Nature Canada

Federal Strategy needed to protect Wild Lands and Water

Image of Stephen Hazell

Stephen Hazell
Director of Conservation
and General Counsel

Canada urgently needs a strategy to meet its international commitments to protect 17% of our land and 10% of our oceans by 2020 says Nature Canada.

Nature Canada’s Eleanor Fast and Alex MacDonald testified at the House of Commons Environment Committee on May 10 with recommendations on how Canada can achieve its so-called Aichi targets under the Convention for Biological Diversity.

First, the federal government needs to stop transferring away protected areas it currently manages. Currently, 700,000 hectares of mainly native grasslands are being transferred to the Government of Saskatchewan, which has stated will be sold privately once transferred. These grasslands provide critical habitat for dozens of species at risk, conserve soil and water, and store carbon that would otherwise be released as greenhouse gas emissions.

Second, federal efforts to ramp up establish new National Wildlife Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries needs to be accelerated. Overlooked for new funding in the 2016 federal budget, the Canadian Wildlife Service needs significant new resources to take full advantage of these underutilized tools to established protected areas. A straightforward starting point for these efforts is to provide legal protection to Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) where appropriate.

Third, there is a tremendous opportunity to work with indigenous governments and communities to establish new protected areas as part of the negotiations relating to the nation-to-nation process that the federal government is committed to.

The link to Nature Canada’s brief to the Environment Committee can be found here.

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