Evidence of meeting #73 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was habitat.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Could you please tell me what percentage it is now? I understand there are rules—
President, Nature Conservancy of Canada
Under the IUCN rules, the new target is 17%.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
That's what I wanted to know. So it's 17%, and we're at 10%.
Could you tell me what it is for water, please?
Vice-President, Conservation, Nature Conservancy of Canada
I believe it's 10% for marine.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
And we're at 1% for marine. So the percentages are 1% for the 10% target and 10% for the 17% one. I just wanted to clarify that.
Mr. Lounds, you said that by Canada's 150th birthday, which is in 2017, we could meet our commitments. Is that correct?
President, Nature Conservancy of Canada
We believe we could, yes, and that's using the new definition. I don't want to confuse apples and oranges here.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Well, it would be using what you're proposing, is that correct?
President, Nature Conservancy of Canada
It would be using the Aichi target definition, yes—as we would interpret it.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Well, that's the key, “as you would interpret it”. To be fair, and with respect to my colleagues across the way, it could also be interpreted as changing the accounting rules. It could be.
President, Nature Conservancy of Canada
I would also argue, as I've said, that all the good work being done by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited—
President, Nature Conservancy of Canada
But we don't count it. I don't know why we don't count it.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you. I appreciate that.
I would like to ask Ducks Unlimited a question, because you've brought many good recommendations today. Regarding prairie Canada, you have talked about market-based incentives and regulatory backstops. If you had your wish list, what would your wishes be? Make your wish list to this committee.
Chief Executive Officer, Ducks Unlimited Canada
Well, if I had my wish list so that I could go out to prairie Canada and deliver conservation, it would include having a very strong financial support, so that I could approach landowners who have a working landscape to keep them on the land, working through conservation easements that allow them to maintain a family-based operation or a ranch-based operation that actually keeps them there, as part of the community and part of the tax base of the area and its economic drivers. We would then also get conservation value out of their involvement, by way of their engaging in the strategies that promote grassland, waterfowl conservation, and other wildlife-associated and flora and fauna benefits that come with that.
I would probably use conservation easements as the primary strategy, if I had my number one opportunity.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
That really helps. Thank you.
You also mentioned regulatory backstops.
Chief Executive Officer, Ducks Unlimited Canada
I think regulatory backstops are something you simply need to have as a recognition that these key habitats are extremely important. What we see now is that through the loss of the habitats out there, we are passing on potential issues to communities in downstream areas, whether from a water quality standpoint or the historic floods that occur almost on an annual basis now. There has to be some recognition that you can't just continue to push off your issue onto another area of the country.
I think a regulatory backstop does simply that: it promotes the idea that we need to be cognitive of what we have on the landscape and that “we want to work with you in order to conserve”.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you. I appreciate that.
So the recommendation to the committee is market-based incentives and regulatory backstops.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you. I appreciate this.
Also, for boreal Canada can you give your specific wish list, as specifically as you can make the recommendation to the committee, on land use planning? We've heard about land use planning over and over again.
Chief Executive Officer, Ducks Unlimited Canada
I think in boreal Canada there's a tremendous opportunity to do two things. One of them is to set aside what I would call core conservation areas that are recognized for the value to conservation they provide and promote. The next thing, after the set-asides, is that you have to bring in the best allowable management practices in that area. That's where you have the opportunity to move to a fairly restrictive regime or to a more liberal one. Within the areas that are not set aside as natural protected areas, wildlife conservation areas, we want to work with industry as they go through development and help them to think about conservation first. Let's establish best management practices while we develop and while we think about what needs to be an economic driver within a given area. We've learned that if we think about it ahead of time we typically end up with a much better product.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
We agree: conservation up front. Thank you.
You also mentioned—and I wish I had time to ask about these—mitigation programs, national standards and guidelines, a mitigation framework, and funding. What's your wish list?
Chief Executive Officer, Ducks Unlimited Canada
My wish list? Wow, that's a great question.
Chief Executive Officer, Ducks Unlimited Canada
I would love to see the federal government invest $50 million a year in a conservation strategy for wetland and grassland habitats. These habitats are very near and dear to Ducks Unlimited Canada and our other conservation partners here at the table.