That's interesting.
On page 20 you talk about about the capacity of agricultural lands to conserve wildlife. I had an interesting meeting with Croplife Canada. One thing that's omitted from your report is the contribution of modern intensive agriculture to biodiversity conservation and the fact that farming is now done on less land than it needs to be done. For example, if we abandon all modern farm practices such as chemicals and fertilizers, at least in terms of canola, we would have to farm 19 million more acres or basically 14 million more football fields of land. Modern agriculture is a terrific conservation tool because there is much land that can be left for conservation.
It's a characteristic of modern agriculture that's always overlooked. When I drive through my own rural constituency, there's still lots of wildlife habitat. The best land is being farmed even better, producing as much as it ever did, while reserving the rest of the land for conservation. I find that interesting.
The reason I asked the question about habitat protection is that one thing that's always missing in biodiversity conservation is the role of active human management of diversity. I would draw your attention to a very interesting program by the National Audubon Society, North America's leading bird conservation society.
As you know, Commissioner, grassland birds are very much in trouble. The Audubon Society started a program called conservation ranching, wherein regenerative grazing practices are adopted that mimic the past grazing by bison. I could go on. It seems to me that people in government and organizations always forget the role of the people who live on the land. Not only do they have traditional knowledge of fish and wildlife on their land, they know the techniques to conserve them.
Can you make a quick comment on the role of local, traditional knowledge in farming and ranching in terms of biodiversity conservation?