A proposed new federal bill to protect nature and biodiversity is a positive step but needs clear targets and timelines if it is to meet its goals, critics say.
Ottawa on Thursday released the Nature Accountability Bill, proposed legislation meant to ensure the accompanying 2030 Nature Strategy brings measurable results.
The two initiatives set out how Canada plans to meet goals it agreed to in Montreal in December, 2022, when participants at COP15 – the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity – adopted a landmark plan to preserve and restore global biodiversity.
That plan, the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework, has 23 global targets for 2030, including protection of 30 per cent of lands and water.
The proposed bill makes Canada the second country in the world, along with Chile, to table a nature accountability act, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Thursday at a press conference in Ottawa.
Asked if the new strategy came with any new money, Mr. Guilbeault cited previously-announced spending, including $800-million to support up to four Indigenous-led conservation projects that was announced in 2022.
“We’re in the process of investing more than $5-billion in nature protection, which is something we’ve never seen in the history of this country,” Mr. Guilbeault said, adding that Ottawa is working with Indigenous groups, provincial and territorial governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to develop conservation projects.
“It’s very difficult for me to go back and see the Finance Minister and ask for money when I haven’t finished spending the money she’s already given me for a number of other projects.”
But the nature bill should be revised to include specific targets, said Josh Ginsberg, director of the Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Ottawa.
“Our concern is that, without clear metrics and requirements for the planning and the achievement of these goals, the commitment will ultimately ring hollow – and the act is not prescriptive enough to really give Canadians any assurance that the government is going to follow through and get it done,” Mr. Ginsberg said.
Jay Ritchlin, general director for B.C. and the Western region with the David Suzuki Foundation, in a statement also called for improvements, saying Canada needs a nature law with “targets, timelines and consequences to keep progress on track.”
In a telephone interview, Mr. Guilbeault said the new nature bill is meant to give Canadians a clear window on government plans and results, likening it to reports the country is now required to make under climate change legislation.
“It imposes a discipline of transparency on the government when it comes to climate change, and we’re convinced the Nature Accountability Act will do the same for nature,” he said.
Currently, Canada has around 15 per cent of its water and just under 14 per cent of its land protected through conservation agreements, Mr. Guilbeault said. Projects now in development, including an Indigenous-led conservation area in the Northwest Territories, should push those totals closer to 20 per cent by the end of 2025, he said.
COP16 is scheduled to be held in Colombia in October.