Dec 9, 2022
BC’s New Premier David Eby commits to double the protected areas in BC by 2030 and to develop a conservation financing mechanism for Indigenous Protected Areas in biodiversity-rich areas.
New commitment puts BC significantly closer to the right path to safeguard biodiversity – but major funding is still needed.
Yesterday in his mandate letter to the new Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen, BC’s new Premier David Eby committed BC for the first time to protecting 30% of the province’s land area by 2030 (currently 15% is protected). He also tasked Cullen to work with First Nations to support new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA’s) and to help “develop a new conservation financing mechanism to support protection of biodiverse areas.”
See The Narwhal: B.C. vows to reverse ‘short-term thinking’ with pledge to protect 30% of province by 2030
“This is potentially a major leap towards protecting endangered ecosystems and the most at-risk, productive stands of old-growth forests left in BC. Premier Eby should be commended for this. We’ve pushed relentlessly for years for BC to adopt the national protected areas targets at a bare minimum and to fund First Nations economic development linked to protecting productive old-growth forests and the most endangered ecosystems, where most of the biodiversity and species at risk are. Eby has largely committed to this framework now. As long as there is no façade, spin or sophistry behind it all, the main thing missing now is the actual major funding to fuel the whole thing. This is a very hopeful start to Eby’s first month in regards to protected areas! Let’s see if he keeps moving forward”, stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director.
As 196 countries meet in Montreal at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) to develop new international protected areas policies and targets (30% by 2030 is the main target under negotiation) (see our new video here), the Canadian provinces are under major pressure to commit to the federal protected areas targets of 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 of their land and marine areas. Scientists say 50% of the planet should be in protected and de facto protected areas by 2030 in order to best meet our climate targets. Currently 12% of Canada’s land area and 15% of BC’s land area are in legislated protected areas (not including tenuous conservation regulations that lack the permanency or standards of real protected areas). Quebec is at the forefront of conservation commitments among Canadian provinces thusfar, committing to the federal targets early on (and so far protecting 17% of the province’s land area) and committing earlier this week to provide $650 million of its own funds over 7 years to support Indigenous Protected Areas, private land acquisition in the most endangered southern parts of the province and to protect endangered species habitats.
The federal government earlier this week committed $800 million to fund new Indigenous-led protected areas in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, the James Bay lowlands in northern Ontario and the Northern Shelf marine region in BC. Overall, the federal government has committed $3.3 billion over 5 years to expand terrestrial ($2.3 billion) and marine ($1 billion) protected areas, along with several billion dollars more for “natural climate solutions” that often overlap with nature protection initiatives. BC’s share of those funds are between $200 to $400 million or more, yet the province has not yet embraced the federal funds nor committed its own funds yet. For the protection of the most at-risk old-growth stands, the federal government has also earmarked $55 million in a BC old-growth fund (a campaign for such a fund was spearheaded by the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance with the Union of BC Indian Chiefs in 2020), contingent on BC providing matching funding for a total old-growth fund of $110 million – which again the BC government has not committed to yet either.
Thus far, the main conservation laggards in Canada have been the provinces (except Quebec, and now potentially BC), who have largely failed to commit to the national protected areas targets, nor embraced federal funding, nor provided their own new protected areas funding. BC is starting to move out of the conservation laggard category with its new commitments to the 30% by 2030 target (although there has been no announcement from BC regarding the interim 25% by 2025 target), and its stated intend to undertake conservation financing for First Nations, but it has yet to actually announce any major funding. The province and federal government have been negotiating a provincial-federal protected areas funding Nature Agreement for almost 2 years now, but thusfar no announcement has been made.
A good protected areas framework, once ambitious targets and major funding are in place, will ensure that the funding goes for the right Places, Parties, and Purposes:
Places – All native ecosystems need protection, but an emphasis should be on protecting the most at risk and least-represented ecosystems, typically at lower elevations and in valley bottoms in southern BC where most industry and people are – and where most species at risk are, by no coincidence. Governments typically aim to protect alpine, subalpine, bog, and far northern landscapes with relatively little to no timber value and fewer conflicts with resource industries – hence the destruction of well over 90% of the high-productivity old-growth forests across BC, converted largely into tree-plantations that are re-logged every 50 to 80 years (never to become old-growth again) lacking the unique species, tourism value, carbon storage and cultural value for First Nations.
Parties – While compensation for resource extraction companies may be mandated under the law, First Nations must be supported first, as they are Nations who directly decide on appropriate land-use activities including new protected areas on their unceded territories. Support for thousands of resource industry workers, such as forestry workers, also needs to be implemented in the shorter term, though not necessarily from direct conservation funding (there are other ministries and funding streams) and in general incentives and regulations are needed to ensure a value-added, second-growth forest industry. In addition, private landowners must also be paid for the protection of endangered ecosystems on their private lands.
Purposes – Across much of BC, many First Nations have a significant economic dependency on old-growth timber revenues and jobs, in the form of forestry revenue-sharing, joint venture, employment and tenure agreements, fostered by successive provincial governments. In order to forgo the revenues and jobs in old-growth logging, First Nations will often need significant funding, known as “conservation financing”, to fund the development of First Nations businesses in tourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood, and non-timber forest products (eg. wild mushroom harvests) and to support stewardship jobs (eg. Indigenous Guardians programs) in order to make it feasible to establish new Indigenous Protected Areas (designated via Provincial Conservancy legislation in BC). In the Great Bear Rainforest, $120 million was provided by conservation groups and the provincial and federal governments to fund First Nations economic development and stewardship jobs linked to protection of much of the old-growth forests throughout the region, and a similar initiative is needed across BC. It is estimated that perhaps $600 to $800 million at least will be needed for First Nations to protect most of the remaining old-growth forests in BC, let alone for the protection of many other ecosystems (grasslands, wetlands, alpine, etc.).
“The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance has made ambitious protected areas targets, funding for First Nations protected areas and to purchase private lands, and ecosystem-based targets to ensure the most endangered, biodiversity-rich areas are protected, as the central pillars to our conservation campaigns from the start. Eby’s announcement has started to move the province there”, state Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director. “It is possible and likely there will still be some significant shortcomings in BC’s policy framework for protected areas. The BC government both in elected government and throughout the bureaucracy is still strongly pervaded by the old, unimaginative industrial resource-extraction types, fundamentally disconnected from and ignorant of the living systems that keep us all alive. But this commitment from Eby may be a move forward to start breaking through the old guard, towards saving old forests and away from old mindsets. Major funding from a provincial-federal Nature Agreement is the key right now – let’s see what happens.”