Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, everybody. It's a real pleasure to join you via video link from the U.K. I would like to thank the committee for the invitation and time to provide evidence today.
As has just been said, my name is Dan Laffoley. I'm marine vice-chair at IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas. Just to offer a few words about IUCN and the World Commission, IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the world's largest and most diverse environmental network, composed of both governments and civil society organizations. We have about 1,300 member organizations, including many governments—Canada is a member—and we have input from some 16,000 leading scientific experts.