(Ottawa) Canada’s provinces and territories stand ready to assist the federal government in its goal to end the loss of land and water across the country.
After a meeting in Ottawa on Friday, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said his counterparts all agreed on the conservation goals set at COP15 in Montreal in December.
The federal government is leading Canada’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, which aims to protect 30% of land and water by 2030.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the goal in 2020 and Canada was among the countries that successfully pushed more than 190 others to follow suit at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal last December (COP15 ).
“This is a necessary plan,” said Minister Guilbeault on Friday. Nature is what sustains all life. It provides us with food, clean air and water, as well as protection against the vagaries of nature. »
Provincial and territorial leaders agreed to work with Ottawa to move forward with Indigenous peoples because “there is no action on the environment in Canada without the full engagement of Indigenous leaders,” said he indicated.
Guilbeault said provinces and territories have a key role to play in achieving this goal, because of their significant authority over land use — but some provinces will be able to retain more land than others. .
Provinces not all equal
The international COP15 agreement specifies that the signatory countries will collectively preserve 30% of the land and oceans, but some countries have little land or little ocean with which they can contribute, recalled Mr. Guilbeault. The same is true for some provinces.
For example, Nova Scotia’s land is 70% private, so that province’s government has committed to preserving 20% of its land, said provincial Environment Minister Tim Halman. British Columbia has committed to keeping 30%.
“We know others will do more, and that’s how we’ll collectively manage to protect at least 30% of our lands and oceans by 2030,” Guilbeault said, acknowledging that there could be more. have obstacles along the way.
Quebec, which considers that these areas essentially fall within its areas of jurisdiction, participates in ministerial meetings as an observer, the federal government recalls in a press release. In response to the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework in Montreal in December, “Quebec is developing its 2030 Nature Plan” to achieve the 30% conservation target, it says.
More than half of the environment ministers of the provinces and territories had moreover sent their deputy ministers to this first “in person” ministerial meeting since December’s “COP15” in Montreal, which gave birth to the Global Framework for biodiversity.
Environment ministers from Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories attended the meeting in Ottawa, while other provinces and territories have delegated their deputy ministers.
Alberta was completely absent due to the general election next Monday. But Minister Guilbeault was confident on Friday that he would eventually get Alberta’s cooperation, since their environment minister was attending COP15 in Montreal when the global agreement was reached in December.
“Before the election campaign, I spoke with my Alberta counterparts about some of these issues. […] protection of nature and protection of biodiversity, and I am convinced that, whatever the result of the elections (on Monday), we will have this collaboration”, declared Mr. Guilbeault.
Nova Scotia Minister Halman said on Friday that the situation was favorable between Ottawa and the provinces on this issue, and he was happy to see everyone working together.
“Canada is a ‘community of communities’ and we see provinces and territories doing their own thing to conserve land and water and to protect biodiversity,” Minister Halman said Friday.
By the end of 2022, nearly 14% of Canada’s land and freshwater and nearly 15% of marine and coastal areas were in some form protected for conservation.