Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for inviting us to speak to you today about the national conservation plan.
Since the government committed to developing a national conservation plan in the June 2011 Speech from the Throne, Environment Canada, in conjunction with Parks Canada, has undertaken preliminary discussions with a broad range of partners. The focus of these initial discussions has been on identifying key priorities, opportunities, and challenges, as well as the potential main features of a plan.
Based on these early conversations, there's clearly strong support for the idea of developing a national conservation plan that builds on existing successes but also identifies innovative approaches to conservation, including, for example, the stewardship on working lands. As well, a national conservation plan, we've heard, should include terrestrial, marine, and freshwater components.
To put it in context, the Government of Canada is making progress on conservation. In the past six years, for example, the government has taken steps that will add over 150,000 square kilometres to the existing lands and waters administered by Parks Canada—a roughly 50% increase. During that time, total federal protected areas, counting all of the different types of protected areas, have grown by about 11%.
To give you some examples, the government has established three new national wildlife areas in Nunavut, and is in the process of establishing five more in the Northwest Territories as well as the Scott Islands marine national wildlife area out west. The government is focusing on protecting key species and gathering and sharing information to support decision-making in protecting their habitat.
The government is working on a voluntary basis with Canadians and prioritizing stewardship efforts through a range of programs, including the invasive alien species strategy, the ecogifts program, and the natural areas conservation program.
For example, the eco-gifts program provides private landowners with tax benefits for donations of ecologically sensitive lands. The natural areas conservation program is administered by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and other conservation organizations to purchase ecologically sensitive lands.
However, despite significant efforts and progress on conservation issues across Canada, many challenges remain. Biodiversity and ecosystem integrity continue to decline as a result of habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive alien species, and other factors.
Continued conservation efforts are definitely needed in all parts of Canada, and all segments of society have a contribution to make. This is part of the reason why the government sees the national conservation plan as a truly national plan and not simply a federal initiative.
As the primary authorities for land and resource stewardship across much of our country, provinces and territories play an integral role in conservation. Aboriginal groups, environmental organizations, industry, and individual Canadians are also making significant contributions to conserving Canada's natural environment.
A national approach to conservation could help to better establish and advance mutual conservation priorities among all of these players to maximize efforts and achieve partnership where, together, the federal government and its partners and stakeholders can do more, in aggregate, to accomplish more in terms of conservation.
This is the thinking in terms of how a national conservation plan could help contribute to Canada's long-term prosperity by helping to conserve and promote the awareness of natural spaces and species that underpin the environment, human health, and, in a very important way, the Canadian economy.
In terms of our initial thinking, a national conservation plan could be centred around three key elements: first, conserving Canada's natural spaces; second, connecting Canadians with nature as well as connecting habitats and ecosystems through stewardship efforts, the so-called wildlife corridors; and third, restoring degraded ecosystems and recovering the habitat for critical species.
In January of this year, Minister Kent held a round table with participants from a number of non-governmental organizations, private sector associations, leaders in the conservation area from across the country, as well as representatives of first nations. It was a good opportunity to hear from an array of conservation experts about what they see as being key elements of a national conservation plan.
A number of the key themes that emerged from the round table are helping to inform the work of the plan going forward. For example, round table participants identified connecting urban, new, and young Canadians with their natural environment as a possible element of a national conservation plan. While Canadians are generally proud of their natural heritage, many people have limited opportunities to interact directly with nature. Increasing their opportunities to connect with nature would provide a way of encouraging greater direct individual action in terms of conservation.
As I noted earlier, there's a great deal of interest in examining innovative approaches to conservation that could complement the existing successes and existing practices and be a key part of a national conservation plan. The industry representatives who participated in the round table suggested that while the private sector is actively involved in conservation, through a national conservation plan we could provide significant additional opportunities for them to share best practices, to put in place new practices, and to enhance stewardship on private lands and on working landscapes. As well, there would be interest among many in private industry and land owners in discussing economic instruments for conservation efforts that can add to the tool kit for advancing the conservation goals of our country.
A key theme that came out of the round table was the issue of measuring progress on conservation. This ties to the issue of fostering the development of innovative approaches to conservation and stewardship. It's a question of looking at going beyond some of the traditional measures of protection to get a sense of the degree to which we are making progress on conservation through innovative instruments that facilitate conservation on working landscapes, through advanced practices on private lands that may not be part of what we measure as conservation right now.
An important theme that emerged was the need to actively involve the provinces and the territories in the development and implementation of a conservation plan, so the work of the different players on a shared ecosystem is coordinated towards the common objective. In fact, in recent years a number of provinces and territories have developed their own biodiversity targets and resource strategies. While they focus on conserving biological diversity within a particular province or territory, they also involve achieving an economic outcome, and they're also a key part of adding up the efforts across the country.
There are useful lessons to be learned from provinces and territories—what they've done and where they've succeeded—and we need to bring that into a national conservation plan.
In terms of the federal contribution to a national conservation plan, it will be important to capitalize on the government's leverage in different areas—the federal government's international reach, science and data collection and management capacities, and its ability to bring together various groups and individuals to engage in open dialogue.
In conclusion, Environment Canada looks forward to the standing committee's deliberations and insights and views on how best to develop a national conservation plan.
Thank you very much.