Question Period Note: Nature and Biodiversity Conservation

Nature and Biodiversity Conservation

• Biodiversity loss is a crisis and the Government of Canada is committed to ambitious action to restore and protect biodiversity.
• Since Budget 2018, we have invested over $5 billion to protect nature, the largest investment in nature conservation in Canada’s history.
• Our investments will allow us to:
o achieve our target to conserve 25% of Canada’s lands and oceans by 2025;
o support protection and recovery of species at risk across Canada;
o prioritize Indigenous-led conservation whether it be through Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas or Indigenous Guardians initiatives; and,
o advance nature-based climate solutions to address the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity.
• We are not just acting domestically. Internationally, Canada is advocating for an ambitious post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to focus the world’s collective efforts to stem the loss of biodiversity and degradation of nature.

• Canada and the world are facing an unprecedented biodiversity crisis with more than 1 million species facing extinction globally, including 630 at-risk species in Canada. The loss of biodiversity threatens our economy, food security, health, and quality of life.
• Since 2018, the Government has committed over $5 billion to advancing conservation outcomes, such as protecting and conserving more of Canada’s land and freshwater, conserving species at risk, managing the industries and threats that impact nature (e.g., forestry, agriculture, urban development), and working with and supporting a range of partners to protect nature (e.g., provinces and territories, non-governmental organizations, Indigenous communities).
• Since 2018, Canada has invested more than $100 million in Indigenous leadership in conservation. In addition to supporting the establishment of 27 Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and 25 IPCA planning and capacity projects across the country under the Canada Nature Fund, the Indigenous Guardians Pilot Program has supported 81 on-the-ground community-based initiatives, and the Indigenous Partnerships Initiative has funded projects with 54 nations to advance species at risk conservation.
• The Government’s commitments to nature-based climate solutions (NBCS) and protecting 25% of Canada’s lands and oceans by 2025 are complementary and mutually reinforcing.
• Work on NBCS is focused on maximizing the climate change mitigation potential of ecosystems by restoring ecosystems, improving land management, and avoiding land conversion for carbon-rich areas. It has important co-benefits for wildlife including species at risk (e.g., caribou) and supports ecosystem resilience to a changing climate.
• The work to protect 25% by 2025 is focused on the large-scale conservation or protection of landscapes to support biodiversity conservation. Conserving ecosystems in the form of protected areas will help lock carbon in the ground, acting as a safeguard against additional releases that could derail progress toward Canada’s 2030 and 2050 climate goals.
• Canada is working with other countries to ensure that new global biodiversity targets in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity) focus on the most important direct drivers of global biodiversity loss, consider the important role of women, youth, and Indigenous peoples in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and strengthen implementation through systems that make countries more accountable to their commitments.
• The global framework is anticipated to be adopted by parties in 2022 following which a domestic response will be prepared in collaboration with provinces, territories, Indigenous representatives, and others.

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