Nature Canada strongly supports the announcement of the so-called Pathway to Canada’s Target 1 process to coordinate the efforts of federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous governments to conserve at least 17 percent of the terrestrial areas and inland waters of Canada by 2020.  The 17 percent target would be achieved through protected areas, indigenous conservation areas, and other effective area-based conservation measures.

The Pathway process is described here.

A National Steering Committee co-chaired by Parks Canada and Alberta Parks will lead the development of the Pathway, with the advice of a National Advisory Panel, members of which have yet to be named.

Nature Canada proposes to campaign in support of the Pathway process to build public demand for a large interconnected network of protected areas resilient to the challenges that climate change and development pressures will increasingly impose on wildlife and the ecosystems critical to human prosperity.

Huge public support will be needed across Canada to create the various National Parks, National Wildlife Areas, provincial parks, and Indigenous Conservation Areas needed to reach the 17 percent target—which Canada agreed to achieve in 2010 as one of the Aichi targets under the Convention for Biological Diversity.

Finally, the 17 percent target should be seen as a floor, not a ceiling. Nature will ultimately need much more than that if sustainability is to achieved; so the Pathway process also needs to look beyond 2020.

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