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.