Prime Minister Mark Carney recently released a new $3.8 billion strategy to protect 30% of Canada’s lands and waters by 2030, building on Canada’s current foundation of 14% terrestrial and 15% marine protection. This is a major announcement, but that last word is key. As you know from class, we excel at announcements – it’s the follow through we seem to find challenging. Given the state of the world and the threats to Canada’s economy, will this announcement actually become reality? Let’s get into it!
Is this actually a new announcement?
This new strategy stands out from prior pledges like the 2022 Kunming-Montreal commitment and the 2024 Nature Strategy by providing concrete funding, specific targets (1.6 million km² land, 700,000 km² ocean protected in four years), and new tools like AI mapping for key biodiversity areas. Past efforts lacked dedicated budgets and faced slow progress as a result.
What are the implications?
This plan boosts ecosystem resilience against climate change, wildfire, and species loss while creating jobs through the Indigenous Guardians Program ($230M) and salmon recovery efforts ($490M+). It also integrates conservation with industry via Impact Assessment Act reforms and a national water strategy.
How will it be implemented?
In theory, the funding will create 14 marine protected areas, 10 national parks, 15 urban national parks, and advance the Seal River and Wiinipaak Indigenous Protected Areas. Moreover, an expert task force on natural capital will launch this year to encourage private financing (a concept we covered extensively in Chapter Four of our Canada at a Crossroads series). And the government announcement also pledges to use AI and mitigation techniques (which sounds vague and is vague at this point) to speed approvals while minimizing development impacts.
What hurdles remain?
In Canada, given the complex nature of our federation and our relative state of disunity, the devil is always in the details.
- Indigenous nations will play a central role in deciding what gets protected and that can get complicated quickly (as we covered in Chapter Four of our Does Nature Need Half? story). While Indigenous nations are pushing Canada to protect biodiversity, not all nations (obviously) share the same perspective on how much land should be protected. Plus, key biodiversity areas are found disproportionally within the territories of select nations, meaning some Indigenous communities will have to shoulder a heavier conservation burden if the goal to protect the rights areas to safeguard biodiversity.
- Provincial cooperation is also essential since the provinces control the majority of crown or public land in Canada and our constitution guarantees that they have jurisdiction over issues relating to natural resources. And, remember, different provinces view environmental issues rather differently!
- Additional hurdles include private landowner engagement, funding sustainment beyond 2030, and balancing economic priorities with environmental goals.
The global context
In Canada, we are home to about a quarter of the world’s wetlands and a major share of its intact forest and marine territory, giving us outsized influence on the biodiversity crisis, in which one million species are at risk of extinction. Canada’s ability or inability to bring this new strategy to life will go a long way towards determining if the world can counter habitat loss and aid planetary recovery.
Final thoughts
Biodiversity is a major global issue and the consequences of biodiversity loss for humanity, in many ways, outweighs the threats posed by climate change. But saving biodiversity is about more than protecting land. Consider this:
- Climate change itself is a major driver of biodiversity loss. The federal government is clearly stepping back from its climate commitments while beefing up its promise to protect biodiversity. Is this the right trade? Can Canada safeguard biodiversity without the country and the world tackling climate change in a more robust manner?
- This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney also announced that it will allow Alberta and Saskatchewan to temporarily use the banned poison strychnine to combat the Richardson’s ground squirrel infestation that is causing millions in crop damage. While this decision is a nod to national unity concerns, the reason for the infestation is a direct consequence of biodiversity loss on the prairies – the most threatened ecosystem type in the world. Squirrel numbers are exploding, in part, due to the decline of its predators, and the use of strychnine – ironically – will make a bad problem worse. After all, strychnine won’t just kill squirrels, but also animals that eat them due to secondary
poisoning – including federally at-risk species such as swift foxes, burrowing owls, and ferruginous hawks. Can the federal government protect biodiversity on the prairies – the key biodiversity area in need of protection – while also allowing the use of strychnine? - The war in Iran. A trade war with the US. Snarled global supply chains. A cost-of-living crisis. These problems are all putting pressure on Canada’s economy and Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to speed up approvals that will allow our resources to be developed and exported in order to protect our economy. Yet the areas we need to develop in order to exploit our global economic advantage – critical minerals and energy reserves, say – are also, in many cases, the biodiversity-rich areas requiring protection. Can we actually have our cake and eat it too? And what happens when two urgent, national priorities clash? What should take precedence? What will take precedence?
At a time when Canada’s sovereignty is under threat – and when national unity is being stressed in new and profound ways – our country is facing complex choices in an increasingly complex world. While we know we should protect our national inheritance, the path to implementing well-intended goals is fraught with challenges. What to do? How to tackle multiple problems at once? What’s the right balance? Well, in many ways, that’s for you to decide.