Dec 14, 2022
Closing the Conservation Gaps in Canada: Provincial buy-in, protection targets for all ecosystems, and conservation financing for Indigenous Protected Areas needed
Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) calls for a federal “Endangered Ecosystems Act” to ensure protected areas targets are devised for all ecosystems, to motivate the provinces to adopt protection targets and to ensure funding for protected areas expansion
Montreal - As 196 countries meet in Montreal at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) to negotiate new international protected areas targets and policies, conservation groups are increasing their pressure on the Canadian and provincial governments to close the conservation gaps in expanding the protected areas system in Canada. These gaps include:
A lack of buy-in from most provinces to commit to the federal targets to protect 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 of the land, freshwater and marine areas in Canada, and to themselves fund new protected areas. So far only Quebec has committed to the two targets, and BC committed to the 30% by 2030 target last Thursday. The federal government has committed $3.3 billion to expand the protected areas system over 5 years ($2.3 billion for terrestrial protection, $1 billion for marine protected areas), and billions of dollars more for “natural climate solutions” much of which overlap with protected areas expansion, and has provided over one billion dollars for various Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) and Indigenous Guardians (stewardship and management) programs. The provinces except Quebec have committed very little funding for new protected areas thusfar.
A lack of protection targets for all ecosystems, both federally and provincially. Without ecosystem-based targets, the vast majority of protected areas will continue to be skewed towards the areas least coveted by industry, typically in the Arctic, subarctic, alpine and subalpine tundra and low productivity forests and bogs – native ecosystems that deserve protection, but in general that are under far less threat by land use changes per hectare compared to the grasslands, deciduous forests, mixed forests and productive old-growth forests found in southern Canada and in the valley bottoms of the mountainous West where most people and industry are – and by no coincidence where most species at risk are.
A failure to close loopholes in “creative accounting” of what provinces consider as “protected areas”. Many provinces have been including tenuous conservation regulations which lack the standards and/or permanency of real protected areas in their provincial percentages under protection. For example, while only 15.5% of BC is in legislated protected areas (such as parks, provincial conservancies, and ecological reserves), the province has been including tenuous conservation regulations, such as Old-Growth Management Areas where boundaries can be moved around to be logged and traded for less valuable stands with smaller trees. Currently about 12% of Canada is under legislated protection.
See our new EEA video on COP15 and “Protecting Nature in Canada: Time for Ambition and Ecosystem-Based Targets” here.
“In Canada, most of the land and endangered species are in the south in the provinces, yet the vast majority of protected areas expansion has been in the territories and in the far north. The provinces have been the main conservation laggards, failing to adopt even the minimum federal protected areas targets and to provide any substantial funding, with Quebec being the exception, and BC is starting to move in the right direction. The federal government needs to get the provinces on board to commit to the targets, to embrace the federal funding and to provide their own funding, particularly to support Indigenous Protected Areas and private land acquisition,” stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director. “We’ve been advocating for a law for several years, an Endangered Ecosystems Act, that would set more ambitious science-based targets for all ecosystems, close the protected areas standards loopholes, and provide a legal basis for the federal government to get the provinces on board both in terms of targets and funding.”
In addition, many provinces don’t recognize Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA’s) and only BC has legislation designed to be congruent with IPCA’s, that is, Provincial Conservancies, which protect First Nations rights and title to the lands and waters including subsistence use like hunting, fishing and foraging, while excluding industrial resource extraction. However, across other provinces there is a lack of similar IPCA legal designations.
Ultimately, a federal Endangered Ecosystems Act with minimum protection targets for all ecosystems devised by science is needed to build a truly ecologically protected areas system. Endangered ecosystems legislation will quickly scale up the protection and/or restoration of all native ecosystems – including the typically neglected, heavily contested ecosystems where most species richness and endangered species are in southern Canada – to levels that will enable the long-term persistence of the full complement of their biodiversity and ecological integrity. Such an act will also create a legal basis for the federal government to motivate the provinces to adopt protection targets, and to have to provide the needed funding and resources to ensure their implementation.
Indigenous knowledge, developed on the land over thousands of years, is vital to the science and development of targets, and Indigenous Protected Areas development and management supported by sufficient provincial and federal resources including critical funding is needed to drive protection on the ground across much of Canada in each respective First Nation’s and community’s territories.
As Kerrie Blaise, an environmental lawyer and board member with EEA explains:
“We need the federal government to enact an endangered ecosystems law to enshrine its international commitments on biodiversity protection and ensure cooperation with other jurisdictions, like the provinces, in meeting these goals. We’ve seen this approach with many other environmental laws, including Canada’s Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act which provides a framework to deliver on our Paris Agreement targets, and the existing federal Species at Risk Act, which gives the federal Environment Minister the opportunity to step in if the provinces don’t uphold protections for endangered species or their critical habitat. The protection of the environment is a matter shared by all levels of governments and while we critically need a law where federal and provincial governments cooperate on achieving ecosystem-based targets, there must be a federal backstop in place when the provinces fail to act on urgent species and lands protection goals."
Dr. Reed Noss, renowned conservation biologist and EEA science advisor, first developed the Endangered and Native Ecosystems Act concept in the US in the early 1990’s and believes an ecosystem-based protected areas approach is sorely needed. An ecosystem-based approach to biodiversity protection would be complemented by “finer filter” species at risk legislation. Noss will help the EEA develop draft legislation, along with Blaise.
“Protecting ecosystems saves species, not just the rare ones, but also the common ones before they become rare. It also maintains the ecological processes upon which all life, including human life, depends,” Noss stated.
Saving nature is not only important to help avert the extinction and climate crises (protecting ecosystems draws-down vast amounts of carbon into forests, grasslands and wetlands) but also for our daily health and to help attract and foster more diverse, resilient and prosperous economies.
The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) will be hosting an event in Montreal this Friday evening (Dec.16) about “Filling the Conservation Gaps: Provincial buy-in, Ecosystem-based targets, and Conservation financing” from 6:30 to 9 pm (presentations from 7 to 8:30 pm) at the Montreal Arts Center and Museum (1844 William St.), with drinks, snacks, and presentations by Ken Wu and Celina Starnes of the EEA, Hania Peper of the Nature-Based Solutions Foundation, and a Zoom presentation on screen by conservation biologist Dr. Reed Noss and lawyer Kerrie Blaise – ($9 includes a drink/snack, $14 includes drink/snack and an audio museum tour).