Canada surpasses $1.5 billion in private land conservation investments

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In the run-up to the United Nations global biodiversity conference next week in Colombia, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced the Canadian government, together with conservation organizations, has reached a milestone investment goal of $1.5 billion to conserve 840,000 hectares of private lands across the country.

As the world faces the triple crises of increasing pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change, governments are under pressure to show progress on their commitments to conservation goals made in Montreal in 2022. Signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity will be gathering to do just that next week in Cali, Colombia, for the 16th conference of the parties to the convention, or COP16, from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1.

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Canada signed on to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the COP15 conference in Montreal in 2022, the parties adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which set a global conservation goal of conserving at least 30 per cent of the planet’s ecosystems by 2030. Canada also committed to protecting 30 per cent of its land and oceans by 2030.

Addressing a panel at the Global Congress of the International Land Conservation Network in Beaupré on Friday, Guilbeault said when the Liberal government came to power, only about one per cent of coastal areas and oceans were protected and about 10 per cent of lands.

“Today, we are … beyond 16 per cent for oceanic and coastal preservation and we are at about 15 per cent for the territorial conservation.”

The $1.5-billion investment milestone was reached through the government’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program, which creates conservation areas through the acquisition of private land and private interests in land. The federal government has so far invested more than $500 million in that program, which has been matched by over $1 billion in contributions raised by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ducks Unlimited Canada and private land trusts.

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Since 2007, the Natural Heritage Conservation Program has resulted in the conservation of 840,000 hectares of wetlands, forests, grasslands and shoreline habitats. The NHCP matches financial contributions from corporations, foundations and other levels of governments and private citizens, and some NHCP projects include land donations through Canada’s Ecological Gifts Program.

After the panel, Guilbeault announced a new 26,000 square kilometre marine conservation area in the offshore waters of the Eeyou Marine Region, to be called Wiinipaakw (James Bay) Protected Area. The announcement was made jointly by Guilbeault and Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty of the Grand Council of the Crees, because this will also be an Indigenous Protected Area through mechanisms determined by the Crees’ land-claims agreement.

Once protected, the new national marine conservation area will contribute .45 per cent to Canada’s 30 per cent goal.

Guilbeault also hinted at a coming announcement about a “very, very large” conservation project in the Northwest Territories that will be “to our knowledge, the world’s largest Indigenous conservation project.”

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Once completed, the Northwest Territories Project could more than double the amount of conservation in that territory, contributing 2.5 per cent or more toward Canada’s commitment. According to government documents, the project aims to conserve more than 180,000 square kilometres of lands and inland waters, and is being brokered by 23 Indigenous governments, the federal and Northwest Territories governments, and private philanthropic groups.

In a phone interview after the conference, Guilbeault said preserving oceans and coastal lands is simpler than preserving land, because water is a clear federal government jurisdiction.

“Land conservation is more complicated in part because there is another player at the table, which are the provinces. And with some, things are going very well and with others less well,” he said, adding his talks about conservation with Alberta and Ontario are difficult.

But he insists Canada is in line to meet its COP15 conservation commitments.

“We have to pick up the pace a little bit, but we’ve done 14 or 15 per cent in the last eight years. We have to do another 14 or 15 in the next six years,” he said.

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In his panel address, Guilbeault took aim at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

“Obviously, everything that we have done is under threat,” he said. “There is a very wide consensus in the House of Commons on the need to fight climate change by the vast majority of MPs and political parties. And there is a consensus that we need to do more. … But there is one notable exception and that exception is leading in the polls right now. The leader of that exception has, as a member of Parliament … voted 400 times against measures to protect nature, to fight pollution and to fight climate change.”

Guilbeault expressed some doubt as to whether he will be able to attend the UN conference next week in Colombia because of the possibility a confidence vote could bring down the minority government. Since the Conservatives are not planning to send a delegate to the conference, his own absence could leave the Liberals one vote short.

“I have my plane ticket and I’m really, really hoping I will be going,” he said, noting if he does not attend, Canada would be represented by assistant deputy minister of the environment, Tara Shannon.

mlalonde@postmedia.com

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