Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee today. I hope the technology holds.
First, let me introduce myself. I've worked in the protected area world for well over 30 years as a scientist, as a manager for Parks Canada, and as a university researcher doing field work, and from 2001 to 2013 I was Parks Canada's first chief scientist.
I network with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, known as the IUCN; with the World Commission on Protected Areas; and with the Species Survival Commission. I want to be clear that today I'm speaking as an individual and not representing an IUCN position or a position of its commissions.
The first point I want to make is that protected areas are the key conservation tool to conserve nature. We have many tools, but these are the key ones used globally. There's considerable research to show that they're highly effective when they're well managed and well planned. That's simply because the biggest threat to biological diversity is habitat loss. Well-managed and well-designed protected areas effectively conserve habitat and species.
I think you've been told that Canada signed on to the Aichi biodiversity targets in 2010. Two years later, at the Convention on Biological Diversity conference, Canada agreed, and I'll quote this, to “undertake major efforts, with appropriate support to achieve all elements of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11”, which is the one on protected areas.
Six years into the plan, progress has been slow, so I am really delighted to see renewed interest and commitment from the committee and from Canadian governments to deliver on this promise that Canada made to the world.
Often people interpret target 11 as being only about achieving 17% on land and 10% on water, and this would be a misinterpretation of the target. It's also very much about protecting areas of particular importance to biodiversity and ecosystem services to ensure that these areas are effective and equitably managed, that they're ecologically representative, and that they work together as a well-connected system. Those elements are fundamental.
The second point I want to make is that target 11 is an interim target. We're supposed to achieve it by 2020, but nobody in the scientific community thinks it is sufficient to halt biodiversity loss—which the targets are designed to do—even if all countries in the world achieve the targets by 2020.
Target 11 is a politically realistic interim target. Ultimately, we're going to have to move towards scientifically based conservation targets in the future, if we're going to be successful, so it's wise to start thinking about that now.
Many countries in the world have already gone well beyond target 11—Brazil; the Czech Republic, where I am today; Costa Rica; Botswana; Austria; Colombia; and Spain, just to name a few.
With only 10% of our lands and less than 1% of marine areas currently protected, we're not on track to meet target 11 by 2020. That said, I think we can still get there if we ramp up our efforts. I'll try to lay out what I think are the fundamentals we need to get there.
First and foremost, we really need some strong federal leadership. Although this is going to have to be done in a partnership with first nations and governments at all levels, as well as civil society, ranchers, farmers, and loggers, I think there's going to have to be federal leadership to be successful.
Where would the federal leadership come from in this?
On land, there are two possibilities. The first, obviously, is Parks Canada. Parks Canada, however, has a mandate that's currently limited to conserving a representative example of each of Canada's natural regions. This systems plan dates back well over 40 years; it's not in keeping with modern conservation science. For that agency to lead, it would need a mandate change to focus on those elements of target 11 that I already mentioned.
I guess the other issue with the current Parks Canada set-up is that many of the older national parks are too small and isolated to be effective core areas in a national systems plan, so they're not functioning effectively as representative units.
Although Parks Canada has a very large budget, almost $1.2 billion, it only spends 7.9% of that on resource conservation in national parks and only 0.8% of it on establishing new parks or national marine conservation efforts. There would have to be a reorientation from that department.
The other option is for leadership from Environment Canada. Again, their protected areas program is small, and it has really languished over the last few decades. They run migratory bird sanctuaries and national wildlife areas. Few of their areas have current management plans, monitoring systems, or adequate staff. On average, they would not pass even a basic assessment of management effectiveness as laid out by the IUCN.
My first suggestion would be to give one of these organizations a clear mandate to lead federally, along with the corresponding resources and mandate change, but it's going to require a significant mandate shift in either case. There are pros and cons to both choices, but certainly clarity is required.
On the marine side, the federal government has clear jurisdiction through the Oceans Act, but there are challenges here too. The main piece of legislation for large representative areas is called the National Marine Conservation Areas Act, and unfortunately it establishes marine protected areas that do not meet the IUCN definition of “protected area”. That's because, although they're protected from oil and gas development, they're not protected from large-scale industrial fishing; that's optional. In spite of clear scientific evidence that having large no-take areas is fundamental for ocean conservation, we don't have.... Well, they do not meet that standard.
My second suggestion is that the Canadian NMC act would need significant strengthening in order to be a tool to help us meet target 11.
I want to turn briefly to the question of what counts, and I know this has come up before the committee already.
IUCN sets the global standard, along with UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme and its World Conservation Monitoring Centre, to say what counts under our international obligations. It's very clear that a range of governance types can count under these guidelines. It includes private areas and indigenous protected areas, as well as the more traditional things such as national parks.
Canada's protected area system is currently tracked under a database called CARTS; that's the conservation areas reporting and tracking system. It's managed by an NGO called the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas and Environment Canada. It reports internationally, and it's a very good system. We're really lucky to have it.
The individual provinces and territories report through to CARTS. They have some different rules about what to count, and this has led to some confusion and perhaps a few inconsistencies, but I think this is a relatively easy problem to resolve. At the end of the day, I think it's important not to get bogged down on the counting system, on what counts; our focus should be on protecting nature, on making sure we can halt biodiversity loss. The target was meant to protect more habitat, not to recount existing programs. I would suggest that's what we need to stay focused on.