Environment Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Good morning, committee members. I'd like to call meeting 73 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to order.

We're pleased to have with us today a number of witnesses, including from Ducks Unlimited Canada, Mr. Greg Siekaniec and Jim Brennan; from the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Mr. John Lounds, Michael Bradstreet, and Lisa McLaughlin; and from the Delta Waterfowl Foundation, Mr. Jonathan Scarth.

We'll proceed in that order. Each group will have a 10-minute opening presentation, followed by questions from committee members.

We'll begin with Ducks Unlimited Canada, please, for 10 minutes.

Mr. Siekaniec, welcome to the committee.

[Greg Siekaniec, Chief Executive Officer, Ducks Unlimited Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I would really like to thank you for inviting us here to appear before you to discuss a subject that is obviously at the very heart of Ducks Unlimited Canada's mission. We appreciate being given the opportunity to provide our thoughts on a national conservation plan for Canada and hope to impress upon you the central role that habitat conservation should play within it.

In addition to my remarks today, I also refer you to our written submission, which addresses in more detail the questions your committee has been tasked with coming up with answers to.

As Mr. Chairman said, my name is Greg Siekaniec. I am the chief executive officer of Ducks Unlimited Canada, and am from Stonewall, Manitoba.

Joining me today is Jim Brennan, our director of governmental affairs, based here in our Ottawa office.

Ducks Unlimited Canada is our nation's leading wetland conservation organization. Our 365 employees work to conserve wetland and upland habitat in every province and territory, and we don't do it alone. We are fuelled by the passion of nearly 139,000 grassroots supporters, including over 6,200 volunteers, who recognize the rich tradition of hunting and the role that hunters have played in conserving habitat across North America.

Our efforts are also complemented by thousands of conservation partners across the country, such as the two organizations appearing alongside me today, as well as private landowners, our most important conservation stakeholders.

We've made good use of the resources provided by supporters, partners, and governments. In fact, our annual spending between 2008 to 2012 resulted in several direct economic benefits each year: $77 million in GDP, 969 full-time equivalents in employment, $60 million in employment income, and $16 million in operating profits for Canadian businesses.

Our appearance before you comes at an interesting time for Ducks Unlimited Canada. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary, we've been reflecting back on accomplishments while leaning hard into the headwinds of change that await us.

Looking back, we do have much to celebrate. We have invested over $2 billion in Canada, securing 6.4 million acres of habitat, and influencing an additional 105 million acres through policy and extension work.

Looking ahead, however, we see many challenges on the horizon that concern us, the largest of which is habitat loss. When we addressed this committee last year, we quantified the rate of wetland loss. Since that address last year, Canada has lost an additional 32,000 acres of its already-depleted stock of wetland habitat. If you think about it, that means a wetland area over half of the size of the old city of Nepean has vanished in just over one year.

When you imagine that rate of loss occurring across the country, you begin to understand the magnitude of the issue. Ontario alone has lost more than 70% of its historical wetland base within developed areas. The Canadian prairies, the nursery of North America's waterfowl populations, have lost up to 70% of their wetlands since they were first settled in the 1800s.

This rate of loss is hard to keep pace with, despite all of our collective efforts. In fact, if Ducks Unlimited Canada could replace all the wetlands lost in Saskatchewan every year, it would cost two times our annual budget for the entire prairie region. For every day we lose ground, both figuratively and literally, Canadians are burdened with real economic consequences.

Consider again the fact that the acres Ducks Unlimited Canada secures in one year provide over $4 billion in societal benefits: flood control, climate regulation, water purification, tourism, recreation, and so on. Now imagine those benefits being wiped out, nullified, because we are being outpaced by wetland loss that could be prevented.

What is the solution to this dilemma?

Wetland conservation must take place on both working and unsettled landscapes. I will use prairie and boreal Canada as examples to illustrate how we feel this can possibly be done.

Based on our scientific studies, which should underpin any conservation actions, we have identified these two regions as priorities for continental populations of migrating waterfowl. Prairie Canada is a priority area for Ducks Unlimited Canada because up to 50% of North America's waterfowl are hatched and fledged within this area. The prairies also host family farms, ranches, and commercial agricultural enterprises, all of which are under pressure to both increase productivity and decrease environmental damage.

To conserve habitat in these working landscapes, we believe a mixed approach is required, one that includes market-based incentives to restore lost and degraded wetlands as well as a regulatory backstop to retain those that remain. While there are a number of incentive programs being implemented, we believe the most successful ones will be developed in such a way that they compel stakeholders to invest in the long-term security of vital habitat.

Ducks Unlimited Canada also has a keen interest in the unsettled landscapes of boreal Canada, because 30% of North America's waterfowl populations depend on this region for breeding and nesting. We see great opportunity for the national conservation plan there as well.

Resource extraction, particularly minerals, forestry, and oil and gas, will continue to be the main driver of economic growth in the north. We understand this while also recognizing the inherent rights of northern populations to determine their own environmental, political, and economic futures.

That being said, we've learned many important lessons in the southern landscapes of Canada and do not wish to see the same rate of loss replicated in the north. To avoid this, collectively supported and balanced conservation actions can safeguard northern habitats through land-use planning initiatives such as the Northwest Territories protected areas strategy.

Whether we are talking about working landscapes in the Prairies, the boreal forest, or elsewhere in Canada, the conservation community understands that this country will continue to grow and develop and that a national conservation plan must make allowances for this.

We accept that unavoidable habitat damage or loss will continue to occur. However, proven solutions are available to address this trend. Some provinces in Canada, and many U.S. state governments, have implemented mitigation programs within their legislative and regulatory frameworks.

We believe the Government of Canada should work with provincial and territorial governments to develop national standards and guidelines for wetland mitigation and other conservation offsets.

A mitigation framework is just one example of where the federal government can take a leadership position in habitat conservation. In addition to ensuring consistency across jurisdictions, it can provide much-needed funding to leverage the untapped financial support and energy of other NGOs, governments, and conservation-minded citizens.

With the development of a national conservation plan, the Government of Canada has an opportunity to harness the momentum building within the conservation community while removing barriers to its success.

For any of us entrusted with habitat conservation—and I mean any of us—choosing not to act is a decision in itself, a decision that will enable the continued loss and degradation of valuable habitat. If we choose to live with the status quo, we must be prepared to live with the consequences—historic levels of flooding, loss of biodiversity, as well as a variety of climate change impacts that will only compound the issues we face today. Many already-degraded systems—Lake Winnipeg, for example—will only recover with a strategy that ensures a net-gain emphasis in wetland and grassland habitat conservation.

The challenge is daunting, but Ducks Unlimited Canada sees it as an opportunity that exists nowhere else in the world. We have inherited an incredible natural legacy here in Canada, and the public has high expectations that we will all act responsibly.

This is a huge task, and no one body, whether government or non-government, can tackle it alone. With funding and legislative leadership from the government, Canada's conservation organizations are ready to tackle the challenges before us. Ducks Unlimited Canada has 75 years of experience and a strong base of conservation-minded supporters ready to go, and we applaud the Government of Canada for taking this important step in building a national conservation plan.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I look forward to answering any questions you may have and engaging in a dialogue on conservation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Mr. Siekaniec. And thank you for honouring the time commitment.

We'll move now to Mr. John Lounds, president of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Mr. Lounds.

[John Lounds, President, Nature Conservancy of Canada]

Thank you. Good morning, bonjour.

Thank you for the opportunity to present today. I'm John Lounds, president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Joining me today is Michael Bradstreet, who's our vice-president of conservation, and Lisa McLaughlin, who heads up our securement and stewardship practice for the organization.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada is one of the country's largest habitat conservation organizations. For 50 years we have facilitated long-term conservation solutions. We work most often in those parts of Canada where private ownership dominates the landscape. This is where 90% of Canadians live, work, and play, and where you'll also find more than 80% of our terrestrial and freshwater species at risk.

We are a non-advocacy organization that works with communities and willing landowners to determine the best possible solutions for nature and for people. This morning we would like to address the committee's specific questions by sharing with you our framework for conservation action; the results of what we consider to be an extremely successful model, the natural areas conservation program; and provide a couple of additional thoughts for a national conservation plan based on our experience.

The committee was asking what actions conservation organizations take to achieve their goals. At the Nature Conservancy of Canada we primarily do three things: we leverage government and other incentives to develop private sector partnerships; we work to build partnerships with landowners and communities across the country; and we rely on conservation planning at multiple levels to guide our actions.

Both public and private benefits flow from the land. Our ability to deliver effective, on-the-ground conservation is sustained by a variety of government incentives. Whether through tax credits for charitable donations or the ability to match individual contributions to federal funding, these programs are critical in encouraging Canadians to engage in the protection of our natural heritage.

The power of government incentives cannot be overstated. In fact we believe a national conservation plan can build upon the current suite such as property tax incentives, eco-gifts, easements, ecological services support, and environmental farm plans. Incentives that can be leveraged help us raise private support. Without the incentive, we can't leverage. Without the leverage, the government investment is less effective. We need both to achieve great habitat conservation in this country.

Few organizations in Canada have the capacity to work from the local to the landscape scale from coast to coast. As valuable as this may be, the Nature Conservancy of Canada could not carry out its work without a broad network of partners, including communities, first nations, other conservation organizations, corporations, and landowners.

We know that some of the best stewards of the land are the people who live on it. Innovative agreements with ranchers and farmers help us support working landscapes where conservation and agriculture coexist. Using voluntary measures and working with willing landowners, we have consistently been able to deliver wins for nature.

At NCC we believe in no random acts of conservation. A conservation planning framework guides us from securement to stewardship. We work at three levels to conserve and care for natural spaces. At the highest level we have ecoregional assessments that identify, document, and map large units of land and water and their vegetation and animal communities. Eighteen assessments are now publicly available, providing a comprehensive picture of the southern regions of our country. Within these ecoregions we define smaller, specific areas that are a priority for conservation, based on biodiversity, opportunities, and threats. We call these “natural areas”. To date we have 82 of these natural areas. Within these natural areas we pinpoint the properties where targeted securement and stewardship action can achieve conservation success.

This three-step process, based on the best available information, ensures that whatever we achieve locally will also positively impact the larger landscape. Incentives, partners, and conservation planning are three key ingredients in the Nature Conservancy of Canada's recipe for habitat conservation.

You will no doubt hear many witnesses tell you where the government hasn't got it right. We'd like to tell you about something where the government has got it right in our view, which is the natural areas conservation program. In 2007 the Government of Canada made a bold investment of $225 million in this unique public-private partnership led by the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

We are grateful for the investment. We are grateful for the collaboration of our colleagues here at Ducks Unlimited Canada, and for the contributions of local land trusts. We are pleased the government has extended the program in Budget 2013, and we believe the program should be a major component of the national conservation plan.

How successful has this program been? We, along with Ducks Unlimited Canada and the 17 land trusts, have now conserved more than 875,000 acres across all 10 provinces. Natural habitat has been conserved for 148 species at risk, and individual, corporate and other supporters have leveraged federal funds in the order of almost $2 for every $1.

An independent evaluation of the program was completed in June, 2012. The evaluation concluded that the program had been successful and had been delivered efficiently and effectively. It also concluded that there was a demonstrable and continuing need for this kind of private land conservation program in southern Canada.

Well-designed public-private partnerships, such as the natural areas conservation program, can achieve extraordinary results for habitat conservation.

What else should a national conservation plan include? We have two suggestions. The first is an inclusive counting of all conservation actions being undertaken across Canada, and the second, measures to ensure a net benefit or gain for nature from development.

We believe the national conservation plan must start with an inclusive definition of conserved land. The most quoted metric is for “protected land”, as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the IUCN. By this standard Canada has protected about 10% of our terrestrial landscape for nature. This underestimates the great conservation work being done and fails to address the Aichi target definition of “effective area-based conservation measures”. For example, most private lands conserved by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ducks Unlimited Canada and others, are not counted under the IUCN's definition.

Due to the peculiarities of Canada' s division of powers, it is also difficult to count many lands as protected under the IUCN category, given that subsurface rights are held by the provinces.

Knowing where we are is critical to knowing where we should go. We must bolster community and private conservation engagement by counting all efforts to conserve natural habitat. We can then take this and categorize an inclusive list by type of conservation activity, providing us with a fuller expression of conservation achievement in Canada.

We believe that through more habitat conservation and better reporting we can actually reach the 17% target required under Aichi by Canada's 150th birthday in 2017, three years ahead of schedule. The Nature Conservancy of Canada, of course, would be pleased to assist in this effort.

Several witnesses at the committee have advocated the principle of no net loss. We think a national conservation plan must do better and ensure a net benefit—as my colleague, Greg, said, “a net gain for the environment”.

The plan should establish a model on which economic development and land conservation and stewardship can co-exist. We have an opportunity to deliver a framework that involves the private sector in habitat conservation, particularly resource extraction companies and private landowners. Dismissing the notion of an adversarial relationship between the economy and habitat conservation, the plan should recognize the private and public benefits derived from the land.

We urge the committee to recommend that the government first allocate more resources to stewardship and best practice initiatives that enhance species recovery and complement the regulatory framework. Both of these create a clientele that volunteer-based non-governmental organizations can engage and lever conservation action. Second, study the potential of biodiversity credits to advance habitat conservation. These credits could allow industry to go above and beyond the regulatory requirements for environmental impact avoidance. Currently, impact avoidance focuses on the immediate geography of a development, regardless of the quality or significance of the natural area.

Biodiversity credits can be more flexible. They can be used to deliver conservation outcomes at priority natural areas anywhere in Canada. They can maximize the benefits to biodiversity conservation or ecological services at a national level. In this way we can help create a net benefit for nature.

In closing, we recommend that the national conservation plan be based on delivering incentives to the private sector to encourage habitat conservation. It must engage a broad network of partners, and it should be based on a sound conservation planning framework. It must establish an inclusive definition of conserved land and count all of our effective habitat conservation actions.

Finally, the natural areas conservation program is a public-private success story. We encourage the committee to consider this program as a cornerstone of the national conservation plan.

Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Lounds.

We'll move now to Mr. Jonathan Scarth of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation.

Mr. Scarth.

[Jonathan Scarth, Senior Vice-President, Delta Waterfowl Foundation]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

My notes are before you. I appreciate the opportunity to offer some observations based on our experience with North American conservation programs over the past 70 years. Delta Waterfowl is an international charity. We're dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of waterfowl.

What can we learn from ducks as we design the national conservation program? As it turns out, a great deal. Ducks are one of the best-studied animals in the world, and habitat programs aimed at their conservation and management have been the best-funded conservation programs of any within wildlife conservation, mainly because of the contributions of hunters through their licence fees and significant philanthropic support.

The waterfowl community has spent a lot of money and tried a lot of approaches to enhance waterfowl populations, so in combination with the well-developed understanding of duck biology, there are some important lessons to learn.

Ducks need both wetlands and upland cover within which to nest. Their success nesting and brood-rearing on the prairies accounts for the vast majority, about 80%, of the fluctuations in their population. The vast majority of their important nesting grounds are privately owned and dedicated to agricultural use. As such, they provide a superb metric for the health of the working landscape in Canada.

Broadly stated, as you consider the national conservation program, there are three policy tools available to governments: land use regulation, habitat purchase, and incentives. These are not mutually exclusive, but let's have a look at them in turn.

With regard to land use regulation, it's a common first reaction for governments to try to achieve conservation objectives through land use regulation prohibiting habitat destruction. Statutory prohibitions create the appearance of both political action and, since the costs of enforcement are poorly defined, a low-cost solution. That is why prohibitions have been a common feature of such legislation as the Migratory Birds Convention Act, the Fisheries Act, and provincial water legislation.

Land use regulations to address waterfowl population declines during the drought of the 1930s were introduced at both the federal and provincial level. The federal prohibitions were introduced after the Migratory Birds Convention was entered into by Canada with the United States, and then Mexico. The provincial prohibitions and permitting provisions relating to wetland drainage were introduced shortly thereafter.

None of these prohibitions, which have been in place for decades, have had any perceptible effect on wetland drainage or on waterfowl populations. Why is that? It's mostly because enforcing regulatory prohibitions on private land without any compensation amounts to a regulatory taking—a form of expropriation. They are morally unenforceable, so they have had little effect on species conservation, whether it be fisheries, species at risk, or waterfowl.

Perhaps that's why the recent debates over reforms to legislation governing fisheries and navigable waters have been heavy on process and devoid of any evidence of substantive ecological effect. This type of regulation simply doesn't work.

Another factor is resources and expertise. Over the past 30 years, there's been a transfer of biological expertise from government to the resource development industry and consulting sector. The regulators now, at many levels, lack the resources for enforcement and efficient administration of the myriad approvals required to avoid the punitive prohibitions in regulatory legislation.

On the federal front, this is exacerbated by a narrow constitutional position, which of necessity has to tread lightly given the broad reach of provincial powers over property rights.

Habitat purchase is the second tool we wanted to review. The main intervention we've tried more recently is to buy land to set aside for conservation. It has been used by governments and has been a central mission of our friends at the table this morning.

Habitat purchase has been a primary focus of waterfowl management efforts in Canada since 1986. We've spent about $2 billion, and we've purchased something in the neighbourhood of 400,000 acres within a prairie landscape of tens of millions of acres—less than 1% of the land base, and too small to have any effect on the rate of wetland loss or on waterfowl populations.

Waterfowl hatch rates have not improved significantly. In fact, the most recent comprehensive data we have shows a 5% loss of wetlands during the first 15 years of this program. Even the more focused target areas showed no significant difference in loss rates.

Despite the small footprint we have effected, we have consistently generated a negative reaction to these purchases from local communities. It is evident from this experience that there is neither enough money nor political support for habitat acquisition on an ecologically significant scale.

Finally, in our view, the best chance to achieve significant conservation benefits is through incentives, leaving the land in the hands of the landowner and paying them to produce the public goods we want, such as wildlife and clean water. The most successful conservation program in memory has been the conservation chapter within the U.S. Farm Bill south of the border, which paid landowners to set aside habitat areas.

The next question is, who is in the best position to deliver them? The Canadian approach thus far has been largely limited to delivery by government agencies and NGOs. I believe the administrative capacity to deliver broad-scale conservation incentive programs already exists in local governments and crop insurance agencies, for example. Given the provincial dominance in this field, they vary province by province. In Canada we have not yet fully explored the potential to engage these organizations in this new role of delivering conservation incentives.

Seeing the disappointing results of land use regulations and habitat purchase, Delta sat down at the table with farm organizations several years ago to design a conservation program for the working landscape. The result was our alternative land use services concept, ALUS, which is incentive-based and delivered with the help of local governments, crop insurance agencies and, of course, landowners. In testimony to your committee from our farm organizations, you have heard reference to this concept since they contributed significantly to its development.

ALUS requires a co-payment by the producers and provides an annual payment to retain land in conservation use. More importantly, it engages the farmer in a conversation about where best to grow crops and where best to grow wildlife on their lands. Our evaluations have been very positive. We've seen 70% rates of participation, with large numbers of participants who have never participated in a conservation program before. Administrative costs have been low because of participation by organizations with existing administrative capacity, such as local governments and crop insurance corporations. ALUS has even attracted cash contributions from local municipalities, a first for conservation in Canada.

The opportunity with ALUS is that it's a politically sustainable, private-public partnership to deliver conservation incentives analogous to, and every bit as important as, the new generation of infrastructure programs that attract support from all three levels of government and the private sector.

Where will the money come from during this time of global fiscal restraint? The beauty of the ALUS model is that it aggregates incentives from a variety of private and public sources. Contributions have come from federal and provincial departments of environment and agriculture, from local governments, from resource developers, and duck hunters.

An example is the legislation passed by the Province of Alberta to address greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2007, $105 million has been paid to Alberta farmers for conservation tillage practices alone, and more practices are being approved with direct habitat benefits, such as wetland conservation and perennial cover. These will have large benefits for wildlife, while sequestering carbon. There are similar mitigation funds available for wetlands and fisheries.

Some of our ALUS communities are raising funds from local residents to support local conservation efforts and we are developing a structure for ecological credits to support these conservation incentives. ALUS creates the opportunity for a direct connection between resource developers and the private landowner community. There is an opportunity to bring together hunters, farmers, and rural communities to integrate conservation into mainstream delivery mechanisms and make wildlife habitat an asset instead of a liability.

Mr. Chairman, my specific responses to the five questions of your committee are in my brief at page 4. I would focus on one, and that's question (e): “When it comes to recovering a species, how do best management practices and stewardship initiatives compare to prescriptive, government-mandated measures?” There's no question in our minds that based on the experience with waterfowl conservation, incentive-based approaches have created measurable results and land use regulations have not.

Thank you very much. I'd be pleased to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Mr. Scarth.

We'll move now to seven-minute rounds with our committee members.

I want to inform our committee that at the end of the meeting, roughly 10 minutes before adjournment, I will reserve 10 minutes for committee business. We'll move in camera for a couple of motions that have been given on notice.

I'll move to Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to everyone for coming today. It's always a pleasure to see all of you. You've spent so much time at this committee in the last couple of years. Thank you again for coming out.

Mr. Lounds, I'd like to start with you. What really tweaked my interest this morning were your comments with regard to Canada's amount of protected land and some of the ideas you had on counting it. On the IUCN categories that you mentioned, I believe there are different categories of how to classify protected land.

I was wondering, based on your experience, whether you could you talk a little bit about how Canada ranks internationally with regard to protected land, both in terms of the percentage and gross area, and how those figures vary based on what category of the IUCN definitions you would look at. Maybe you could also speak to whether or not the lands that you protect under the NACP with conservation easements are included in some of those totals.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Lounds.

[John Lounds]

Thank you.

For those of you who are not familiar with the IUCN categories, there are seven categories of protected status of lands, but generally the ones that are used to calculate whether lands are protected in countries and measured internationally are the top four categories. Within those categories, in order to be included, you need to have ensured that subsurface rights have been removed so that there's no opportunity for any mining or side drilling or anything like that.

This is the problem that I related to you about the provinces having jurisdiction over subsurface rights in this country, and not the federal government. It's going to be very difficult to actually come to some kind of agreement about that. Ten per cent of Canada's land base is under that protected status. I have the numbers here. By area, we'd be second in the world. By rank, we'd be fifth among G-8 and G-20 countries.

In regard to my reference to other lands, including those owned by Ducks Unlimited and us, many of them are not included because subsurface rights still exist for those particular properties, even though the likelihood of actually having any drilling or mining taking place is quite low. So we're trying to encourage.... How do we come up with another way of thinking about this that actually works for a country like Canada?

If you think about commitments that have been made by the Province of Quebec, for instance, to conserve half of its boreal forest, and with the Province of Ontario doing similar things, I think there are probably opportunities to think about new ways in which those could be included within our thinking about what is actually conserved across Canada.

Adding those types of conserved areas into what we do would change the ranking and probably bring Canada to number one status in terms of area, no questions asked. If we did that, it would bring us to about third in terms of rank. It's a combination of getting more habitat conservation work done as well as rethinking a bit how we look at what is conserved and what isn't.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

My colleagues opposite are probably thinking that somehow this has some sort of nefarious purpose or nefarious negative effect on the ability to conserve land and species habitat. If we were to include the lands that you've protected under the NACP or, say, those in some of the work that Ducks Unlimited has been doing, do you think this would somehow have a deleterious affect on habitat conservation or species management?

[John Lounds]

I might ask Michael to help me answer that question.

I'd say that with the work we're doing on the ground, what we're dealing with is the potential that perhaps at some point there might be, say, oil found under that particular property and therefore we wouldn't be able to conduct our conservation the way.... I think that's unlikely for a lot of the properties we have, and it is something that we'd probably try to mitigate as well, so that for habitat and species purposes there wouldn't be any real effect from that.

Now what we need to be thinking about is how we actually keep the same amount of land in that conserved status going forward. In a case where there happens to be drilling that takes place on one property, you don't want to just keep losing that, as my colleagues here have pointed out. You want to be able to replace that in some way. That's partly why we're interested in the biodiversity credits and other kinds of notions that could be part of a plan like this.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

That's excellent.

Just building on that line of thought with regard to my colleagues from Ducks Unlimited here, I had the opportunity to visit your facility at Oak Hammock Marsh this summer. It's quite clear that the loss of wetland has an impact on the environment in a wide variety of areas. The work you've been doing has been done to restore wetlands but to also be cognizant of the fact that these areas exist on a working landscape. Is that correct?

[Greg Siekaniec]

That is correct.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Based on that, do you think it is possible, based on the work you're doing, to have conservation of species habitat and balance that working landscape concept? If so, what do you think would be some of the key principles that we should be considering in making that balance work?

[Greg Siekaniec]

Thank you very much.

That's a good question. Do I think there can be a balance? I think the answer is yes. I think we are out of balance in many areas right now. The work that it will take to bring that back into balance will have to focus on restoration, on the groundwork of putting back some of the ecological goods, services, and values that healthy watersheds, as an example, provide.

There are also areas that are in relatively good condition and/or not degraded right now, which you could balance with an approach to keep it in that condition and status. I think there's absolutely that opportunity.

Some of the incentives that you would have to use, obviously, are payments to landowners for the purposes of water storage and grassland filtering. Some of the payments that you would pay to a landowner for the purposes of keeping existing good habitats, and grass—where it is—native habitats, and native prairies, again could include an incentive base, such as a conservation easement, short-term agreements for 10 years, 20 years, and 30 years and/or in perpetuity. It all affects the valuation of the land price that you're willing to pay and what the landowner is willing to accept.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Siekaniec. We're going to have to stop there.

Thanks, Ms. Rempel.

We'll move now to Monsieur Pilon.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for their presentations.

My first question is for Mr. Siekaniec.

Ducks Unlimited Canada is a known leader in wetlands conservation. We know that those wetlands are very important for biodiversity of both flora and fauna.

Could you tell us why it is so crucial to protect wetlands and how maintaining them is a key environmental issue?

[Greg Siekaniec]

I'm not sure I understood the question there. I did indicate that protecting conservation lands for the purposes of biodiversity conservation is extremely important, and that is how you conserve the biodiversity of the environment.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Why is it so important?

[Greg Siekaniec]

It's important because it provides that opportunity for the habitat to exist over time, where you have the opportunity to look at it and say are you conserving the measurable outcomes or biological products that you're interested in.

From the standpoint of the Ducks Unlimited conservation mission, it really reflects on waterfowl habitats and conservation, in which we invest in the science to be able to determine, when we put an investment on the ground, whether we are getting the net results that we're after—which is biological productivity and output for waterfowl populations, and in the associated wildlife and flora and fauna that comes with that.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Do you believe the federal government is doing enough for conservation, and how could it improve it given that we can still improve the way we conserve wetlands?

[Greg Siekaniec]

I absolutely agree with you that the federal government can do more. I think the opportunity that exists right now is to leverage other organizations, both conservation and/or private organizations and landowners in such a way that they're willing to keep conservation habitats on their lands and in partnership with others.

There is almost untapped potential for us to provide incentive funding for other organizations and groups to go out and earn money in such a way that they can invest and multiply the money that gets put back on to the ground.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

My next question is for Mr. Lounds.

Your organization does a lot of work in partnership with other local organizations, and you have an integrated approach based on the connectedness of protected areas. In other words, you are working to link natural areas through corridors.

Could you explain to us how that works?

[John Lounds]

Certainly.

Basically the way we do it is by focusing at the moment on these 82 natural areas. Within those natural areas, you'll have various properties. We're trying to have conservation arrangements on a core of those properties, and then to be able to link them within that natural area that's been deemed important from a conservation planning point of view, because there are species at risk there or whatever other ecological values we're looking at.

Some of those arrangements have not yet been made between those places on a working landscape. As Mr. Scarth said, we often rely on what individual landowners are doing in those particular parts of the world because they haven't formed part of those particular natural areas that have been deemed to be priorities for actual investment.

As we go forward, it's a matter of looking at how we do a better job with conservation for those particular corridors. I'll ask Michael if I get this wrong, but certainly out west and in many parts of Canada, you'll often find that they follow riparian corridors, which seem to be the places where you end up with the most biodiversity and rationale for why you'd want to do conservation in those places.

Correct?

Okay.