Okay.
Our presentation will provide further details on the pathway to achieving Canada target one of the 2020 biodiversity goals and targets for Canada and a status report on Parks Canada’s work to expand the national park and national marine conservation area systems.
I will first summarize the key points made to the committee during your visit to Jasper National Park on the development of a pathway to Canada target one, including protecting 17% of Canada’s terrestrial areas by 2020. As noted in our Jasper presentation, six of 13 provinces and territories, plus Parks Canada, have almost completed their park systems, and yet only 10.6% of Canada’s terrestrial and inland waters are currently protected. Clearly, much work is urgently required to reach the 17% target and to develop the next set of conservation targets for beyond 2020.
The vast majority of this percentage will need to come from provincial and territorial jurisdictions—this is where the opportunities lie—in the form of traditional protection means, as well as potentially new area-based tools that contribute to biodiversity, such as the emerging emphasis on indigenous protected areas. Federal, provincial, and territorial deputy ministers responsible for parks have established a national steering committee to develop a pathway to Canada target one, which is also known as Aichi target 11. This initiative will address the terrestrial target, while Fisheries and Oceans Canada will lead the work on the marine target of 10%.
Parks Canada and Alberta Parks are co-chairing the national steering committee, whose membership also includes directors from Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. We will complete the membership of the committee with representatives from three national indigenous organizations and one municipality. The national steering committee recognizes that other effective area-based conservation measures and indigenous protected areas could contribute significantly to achieving the 17% target and a national network of conservation areas.
The committee understands that the solutions to achieve Canada target one will only be found through collaboration and collective action. Governments, indigenous organizations, communities, and organizations across Canada have a significant interest in the outputs from this process. Accordingly, the national steering committee hopes to consult broadly with individuals who can provide a spectrum of perspectives, including indigenous organizations, academia, youth, industry, and non-governmental groups, perhaps in the form of a national panel.
As mentioned before, the pathway will include implementation guidance that will address the qualitative themes associated with Canada target one, Aichi target 11, including other effective conservation measures, indigenous conservation areas, ecological representation, important areas for biodiversity and ecological services, effective and equitable management, and connecting conservation areas and integrating them into the wider landscape. We can envision the need for expert groups to undertake targeted analysis to be considered by the steering committee and form part of the broader engagement with the spectrum of interested and implicated parties. The pathway will make full use of existing guidance prepared by the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, and by provinces and territories.
The national steering committee is aiming to deliver the pathway to Canada target one by the end of March 2018, but we also expect that this collaborative federal, provincial and territorial process will build the necessary momentum to generate the action required to achieve the target.
Finally, I want to affirm that we believe formal recognition of indigenous protected areas could contribute significantly to Canada target one. We are confident that the process we have described would support a renewed nation-to-nation relationship with indigenous peoples based on respect, co-operation, partnership, and the recognition of rights.
I will now turn to the status of Parks Canada's terrestrial and marine systems plans.
Under the Parks Canada Agency Act, Parliament directed Parks Canada to maintain long-term plans for establishing systems of national parks and national marine conservation areas, NMCAs. The act confirms that Parks Canada is responsible for negotiating and recommending to our minister the establishment of new national parks and NMCAs. When it comes to expanding the national park and NMCA systems, Parliament was clear that we are to pursue new national parks under the Canada National Parks Act and NMCAs under the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act. Thus, Parks Canada has not pursued other forms of protected areas to represent the 39 park regions and the 29 marine regions.
We have, however, adopted new ways of doing business, in particular with indigenous governments and organizations within the legal framework of our park and NMCA legislation, as well as with land claim agreements. This has allowed us to make substantive progress over the last 15 years, including establishing seven national parks totalling 82,437 square kilometres, establishing two new NMCAs totalling 14,380 square kilometres, and significantly expanding several existing parks by almost 32,000 square kilometres.
With respect to the national park system, 30 of 39 natural regions are represented by one or more national parks. Negotiations for the proposed Thaidene Nëné national park reserve, once concluded, will result in representation of the northwestern boreal uplands natural region. We are close to completing establishment agreements with the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, and we have started negotiation of an establishment agreement with the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Budget 2016 announced funding to establish Thaidene Nene as Canada’s 47th national park. To that end, we hope to achieve the signing and celebration of these three establishment agreements in 2017 as a gift to Canadians in our sesquicentennial year. Parks Canada is also advancing work on a proposed national park in the Manitoba lowlands. Should we secure the support of provincial and territorial governments and indigenous groups, we hope to engage on three additional proposals in the interior dry plateau of B.C., the northern interior plateaux and mountains region that straddles the B.C.-Yukon border, and the Southampton plains in Hudson Bay. If new national parks are achieved in all five of these regions, they will contribute up to 0.5% toward the 17% target. Currently, Parks Canada has no plans to abandon the existing national park system plan, but we may investigate how the system plan could be updated through the work of the target one subcommittee in “Beyond 2020: Setting the Stage for Future Conservation Targets”.
With respect to the NMCA systems plan, five of the 29 marine regions are represented by NMCAs. We have identified potential NMCAs in the 24 remaining regions, except for one on the west coast, and we have confirmed candidate sites in 11 of the 24 unrepresented marine regions. Of these 11, three are in the feasibility phase, and we are in discussions with the Cree Nation government with respect to a potential NMCA project in James Bay.
Budget 2016 also announced funding to establish an NMCA to protect the internationally significant Lancaster Sound. Parks Canada is working with the Nunavut government and the Qikitani Inuit Association to finalize recommendations on this proposal, including a proposed boundary.
In a significant development, on World Oceans Day this past June 8, Shell Canada Limited announced it had voluntarily relinquished a block of 30 exploratory permits covering more than 8,600 square kilometres to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, which then returned them to the Government of Canada. These permits were located east of the 2010 federal boundary proposal, but within an area that Inuit communities want to see added to the NMCA.
We are working toward a substantive announcement in 2017 to mark Canada's sesquicentennial and to contribute to the government's goal of protecting 5% of Canada's marine estate by 2017.
That concludes my remarks, Madam. Thank you.