As I'm sure you know, Africa has ecosystem resources that contribute to global biodiversity, even more so than the Amazon. So there's a massive amount of capital in Africa that's very much at risk. It's an essential asset for Africa and for humanity. It's being put at risk in particular by rapid population growth, which means people will need to consume a lot more agri-food products, and by declining poverty, which will also lead to more consumption.
We know that expanding agricultural land cuts down forests and degrades the land. This is a major factor that will contribute to the decline of biodiversity in Africa in the decades to come. It's essential that Africa find ways to increase its agri-food production so that it can provide better food for more people, but in a way that doesn't hinder biodiversity too much.
There's a lot going on right now in that area. For example, our organization has a project with the University of Guelph called the Bar Code of Living. It measures biodiversity using environmental DNA. This technology makes it possible to measure the level of biodiversity on a time scale in a low-cost manner. We can truly objectively see whether biodiversity is being conserved or not. The idea is to find ways to fund communities, local governments and even companies taking positive action on biodiversity. In other words, we're piloting methods to measure biodiversity and tying it to incentives to make sure that agriculture grows without causing too much harm to biodiversity. I think that's a major contribution that Canada and its partners can make.