Thank you.
First I'd like to point out that the timing of this conversation is very auspicious. It is now 100 years since the signing of the Migratory Birds Convention Act between Canada and the U.S. It's also the 100-year anniversary of the creation of the first migratory bird sanctuary, which was done at Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, very close to my home in Regina.
Canada's first national park in Banff was created in 1885, but despite that early start, we're still far from achieving conservation goals, such as Aichi target 11, so today we will make three recommendations and some subpoints within each recommendation.
The three general recommendations are, first, that Canada urgently needs an implementation strategy to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi target 11 of protecting 17% of Canada's land and fresh water and 10% of our coastal and marine areas by 2020. Second, Canada must also continue to work to support other countries in achieving their biodiversity targets, especially those countries within our hemisphere and those with which we share migratory wildlife. Third, an important role of protected areas is to maintain these great areas and to share these great areas with Canadians as a way to maintain support for ongoing work to meet protected areas objectives.
In terms of recommendation one, the implementation strategy, Canada has a lot of work ahead of it to meet those targets. Without complicating it a whole lot, I'll just say that what we're doing hasn't been working. An important part of the reason we haven't met these goals is weak political commitment. That's your job, and we hope and expect you will make this a priority going forward.
For Canada to reach these targets, we need to be creative and flexible in using the existing tools and if necessary in developing new ones to help achieve biodiversity goals.
Tools like migratory bird sanctuaries and national wildlife areas provide a bit more flexibility in that they are quicker to negotiate and easier to establish, and they can be focused on small areas of critical importance to a single species or for multiple species. Bird sanctuaries can be located on private land. The Species at Risk Act includes provisions to provide incentives to landowners for habitat conservation, though these need to be applied more often. National wildlife areas do not exclude traditional activities such as hunting, trapping, and fishing. These tools can be more easily tailored to meet the needs of specific communities, interest groups, and local landowners.
Greater flexibility may be needed in these individual tools, such as provisions to provide incentives to landowners for habitat conservation or to allow for compatible multiple uses in some tools that don't presently allow those things. This type of flexibility will allow for more creativity in meeting overall conservation goals but will be particularly important in conserving small areas that may be critical to conserve biodiversity in areas of intensive agriculture or urban development to address connectivity needs, to maintain ecosystem services such as pollination, or to maintain quality of such key habitat areas as rivers and streams.
Programs to plan, negotiate, and establish these types of areas will also need to be adequately resourced to achieve our goals.
It will also be important to align conservation objectives with the Paris agreement on climate change guidance to include long-term adaptation to build resilience into national climate change plans.
For example, fresh water is the most important resource in the world. It provides habitat for a wide range of species and water supplies for communities and industry, but impacts of climate change are putting increasing pressure on it. We therefore encourage the committee to set targets specifically for conservation of important freshwater rivers, wetlands, and lakes, and the biodiversity associated with them. We appreciate that this has many challenges, so this will be another area where creativity and flexibility are critical.
A point to consider when looking at targets is that many countries appear to be just now heading towards setting fresh water conservation goals. South Africa is one of the first, and it has a fresh water conservation target of 20% for each freshwater ecosystem. The federal government is currently undertaking a review of the Fisheries Act and its related policy. This presents an opportunity to commit to enhanced fresh water and marine biodiversity conservation targets and to the tools to achieve them, such as the designation of ecologically significant areas under the Fisheries Act.
Our second recommendation is to support other countries in achieving their biodiversity targets. It's important to remember that wildlife doesn't recognize political boundaries. While our work here to meet conservation targets is important, unless other countries that our wildlife migrates to also protect important habitats, we will lose some of our biodiversity.
Canada is a very fortunate nation in the world. We have an important role in working with and supporting less fortunate countries in the management of local habitats to achieve biodiversity goals. Parks Canada does some important work on behalf of Canada and the World Parks Commission and with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is very important that this work continue to be supported, particularly with countries in our hemisphere, or we may achieve our local targets of protected area but lose the larger battle, the real purpose of these targets in the first place, which is to conserve our biodiversity. There may be opportunity for the global affairs department to co-operate in supporting objectives of this type.
Our third recommendation is to establish objectives to share these great areas with Canadians. In addition to the obvious economic, environmental, social, and cultural benefits, time outdoors also helps to improve student academic performance and contributes to personal health. Parks Canada should be congratulated on its work for the IUCN's Nature for All initiative, which encourages and supports getting people outdoors. Establishing targets and metrics on the participation and impact of this work would also help align biodiversity conservation with a broader range of government objectives, such as health, education, tourism, and youth, which is a priority of Prime Minister Trudeau.
Thank you to the group for our time. We at the Canadian Wildlife Federation, and our 300,000 supporters across the country, look forward to seeing the committee's action items following this review.