The Quebec government is granting $144.1 million to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (CNC) to improve the network of private protected areas in southern Quebec, according to what The Canadian Press has learned.
This “unprecedented investment” according to the Ministry of the Environment aims to protect ecological connectivity corridors in 11 regions of Quebec.
Ecological connectivity refers to the unimpeded migration and movement of animals and plants through their environment.
“It’s a historic agreement, there has never been such a large amount donated to a conservation organization, so we are truly honored by the government’s confidence,” indicated the vice-president for Quebec of CNC, Claire Ducharme, adding that her organization will share the grant with other conservation organizations.
She confided that “joy comes with a little dizziness”, because the agreement provides that each dollar invested by Quebec must be doubled by investments.
“It comes with a fundraising and philanthropy challenge where we have to find lots of partners,” she stressed.
The agreement aims to accelerate the conservation of biodiversity in southern Quebec, from “Outaouais to Gaspésie,” indicated Claire Ducharme.
“To give a concrete example, we are going to work in particular on the corridor between the Plaisance national park and the Mont-Tremblant national park, it is a corridor where we already have a good core to preserve and we will try to connect already existing protected areas. »
The initiative is used to acquire new land to protect it.
“We have a lot of ecological gifts” and “in other cases, we obviously buy at fair market value,” explained Claire Ducharme.
Four parts
The funding comes from the budget of $444 million planned over five years for the implementation of the future Nature 2030 Plan, announced by the government with a view to achieving the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework from Kunming to Montreal, including objective is to protect 30% of the territory by 2030.
The grant to CNC is spread over five years and the new conservation program is divided into four components:
More than 100 million will be intended to “financially support projects aimed at the creation of protected areas and the conservation of natural environments of interest, in particular through the acquisition of private land”.
Nearly 9 million will be dedicated to “projects to acquire knowledge or raise awareness about natural environments of interest, with a view to possible acquisition for conservation purposes”.
Also, $870,000 will be dedicated to helping and supporting land owners who would like to transform their land into a nature reserve and $34 million will be used for stewardship and management of partnerships.
According to the Ministry of the Environment, since 2020, the Partnership Project for Natural Environments (PPMN), in which the government has invested more than $53 million, has made it possible to support around a hundred projects for the acquisition of dedicated land to conservation.