Thank you very much.
Thank you to the committee for welcoming me here.
My name is Martin Willison. I am 68 years old and a retired professor of biology and environmental studies at Dalhousie University. I currently hold the title of adjunct professor in the university's School for Resource and Environmental Studies and Marine Affairs Program.
For about 20 years I taught nature conservation to undergraduate students. My graduate students conducted research on practical aspects of conserving both marine and terrestrial biodiversity using the tool boxes of both natural and social sciences. As part of this work, I trained many students who were later employed by government agencies. I also helped to build the framework for the network of environmental non-government organizations in Nova Scotia.
In the last five years I have expanded this interest to a region of western China, where I act as an educator and consultant about biodiversity and restoration ecology, including biodiversity strategy-and-action planning. As a comment on that, I helped write a biodiversity strategy and action plan for a municipality in China—of 30 million people, by the way.
Biodiversity is the foundation of life itself and is recognized at three main levels: genetic, taxonomic, and ecosystemic. Human activities threaten the integrity of biodiversity in many ways, and the threats are now globalized. We address these threats at all levels and in many ways, such as through gene banks, species at risk, protected areas, and resource management.
Despite many efforts made in Canada to protect biodiversity, it continues to decline. The decline is a strong indicator of fundamental unsustainability in our society, including our economy, health, and culture. The decline in biodiversity must be slowed and eventually stabilized if human life is to continue.
To achieve this in Canada, we need—but lack—a holistic overarching plan for the conservation of biodiversity. Many of the necessary parts for such a plan are in place, but the parts are not well integrated, and the necessary links are often missing or exist only because the practitioners, such as myself, know what is needed.
Progress has often been slow due in part to this lack of an overarching framework. While some conservation practitioners are professional, many are ordinary citizens who see the big picture but struggle to make real progress towards only too evident goals.
A national plan will need to have a strong foundation in both the natural and the social sciences, including biology, environmental science, ecology, law, and economics. It will need to integrate actions at federal, provincial, municipal, and non-government levels. It should be designed so that it can be activated by government organizations, non-government organizations, businesses, and the general public. It must be as adaptive as possible; that is, it should be a facilitative plan—one that makes things happen—that eases the path to progress and enables biodiversity conservation to become a national priority rather than an afterthought.
The process of making the plan will need to be inclusive of all who wish to be involved, because inclusion ensures subsequent effectiveness in conserving common heritage. This will not be easy to achieve, but failure to do it will mean that we will continue to lose ground.
A national conservation plan will have to consider all land and water classes by using an ecosystem approach. It will have to consider all possible approaches to conservation, including some that have not yet been utilized. As such, it must become operative before it is fully made by ensuring that some parts become functional as soon as their place within the whole can be adequately perceived; that is, it should function while still being a work in progress. After all, that is how nature works, and if we take an ecosystem approach, we should learn from nature's wisdom. Humans are part of nature, and ecosystems include people.
The challenge for us is how to complete such a large endeavour—actually, it's a huge endeavour—in a timely fashion. Of all the constraints, time is the one that is in shortest supply. After a lot of thought about this and how to do it, I have concluded that it is possible, and that there are two essential practical elements that will make it feasible. The first is an inclusive process that is organized outside of government itself, albeit with government input. The second is the use of modern technology that permits planning in a cost-effective way. I believe that a set of comprehensive living plans could be made in three years, at a cost to government of less than $500,000—less than half a million dollars.
The method would be as follows.
Any plan is founded on an orderly integration of knowledge that is used to determine actions toward defined goals. The most successful integration of knowledge ever achieved is a modern compilation called Wikipedia. This huge multi-lingual encyclopedia is a living document created by millions of writers, most of whom work without pay in their spare time. It is used constantly as a reference by literally hundreds of millions of people. Wiki software is readily available and can be adapted for making a plan.
Canada is a well-wired country and would instantly leap to the front of adaptive planning by taking this inclusive online approach to planning. Government, business, and non-profit groups all have the capacity to build the necessary framework. It is probable that a consortium of non-profit conservation-oriented groups would quickly leap forward to offer this service for public good.
I lay out then in my presentation a ten-step strategy, which might unfold as follows.
In May—that's now—the strategy is announced. It's the wiki concept, enterprise approach, and target budget. In June, next month, there's a call for proposals with emphasis on efficiency and timeliness. In September of this year there's selection of short-listed proposals. In October there's public engagement in online selection of a winning proposal; so we involve the public in actually deciding who's going to do this. In January comes the announcement and initial funding of the winning bid. In June 2013, get the hardware and the software for the wiki framework in place. I know that can be done. I have a nephew who makes his living doing that. In October, bare bones of one or more plans could be in place using expert input—I'd be happy to help. By December of next year, the wiki could be available for public use. By June 2014, we could have the first useful elements of the plan adopted in practice, and in June 2015 we could have an operational living plan in place.
I lay this out simply to show you that it could be done. It's just a matter of imagination. I have a lot of that.
Among many possible approaches to the plan, there are several elements that need to be included. I feel I don't actually need to go through this list, because it's so close to what Jeff Hutchings has already presented to the committee that I think it's almost unnecessary. But we'd have to consider marine and terrestrial systems; we have to look at species at risk; we have to deal with protected areas, as Jeff has mentioned; we have to disseminate information to the public, an education approach; we need to monitor what's actually going on; and we need to involve lots of groups such as museums, universities, government departments, and civil society.
Civil society means, simply, that everybody can have input into it. We could have a plan that includes a plan for almost every lake in this country, because the local communities who live next to them could just say, “I'll make that bit for you, because we love our lake. We love our river. We love our hill, our mountain, everything.”
If you involve civil society, you can make your plan. The only way you can do that cost-effectively is using a wiki.
Thank you.