Canada’s biodiversity strategy is welcome, but work needs to be done to ensure it meets targets, critics say

A new federal law aimed at protecting nature and biodiversity is a positive step but requires clear targets and timelines if it is to achieve its goals, critics say.

Ottawa on Thursday unveiled the Nature Accountability Act, which aims to ensure the accompanying 2030 Nature Strategy delivers measurable results.

The two initiatives outline how Canada plans to achieve the 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 Milestone Plan Protect and restore global biodiversity.

The plan, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, sets 23 global targets for 2030, including protecting 30 per cent of land and water.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said at a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday that the proposed bill makes Canada the second country in the world, after Chile, to propose an accountability bill for nature.

Asked if the new strategy would come with any new funding, Mr. Guilbault pointed to previously announced spending, which includes $800 million to support Four Indigenous-led conservation projects The news was announced in 2022.

“We are investing more than $5 billion in conservation, which is unprecedented in the history of this country,” Guilbault said, adding that Ottawa is working with Indigenous groups, provincial and territorial governments, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector to develop conservation projects.

“It’s very difficult for me to go back to her and ask her for money when I haven’t spent the money that the finance minister provided me for some other projects.”

But Josh Ginsberg, director of the Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Ottawa, said the Nature Act should be amended to include specific targets.

“Our concern is that without clear metrics and requirements to plan for and achieve these targets, that this commitment will ultimately ring hollow and that the bill will not be prescriptive enough to really give Canadians confidence that the government will follow through and meet its targets,” Ginsburg said.

Jay Ritchlin, British Columbia and Western regional director for the David Suzuki Foundation, also called for improvements in a statement, saying Canada needs a “nature law with goals, timelines and consequences to ensure progress.”

In a telephone interview, Mr. Guilbault said the new nature bill is designed to give Canadians a clear understanding of government plans and outcomes, just as the country now has laws under climate change legislation.

“The bill requires the government to be transparent on climate change and we firmly believe the Nature Accountability Act will do the same for nature,” he said.

Currently, about 15 percent of Canada’s water and nearly 14 percent of its land are protected by conservation agreements, Guilbault said. Projects currently under development, including an Indigenous-led reserve in the Northwest Territories, will bring those agreements to nearly 20 percent by the end of 2025, he said.

COP16 is scheduled to be held in Colombia in October.