Canadians are ready for big conservation goals and for Canada to lead. Last year I was involved in a study with the University of Northern British Columbia of a Canada-wide survey that was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, FACETS.
One of the questions we asked was how much of our country's land and ocean should be protected. The most common answer was 50% for both land and sea. The average response ranged from 43% to 51%. Canadians are on board with big conservation targets.
The IPBES assessment is really a call to action. It reinforces that we have this emergency, that climate change and nature are interconnected, and that the emergency is mutually reinforcing. We need to recognize better that conservation action helps to tackle climate change and that climate action can help to reverse biodiversity loss. Setting large-scale land and ocean protection and restoration targets and implementing them in a planned fashion is an important opportunity to bring these discussions together and advance both.
Canada has a big opportunity to lead, and we're urging Canada to champion a global goal of protecting half the earth and setting a milestone target of at least 30% protection by 2030 in the next Convention on Biological Diversity strategic plan, which is currently being discussed both globally and in Canada. We're also urging Canada to adopt these targets at home. It's necessary, and it's achievable. CPAWS released a report a couple of weeks ago showing how this can be achieved in the ocean. I have a pile of copies here for you today, and the French versions are in production. I'd welcome you to come and get a copy from me afterwards.
Last time I was here at committee, we were discussing protected areas and how to meet the 2020 biodiversity targets of 17% and 10% protection by 2020. Three years later, thanks in part to your important and unanimous all-party report and lots of other efforts by many other people, we've seen the biggest ever increase in ocean protected and conserved areas in Canada, which have expanded eightfold in three years, and put in place for the first time minimum protection standards for MPAs. We're on track to meet these targets in the ocean and likely to exceed them by 2020, and planning is now under way as well in some regions for more comprehensive networks of MPAs beyond 2020. There's more work to be done, for sure, but there's been great progress.
On land, where provincial and territorial governments control most of the land base, progress has been slower but still significant. The federal government has brought together governments and indigenous peoples under the umbrella of the pathway to target 1 initiative that was mentioned by other witnesses.
They've invested more than $1.3 billion in terrestrial nature conservation, and many of us in this room had worked very hard to make that happen. Very importantly, this funding is not just funding for the federal government, but it is flowing to partners on the ground, and this is critical. The new nature fund is generating huge interest in protecting much more land across the country, particularly from indigenous governments and communities. There's so much demand for that funding that there's way more demand than the current funding can support, which really shows the depth of interest that exists across this country in protecting more of our land and ocean, as well as the opportunity we have here in Canada to move forward by supporting on-the-ground efforts.
We need to keep the pedal to the metal to achieve our 2020 targets, but as your report from a few years ago noted, these were interim targets. They were always meant to be interim targets. They're not adequate to achieve the goal of biodiversity conservation. Now it's time for Canada to look beyond 2020 and to set ambitious targets based on the science and indigenous knowledge for what's needed to save nature, which is in the order of half the earth.
The IPBES report reinforces a few more things I want to quickly highlight. First of all is the importance of indigenous-led conservation, and this is a huge opportunity here in Canada. Second, it is important to make sure that quality and quantity are reflected in the next suite of targets to meet our goals of reversing the decline of nature and tackling climate change. Third, it makes the compelling case for scaling up the financial support that exists, including by transforming subsidies into incentives, as my colleagues focused on in the last panel, and the clear benefits of doing so.
To conclude quickly, the IPBES report highlights the challenges we face, but also the opportunity we have to act decisively and to make a big difference. Canada has a huge opportunity to lead, and I encourage you to help us grasp this opportunity.
CPAWS is committed to helping in any way we can.
Thank you.