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Nearly $90 million in federal funding for a slew of nature conservation projects intended to reverse Canada’s biodiversity loss and protect more land and waters was announced Thursday.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s British Columbia Chapter (CPAWS) celebrated the federal government’s news, which advances Canada’s goal to improve biodiversity and protect thirty per cent of lands and waters by 2030.
Three separate projects totalling $49 million will be in British Columbia, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced at a press conference in Whytecliff Park Beach in West Vancouver.
“This funding has the potential to make a massive impact by protecting ecologically and culturally important ecosystems that hold and sequester carbon while benefitting clean water, air and wildlife,” said Tori Ball, conservation director for the land and freshwater program with CPAWS-BC, in a press release.
The climate crisis and biodiversity crisis are inextricably linked. Climate change is one of the factors driving biodiversity loss, and unhealthy ecosystems reabsorb and store less carbon than healthy ones. Canada’s forests used to be a carbon “sink” that absorbed and stored more CO2 than it released, but with increasing wildfires and deforestation, it has instead become a carbon source. Governments around the world recognize that halting and reversing biodiversity loss is a necessary part of climate action and vice versa.
The largest individual share of funding — $37 million — goes to the BC Parks Foundation to keep intact thousands of hectares of carbon-rich ecosystems, such as grasslands, wetlands and mature forests. The roughly 4,000 hectares of private land targeted for purchase and protection will span Vancouver Island, the Southern Interior and Northern B.C., according to the federal government.
Cash for all the projects announced on July 18 come from the 10-year $1.4-billion Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund, established in 2021.
The Nature Trust of British Columbia will get more than $8 million to create 11 new protected areas on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, in the East Kootenays and in the Cariboo Region.
Another nearly $4.5 million goes to the Nuxalk Nation to avoid planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by buying and protecting culturally-significant private lands, which will include forests in the Great Bear Rainforest near Bella Coola.
“As the original stewards of the land, the work of Nuxalkmc is grounded in the deep relationships we have with the land and waters and our commitment to protecting Nuxalk culture and language for the Putl’lt (those who are not yet born),” Blair Mack, elected councillor for Nuxalk Nation, said in a press release. “We work to protect, restore, and enhance the integrity of Nuxalk ancestral knowledge, practices, and governance.”
Indigenous people protect 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity, despite comprising only six per cent of the global population.
Another Indigenous-led project headed by Fisher River Cree Nation received $5 million for conservation activities in the Interlakes region of Manitoba with its carbon-rich peatland and migratory bird habitat. The Métis Nation of Alberta got just shy of $5 million to protect roughly 450 hectares of land.
The Manitoba Habitat Conservancy will use $6 million to protect 1,200 hectares of biodiverse lands.
Environment and Climate Change Canada told Canada’s National Observer it cannot disclose coordinates until the projects are completed because it could affect negotiations and land price.
Most of the projects aim to buy private lands that might otherwise be converted or disturbed, which causes greenhouse gas emissions and ruins the ecosystem’s ability to store carbon. A New Brunswick-based charity called Community Forests International got $9 million to do just that.
In Ontario, the Kawartha Land Trust got $7 million to wrap up ongoing conservation work and Conservation Ontario got $1.5 million.
These conservation efforts will help species at-risk like Grizzly Bear, Southern Mountain Caribou, Chum and Coho salmon, Marbled Murrelet and Western Toad, among others.
Natasha Bulowski / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
Comments
1/3
Recent reportage in CNO had me believing that the outlet was on the front lines of the ‘Stop Greenwash’ movement.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/search?keywords=greenwash&undefined=un…
With this article as evidence, it seems I was mistaken. I’m particularly disappointed by the byline I see attached, not to mention the hyperbolic headline which encourages me, not for the first time, to be open to the possibility that CNO is an agitprop organ of the federal Liberal Party.
First, a comparison of some numbers.
The federal government will spend, net, possibly north of B$30 for the TMX pipeline (although, of course, we won’t know the true number for some years, if ever). “A flood” of M$90 for “a slew of nature conservation projects intended to reverse Canada’s biodiversity loss and protect more land and waters” is a pittance, less than 1/3 of 1 percent of the TMX amount.
A “flood”, indeed; a veritable deluge.
Second, Canada’s total area (including waters, I believe) is, according to StatsCan, 9,984,670 km2. If we achieve the basic commitment of conserving 30% of that (while sustainably managing the other 70% https://tinyurl.com/5ytmhfax) that amounts to 2,995,401 km2. Now, this article doesn’t mention a single figure that is the total of all lands/ waters protected by this M$90, but it does say that “[t]he largest individual share of funding — $37 million….[will protect] roughly 4,000 hectares of private land targeted for purchase and protection”.
Being generous with some ‘back of the envelope’ figuring, let’s say that the total of M$90 will protect 3 times 4,000 HA, or 12,000 HA. Next question: what percentage of 2,995,401 x 100 (hectares per km2) is 12,000? That is about 4/10th of 1 percent of the commitment.
cont...
2/3
“Most of the projects aim to buy private lands that might otherwise be converted or disturbed, which causes greenhouse gas emissions and ruins the ecosystem’s ability to store carbon. A New Brunswick-based charity called Community Forests International got $9 million to do just that.”
Please tell me that the lands mentioned in this quote, and others in the article, won’t be, in a sense, flipped and carbon credits sold.
“Indigenous people protect 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity, despite comprising only six per cent of the global population.”
I get the gist but I am unconvinced of the rhetoric. And that is not a criticism of indigenous peoples.
If one follows a couple of degrees away from the given reference, the phrase quickly loses meaning.
Reference 1 (from “80 per cent” above): https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/12/20/analysis/world-plan-protect… links to
Reference 2: https://www.vox.com/22518592/indigenous-people-conserve-nature-icca which has the lede: “More than 30 percent of the Earth is already conserved. Thank Indigenous people and local communities.”
Perhaps it is complementary to the phrase:
“…this kind of ecological protection is typically carried out on community land—the estimated 50 percent of the world’s land that is collectively held, de facto if not de jure, by Indigenous and other local communities.”
cont...
Part 3 has gone to the "approval queue".
With all due respect to all the previous commenters and their head spinning calculations - there is a simpler, and infinitely cheaper solution. BRING BACK THE BEAVER! Beavers and beaver ponds once dominated Canada's hinterlands. They can still restore our fabled ecosystems if we outlaw the killing of Beavers and encourage them by planting their preferred birch and alder forests, which in turn will help to restore historic pine and hardwood forests. We can also stop killing our native wildlife, predators and prey, and stop destroying our natural soils and give them all more undisturbed space by removing human habitation, industry, extraction of mineral and fossil fuels and interference from our former wealth of wilderness. Simple, cheap and largely idiot proof (as long as we keep humans away). All it takes it TIME.
However it will require us to agree to lock up the greed freaks until nature and black flies can work their magic.