Biodiversity Pathways for Sustainability in Canada

Key Insights

1. Canada must assume its global responsibility of managing our ecosystem and biodiversity conservation for the benefit of global society. Our contribution to global ecosystem values is among the highest, particularly considering the massive but declining extent of intact ecosystems in the north. Policies implemented in Canada can profoundly influence conservation outcomes inside and outside our borders.
2. Canada’s international trade policies should be considered when managing national ecosystems. In addition to the main pressures on biodiversity like climate change and habitat modification, Canada’s exports to, and consumption of imports, from other countries can lead to biodiversity loss beyond our boundaries.
3. Biodiversity degradation has occurred in lockstep with colonization in Canada and the disruption of Indigenous governance systems that stewarded “Canada’s” ecosystems for millennia. The self-determination rights for Indigenous and local communities should be unequivocally respected and protected.
4. Provincial and territorial acts and strategic plans often embed biodiversity conservation into other policies, without explicit monitoring mechanisms, measures of conservation success, or clear regulations. Close collaboration across different governmental levels is required to ensure that political support and related resources are aligned.
5. Indigenous Knowledge and practices play an essential role in value change and conservation in Canada. The relationship between Indigenous activities and biodiversity lacks sufficient study and public awareness. Conservation in Canada requires a full understanding and recognition of Indigenous governance and wise practices.
6. Most data on the status and trends of Canada’s biodiversity remain fragmented and scattered across institutions and libraries. The wealth of information hidden in unstructured biodiversity datasets has not been effectively translated into decision-making. Digital technologies have the potential to fill some of these gaps.
7. Biodiversity research at species level remains prevalent in Canada compared with studies at other levels (e.g., genetic, ecosystem, functional, and biocultural diversity), which are equally important. This imbalanced structure of knowledge on the different levels of biodiversity may mislead conservation policies and requires caution.
8. The matching of pressures on biodiversity at various scales to the corresponding countermeasures for different stakeholders are intricate and obscure, leaving a challenge for identifying systemic solutions. Social science and citizen science can help tease out the social barriers and inform system transformation.
9. Cultural and philosophical barriers for developing integrated biodiversity conservation pathways persist. Embodied learning and other innovative disruptions led by Indigenous Knowledge Holders can foster value transformation and social norms formation which are necessary for green transformation.