By George Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Alberta should welcome a “large and overarching” federal strategy released in March because of its potential to improve the great outdoors, an Opposition critic says.
But Sarah Elmeligi cautioned that a funding commitment of $3.8 billion in the so-called 30-by-30 strategy is small relative to its aspirations and Canada’s size.
A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature “reads to me like a pretty typical federal, large and overarching strategy,” Elmeligi told The Macleod Gazette last week.
“There’s a lot of motherhood and apple pie statements about how great nature is and how we need to work together to conserve and protect it,” said Elmeligi, the Alberta NDP’s shadow minister for environment and protected areas.
“As usual with large federal programs like this, the proof is truly in the pudding and in the implementation.”
She called for an attitude adjustment on the UCP side of the floor in Alberta, saying the party’s claims about what constitutes protected land contradict internationally accepted definitions.
“If we had a government that wanted to work with the federal government, we could leverage some dollars and some motivation and some momentum to help conserve some of Alberta’s best wild places,” said Elmeligi, the MLA for Banff-Kananaskis.
What the Minister Says
Grant Hunter, the minister of environment and protected areas, issued a statement shortly after the federal government announced the strategy. He hinted strongly that Alberta has already surpassed — by a lot — the 30-by-30 target.
Hunter’s statement noted that 40 million hectares or nearly 60 per cent of Alberta’s landmass is publicly managed Crown land. The area has been “responsibly managed, stewarded and conserved for decades,” his release maintained.
In the statement and a follow-up interview, Hunter challenged the constitutionality of the strategy.
He also said it gives no credit to the role farmers play in stewardship, and that it fails to recognize environmental strides like the province’s relationship with industry and its system of sub-regional planning to manage industrial footprints in geographic zones.
“We’ve proven that you can have high environmental standards,” said Hunter, the MLA for Taber-Warner. “You can help species at risk come back. You can start, through coordinated efforts, to build back biodiversity that some places have lost.”
He added: “We don’t need to have the federal government going into our jurisdiction telling us that … they’re going to sterilize 30 per cent of our land, which is really what I think they’re doing.”
Elmeligi said Hunter’s contention about Crown land “might be the most absurd, ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard somebody say about parks and protected areas.”
She continued: “You can’t just change the definition and then say you’re winning. That’s ridiculous.”
A Force of Nature strives to make 30 per cent of the country’s landmass protected or conserved by 2030. Hitting the target would more than double the national calculation of 14 per cent.
The Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database pegs at around 15 per cent the amount of Alberta land that’s protected or conserved.
Strategy’s Roots Are in Biodiversity Framework
The target comes out of a framework created in Montreal in December 2022. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework ties 196 signatory countries, including Canada, to the 30-by-30 goal for land and marine.
Canada is shooting for increased marine conservation of 28 per cent of the country’s ocean and Great Lakes areas from 15.5 per cent. The remaining two per cent or even more will come from initiatives with Indigenous partners, Force of Nature anticipates.
Nowhere does the strategy specify that it will work directly with farmers or the farming community to reach the 30-by-30 goal. But it does point to partnerships with industry and private landowners as among ways Canada will “expand the network” of protected and conserved areas.
The document states: “Nature is part of our daily lives, whether it’s breathing fresh air, hiking on trails, skating in the winter or canoeing in Canada’s many lakes and rivers. It also forms the basis of Canada’s economy through timber, minerals, fish and farmland.”
It notes that Canada’s economy “relies heavily” on its natural resources, calling industries like agriculture, forestry, mining and fisheries “nature-based sectors” that generate about seven per cent of the GDP.
New National Parks Envisioned
Key terrestrial goals in the strategy envision three percentage points of the target coming from at least 10 new national parks,15 new national urban parks and four new national wildlife areas.
Possibly of Alberta interest will be a category that includes “other effective area-based conservation measures,” or OECMs.
The feds see an increase of at least eight percentage points coming from OECMs and similar measures “exploring other opportunities on varied lands.”
The category mentions expanding partnerships and “using innovative tools to protect and conserve across all landscapes.”
The strategy aims to add at least two per cent of the landmass to the inventory by working with Indigenous partners through project finance for permanence initiatives, or PFPs.
PFPs secure long-term protection of large ecological systems under single, multi-party agreements. Usually Indigenous-led, the projects involve philanthropists and the provincial and federal governments but not industry.
In announcing the strategy, the federal government said Canada is critically positioned to contribute to protecting and conserving the planet. The world’s second-largest country, it has the world’s longest coastline and one of the world’s largest marine territories.
“Protecting our natural heritage is a task our government will deliver with the focus, ambition and strategy it deserves,” the government news release on the strategy’s launch said.
“We will work with provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous peoples, local governments, industry and conservation organizations to deliver on our national and international commitments — and protect Canada’s natural environment for generations to come.”
