooms, berries, medicinal plants), carbon offsets, and attracting skilled labour including high tech workers and firms who relocate to areas with a higher environmental quality of life and recreational opportunities.
In addition, nature provides ecosystem services like clean water, natural sewage treatment in wetlands, flood control, local and global climate regulation, and local wild foods, medicines, and genetic stock – without which the costs to society and industries would be astronomical.
The industries supported by protected areas as a whole create greater economic value and jobs than traditional resource extraction industries that entail liquidating the trees or mining the mountainsides, according to various studies.
For example, a new study shows that placing 30% of Earth in protected areas would lead to an increased economic output of between $64 bn and $454 bn (USD) annually, depending on which areas were subject to conservation efforts, and that the economic benefits versus the investment ratio to establish protected areas would be 5 to 1.
“Across all measures, the experts find that the benefits are greater when more nature is protected as opposed to maintaining the status quo,” stated their press release.
Regarding BC’s famed but endangered old-growth forests, a 2008 study at Simon Fraser University showed that protecting old-growth forests in southwestern British Columbia has greater potential economic value than commercial logging
Not only would protecting nature support a major economic recovery, but it would also be vital for our “health” recovery. Numerous studies have shown that nature supports human mental and physical health in numerous ways. For example:
- Trees and many plants emit chemicals - phytoncides, volatile organic compounds with anti-microbial effects, that we breathe in that boost our immune system (NK lymphocytes).
- Trees filter out the pollution of volatile organic compounds, such as Nitrogen dioxide and low level ozone, which cause respiratory tract illnesses like asthma and that depress our immune systems.
- Being in forests and nature greatly support our mental and physical health in general by reducing the stress hormone cortisol, lowering the heart rate and blood pressure, lowering cholesterol levels, reducing the risk of coronary heart disease, and diminishing ADHD.
- Of course, recreation and physical exercise in nature supports our health.
- Nature is home to the greatest diversity of micro-organisms that populate our “microbiome” - the vast community of beneficial micro-organisms that boost and regulate our immune systems and health. Microbiome deficiencies are being linked increasingly to asthma, various allergies, compromised immune systems, autoimmune disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, and numerous ailments of modern civilization. We get this diversity of organisms while in nature.
Ultimately, the importance of protecting native ecosystems is far more profound than for its direct economic or health benefits – we are literally facing an issue of survival, due to the prospects of runaway climate change, ecosystem collapse and mass extinction events threatening much of the life on Earth and hence our civilization over the ensuing decades – within our lifetimes. The mass mortality of a large if not majority segment of humanity via famine and wars triggered by drought, floods, resource scarcity and mass migrations, resulting in the breakdown of nation states, will kill a lot more of humanity far, far beyond what COVID will do.
A critical means to avert the climate and extinction crises is the large-scale protection of nature, which is increasingly recognized as a key game-changer both for biodiversity (for obvious reasons) and for the climate by drawing down vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere in the form of protected, aging forests, unploughed grasslands, undeveloped wetlands, and un-trawled ocean bottoms, vastly diminishing the release of carbon and sequestering far greater amounts of carbon in the vegetation and soils. In conjunction with emissions reductions efforts, the protection of native ecosystems gives us the best chance to reach our international target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
As such we are recommending two key economic stimulus items regarding the protection of native ecosystems:
1. A provincial Land Acquisition Fund of $100 million/ year to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems including old-growth forests on private lands to sustain biodiversity, clean water, wild fisheries, the climate, recreation, tourism, our quality of life, and a more robust economy;
2. Support of at least $100 million/year for Indigenous Protected Areas and for the protection of old-growth forests on unceded First Nations lands via funding for land-use planning, stewardship, Indigenous Guardians programs (all currently supported by the federal government) and the sustainable economic development in First Nations communities of a conservation-based economy associated with expanded protected areas (ie. conservation financing). The federal government has already provided at least $500 million towards supporting Indigenous Protected Areas, and BC must do its part.
Thank you for considering our request.
Sincerely,
Ken Wu
Executive Director
Endangered Ecosystems Alliance
PO Box 21573
Vancouver, BC
V5L 5G2