Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak today.
My name is Janet Sumner. I'm the executive director of the Wildlands League, a chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
The CPAWS Wildlands League is a not-for-profit charity that has been working in the public interest to protect public lands and resources in Ontario since 1968. At the Wildlands League, we have extensive knowledge of land use in Ontario and a history of working with provincial, federal, indigenous, and municipal governments, scientists, the public, and resource industries on progressive conservation initiatives. We've published on issues such as forestry and terrestrial carbon, assessments on transmission corridor impacts on a caribou range, monitoring and reporting failures from a diamond mine in a world-class wetland, and much more.
You may have seen our Paddle the Rouge event last June, where we had 200 paddlers out for a Sunday paddle with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Madam Grégoire Trudeau in the Rouge national park.
What is probably lesser known is our work with KI, where the community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib lnninuwug created a watershed declaration making their lands largely off-limits to industrial development. We asked the province to respect this declaration and recognize and reflect it in provincial law. The province finally agreed and withdrew 2.6 million hectares from mining tenure.
If Canada is to meet the 2020 biodiversity goals and targets adopted in 2015, the Province of Ontario and, for that matter, Manitoba and Quebec, will have to consider the Hudson Bay-James Bay lowlands wetland complex as a place where a significant contribution to the networks of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures is made.
In an age where we are already experiencing significant warming from climate change, unprecedented declines in species, and a carbon cycle that frankly is drastically off-kilter, protected areas and the protection targets must also be about addressing the overlap on climate, carbon, caribou, and biodiversity. We can do this by inserting protection objectives into our climate plan. Conservation areas can be identified when we do caribou range plans, and caribou outcomes can be achieved in our protected areas planning. These mandates overlap, and opportunities that are synergistic and achieve multiple benefits will be more efficient. For example, the federal recovery strategy for woodland caribou released by Environment Canada says that range plans must have more than 65% intactness.
I have worked with progressive companies across ranges all across Canada to develop technical inputs and range approaches that, if implemented by governments, could achieve that outcome. These range plans designate areas open for industrial use, but also areas that are off limits. It would be wise to see conservation areas, therefore, as contributions from these off-limit areas.
This isn't all about caribou either. In terms of carbon, in Ontario alone there are more than 28 million hectares of bogs and fens rich in carbon. Advancing protection here will protect millions of tonnes of carbon and the breeding grounds for the hemisphere's several billion migratory birds.
As you can see, there are multiple benefits in looking for contributions to the Aichi targets from Ontario's boreal. Partnering with indigenous communities in the boreal, though, is the key to achieving conservation outcomes. Supporting and embracing these efforts in a way that respects indigenous rights and interests is a huge opportunity to advance both conservation and reconciliation. Indigenous protected areas are recognized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and you have heard today about the Moose Cree, who are also working to achieve conservation outcomes that we are supportive of.
In the communities of the north, indigenous watershed declarations are being written right now. Ontario and Canada must find ways to honour and respect these conservation areas. We ask the federal government to encourage the provinces and territories to stop handing out permits for industrial activities in areas that have been proposed for permanent protection by indigenous peoples.
Part of the role for parks in the southern portions of Ontario is to also focus on maintaining and restoring ecological integrity as the management priority by law. That's why we were very pleased, therefore, to see this reflected in the amendments tabled by Minister McKenna for the Rouge National Urban Park. Meeting this objective, though, means reinvesting in conservation science capacity in Parks Canada. There is a need to refocus on our collective responsibility to pass along these special places unimpaired for future generations. We are committed to helping in any way we can.
In summary, if we are to achieve the commitments we have on conservation, then we need strong federal leadership, like the leadership we currently have on climate change, to bring provincial governments together in a concerted effort to meet and then exceed the 17% protection. We also need federal leadership that seeks to achieve these outcomes through synergy and opportunity in the overlap of mandates where climate and caribou outcomes dovetail with conservation objectives and are positively reinforced through EA reform.
Thank you.
Alain.