OECD: More Resources Needed For Canada’s Protected Areas
Stephen Hazell
Director of Conservation
and General Counsel
Nearly all of Canada’s protected areas report deficiencies in capacity and resources for site management and monitoring says a December 19, 2017 report on Canada’s environmental performance authored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
“Many protected areas operate without up-to-date management plans. Most government organizations for protected areas report on programme-related performance measures, but few assess effectiveness.”
The OECD also concludes that the terrestrial area under protection in 2015 (10.6%) is the fourth lowest of the 35 OECD member countries. Under the UN Convention for Biological Diversity, Canada is committed to protect at least 17% of land and inland water by 2020 (one of the so-called Aichi targets).
The OECD also concludes that Canada “will need to considerably accelerate the pace of establishing protected areas or other effective area-based conservation measures to achieve this commitment”.
This is exactly what Nature Canada and the Green Budget Coalition have been saying. Nature Canada and GBC are demanding a budget for nature from the federal government in February 2018 that allocates $1.4 billion over three years to establish new protected areas, to allow Canada to meet our Aichi target.
