Good morning, committee members. Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on the initial steps in developing a national conservation plan, a plan I think will be welcomed by many environmentally conscious Canadians in light of recent announcements associated with the budget bill.
Let me first say that in my opinion the four-page document provided—the backgrounder and the national conservation plan—is a very good starting point, particularly the first paragraph that emphasizes the importance of nature to Canadians.
The backgrounder reads like a strong commitment of government to protect our iconic landscapes, seascapes, and wild species. I sincerely hope that the commitment is real, that nature will be valued as more than a driver for our economy, and that the value of the ecosystem services provided to Canada will be better appreciated and protected for generations.
Success in developing this plan is going to have its challenges, but if my experience over 30 years with Pacific salmon throughout British Columbia is representative, we will be able to draw on a wealth of experience, expertise, and stewardship from community organizations, universities, industries, and NGOs.
However, to build strong collaboration and to use this expertise, I suggest that we begin this NCP process by describing a set of national goals and setting out the commitment of the federal government to achieve them. Without a strong will to implement this plan, there's little point in building great expectations in the public or expending the effort required to achieve a national program.
I want to limit my comments to three major points in building the NCP and to describe one example of an effective conservation policy already developed in Canada—Canada's policy for wild Pacific salmon.
There are three priority issues I want to emphasize in developing the plan. First, in a country of the scope and diversity of Canada, the national plan should be hierarchical in structure, with national goals and principles, and a regionally specific implementation that recognizes the diversity of landscapes and biological systems across Canada. It's appropriate to have consistent principles across our country, but we have to recognize that ecological systems vary by region and are determined by the interaction of landscapes, climate, and biological systems. Within these ecological zones, measures of biological diversity or the use of key species as indicators define another stratum for consideration within regions.
Second, the plan should be a science-based process in the delineation of ecosystems. This should comprise terrestrial, fresh water, estuaries, and marine environments so that the methods are repeatable, make use of available knowledge and expertise, and include monitoring to track successes or failures and to learn from our experience through time.
We are not starting from zero in this effort. There is an extensive literature related to these methods. For example, there is the work of the Nature Conservancy at a website called conservationgateway.org, and a publication that describes what we're undertaking, Conservation Area Design. It provides an excellent starting point for the structure of the plan.
Third, the development of the NCP should be inclusive and involve localized stewardship groups to incorporate their local values and interests, to monitor their environments, and to monitor progress towards regional objectives. These community organizations provide exceptional value in labour and local knowledge, as well as an important tie between communities and the local natural environments. This is not a new recommendation. An excellent statement of the potential value of local stewardship called “Canada's Stewardship Agenda“was published by Environment Canada in 2002.
The example I want to present was developed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and is entitled Canada's Policy for Conservation of Wild Pacific Salmon. It was completed in June 2005 after six years of extensive public consultations and more than a decade of scientific debate. I provided you copies of this yesterday, on your tour.
This policy has subsequently been applied to Atlantic salmon in eastern Canada and is widely recognized as a model framework for the sustainable management of Pacific salmon to maintain their adaptability to environmental change and for the inclusion of communities in decision processes that affect them.
You might think of the policy as the result of three intersecting circles. One circle represents the physical landscape and climate that determines the major ecological zones in British Columbia. The second circle represents the biological features of Pacific salmon populations, the dynamics of their interactions between populations—I mean the spawning aggregations—and the ecological interactions that define the productivity of the salmon population. We use productivity in the sense of how many progeny are produced from a pair of spawners. The third circle represents the human impacts overlain on the salmon and their environment.
With this intersection, these circles describe the conservation need for a particular Pacific salmon group or species. To address these issues within one national policy—the wild salmon policy—the consultation process agreed to five strategies or action steps within the policy.
One is to define the geographic range of each salmon species and population, and for each to describe management targets and a monitoring plan to understand the state of these resources. Second is to, within each conservation unit, assess the habitat quality and quantity and monitor habitat trends over time. Again within the conservation unit, the third is to assess the ecological conditions within the unit, assessing both the value of salmon to local ecosystems—for example, the marine nutrients provided as salmon return from the sea—and the importance of local ecological processes to the productivity of Pacific salmon, such as, for example, the availability of fresh water or the condition of local estuaries for juvenile salmon. Fourth is to develop an open and transparent process to involve local community groups in decisions that will directly affect their communities. And the last one is to conduct periodic evaluations to assess progress and to adjust as we appreciate changes that are necessary.
There actually is a sixth strategy, which you'll see in the policy, but it pertains to the annual implementation of fisheries management decisions, since the intent of the policy is long-term but fisheries must be managed on an annual time scale.
While this example may not seem directly analogous to your task to develop a national conservation plan of much greater scope, I would suggest that the steps involved are analogous to your task and would be particularly useful at the regional level of organization for many other species.
Now, Mark, I don't say the next part as any criticism at all; it's a statement of fact that I want to emphasize for a specific salmon that we talked about yesterday. The comment is simply that given the current concern about changes in the Fisheries Act and habitat provisions, I feel that I have to emphasize that the diversity of Pacific salmon that we enjoy in Canada is a direct reflection of the diversity of habitats available and the direct tie between salmon and those habitats. We can't have healthy, productive Pacific salmon without protecting the diversity of their habitats and the functioning ecosystems that they exist within. Pacific salmon really are a direct reflection of their habitat and the ancestral lineages that led to what we see today. The wild salmon policy will protect both, through time and under various climate changes.
What I think will be different in your task at the national level, compared with the regional wild salmon policy, is how to incorporate what I simply refer to as “big picture” issues that will be overlain on the current status of species and our habitats—for example, the management and conservation of fresh water in Canada. I also include climate change responses and impacts in B.C. of particular interest, such things as mountain pine beetle interactions, and we have marine impacts in the Strait of Georgia.
I also think we need to draw attention to the care and protection of Canada's three oceans and their biodiversity. I draw your attention to the very recent publication from the Royal Society of Canada on marine biodiversity status. It's available on the RSC website.
Finally, for consistency with international obligations that Canada has already signed on to, I would think that the structure of the program will have to very much be hierarchical in nature. It's possible, then, that these larger issues might be addressed by specific advisory processes to assist you in how to identify what these pressures are and provide an appropriate response to them within the national plan.
I very much look forward to more discussion on this very worthwhile task. I expect you will receive a lot of advice and opinions, but I hope you will make use of the extensive expertise in Canada, make use of the many past efforts and publications, draw on communities' local knowledge and willingness to assist you, and of course, in my reference to “communities” I most certainly include the first nations of Canada with their local and traditional knowledge.
Thank you very much for your attention.