The Endangered Ecosystem’s Alliance works with diverse allies, including businesses, unions, faith groups, outdoor recreation groups, and various levels of government to greatly strengthen our ability to achieve strong conservation policies.
Here are is a national resolution we are asking our organizational allies to sign:
Resolution for a Strong National Protected Areas Law with Ecosystem-Based Targets
Whereas:
The protection of nature is vital to counteract the extinction crisis. Scientists are projecting a million species are headed towards extinction due to human activities over the ensuing decades.
The protection of nature is vital to counteract the climate crisis by drawing down vast amounts of atmospheric carbon into protected forests, wetlands and grasslands.
Nature is vital for our health and well-being. Numerous studies show that being in nature supports our mental and physical health, reducing all sorts of ailments and boosting our immune systems.
Protecting nature attracts and fosters more diverse, resilient and sustainable economies, including supporting businesses and jobs in tourism and recreation; commercial and recreational fishing by sustaining clean water and fish habitat; real estate by enhancing property values in communities near protected green spaces; non-timber forest products like wild mushrooms; high tech and many other sectors that require the skilled labour that locates to areas with a greater environmental quality of life; and by providing numerous ecosystem services like flood and erosion control, natural sewage treatment, and regional climate regulation.
Native ecosystems are cultural, economic and spiritual foundations for diverse First Nations communities, whose cultures evolved with them over millennia and who continue their close relationships with native ecosystems.
The federal government is looking at legislating Canada’s target to protect 30% by 2030 of its land, freshwater and marine areas, in order to hold the existing and future governments accountable to meet the target and to provide a legal basis for provincial-federal cooperation to protect nature. This legislation would be a vital step forward in conservation in Canada.
However, there are no “ecosystem-based targets” yet to ensure that all of Canada’s diverse ecosystems are adequately protected. Without targets set by science and First Nations’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge for each ecosystem, protected areas will continue to minimize inclusion of the ecosystems that are the most coveted for logging, agricultural conversion, and/or human settlement, largely in southern Canada: deciduous and mixed forests, southern Boreal ecosystems, grasslands, aspen parkland, and valley-bottom productive old-growth forests in BC.
Therefore, we the undersigned businesses, organizations, local governments and politicians are calling on Canada’s government to:
Move forward with legislating Canada’s 30% by 2030 minimum protected areas target as well as interim and subsequent targets until 2050, for the land, freshwater and marine areas of the country.
Ensure that “ecosystem-based targets” are devised by independent science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge panels to ensure that all ecosystems are represented and sufficiently protected in BC.
Ensure that these ecosystem-based targets are legally-binding and not simply ‘aspirational’.
Strike up independent expert policy panels to devise protected areas implementation plans to best ensure the targets are met.
Ensure independent audits on how well the government is meeting its interim and final targets overall and for all ecosystems, and require full transparency and accountability on how the government will remedy any shortcomings.