Biodiversity, the Boreal, and a Big Opportunity: 5 Reasons COP15 Matters for Canada
December 2, 2022
Canada will step into the global spotlight when it welcomes the world to the United Nations COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Montreal from December 7th through the 17th. While international climate talks have become a familiar feature of the annual calendar, this is a once-in-a-decade milestone. It will help determine how countries turn the tide on the accelerating extinction crisis and sustain the planet’s remaining healthy lands, waters, animals, and plants.
In other words, COP15 will help decide the future of the natural systems we all depend on.
This summit has its roots in the Convention on Biological Diversity, an agreement forged in 1992 and ratified or accepted by 196 countries. Since then, countries have gathered to agree on 10-year-long action plans each country commits to implementing at home.
Originally COP15—the 15th Conference of the Parties—was slated to take place in Kunming, China in 2020. The pandemic delayed the meeting several times, and this summer, the summit was shifted to Montreal, which hosts the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
So why does the outcome of this gathering matter so much for Canada–not to mention the planet?
1. Biodiversity is the stuff of life.
Biodiversity encompasses the plants, animals, and natural systems we all depend on. It includes the rich variety of life on Earth, from the microscopic organisms that can't be seen with a human eye to the largest mammals on earth. Biodiversity even includes the sweeping scale of entire ecosystems and how they interact and depend on each other. This diversity and abundance help ensure we have food, shelter, medicines, pollination, clean drinking water, climate regulation, and a place within the complex web of life.
The trouble is, biodiversity is under threat. The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, published in 2019 by leading scientists from around the world, found that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. That staggering rate of loss has major implications for life on the planet.
2. COP15 will set the tone for how we approach conservation for the next 10 years.
The commitments made at international summits like COP15 shape domestic conservation policies, incentives, and funding for years to come. When the international community gathered in the Aichi Province of Japan in 2010 to identify ways to conserve biodiversity, countries agreed to design their own national plans to reach what became known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. In 2015, Canada adopted the 2020 Biodiversity Goals and Targets for Canada. Provinces and territories agreed to the targets, making it a Pan-Canadian commitment.
One of the most well-known targets from 2010 called for protecting 17% of lands by 2020. Since then, Canada has committed to protecting 25% of lands and water by 2025 and 30% by 2030–inspired in part by the expected increase in ambition at this next biodiversity summit. In recent federal budgets, Canada has made the largest conservation investments in Canadian history, including a commitment in 2021 of $340 million in Indigenous-led conservation.
3. Canada has a special responsibility – and opportunity–to act.
Canada is one of five countries that hold the remaining 70% of healthy, intact landscapes left on the planet. It is home to vibrant landscapes and clean waters on a scale rarely seen elsewhere today.
The Boreal Forest, for instance, is the largest intact forest left on Earth. It holds 25% of the world’s wetlands. It captures massive amounts of carbon, preventing the equivalent of up to 36 years’ worth of global carbon emissions from escaping into the atmosphere and intensifying climate change. In fact, it stores nearly twice as much carbon per hectare as tropical rainforests.
This intact forest is also – unsurprisingly – home to incredible biodiversity. Some of the world’s largest mammals depend on it for their survival: caribou herds, musk ox, grizzly and black bears, as well as lynx are just a few that roam freely among it’s landscapes. And each year, billions of birds flock to it to breed and raise their young. Those birds that nest in the boreal then migrate south each year, connecting landscapes across the Western Hemisphere and closing the biodiversity loop that we all rely upon.
But those animals, the incredible array of biodiversity that rely on the boreal, can only remain healthy if the forest remains intact.
4. Indigenous Nations in Canada are central to sustaining biodiversity.
About 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is on lands managed by Indigenous Peoples. A University of British Columbia study looked at land and species data from Canada, Australia and Brazil and found that the number of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles were highest on lands managed by Indigenous communities.
Here in Canada, Indigenous Nations are already leading the biggest, most ambitious plans for sustaining healthy lands and waters. Three Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA) created in the Northwest Territories since 2018 total over 50,000 sq km combined—about the size of Costa Rica. Scores of Indigenous Nations are in the process of creating additional IPCAs. Taken together, these proposed areas could conserve over 500,000 sq km.
The same places that Indigenous Nations are conserving help provide clean air and water, abundant animals and plants, a more stable climate, and recreation opportunities for all Canadians.
5. Canada could become a global leader on conservation and human rights.
To no one's surprise, the world is growing tired of empty promises around conservation targets that result in creeping progress. But COP15 is also our chance to do something big – to not only talk about protections, but take action and truly protect global biodiversity on the massive scale that is still possible because we have intact places like the Boreal Forest.
Indigenous Nations are already showing what is possible.
By partnering with Indigenous Nations, Canada can offer a model for the world for how to protect lands, respect human rights, and create a more sustainable future for all people. Canada still has the chance to ensure the land can support animal and human communities for generations to come and to make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change and preserving global biodiversity on a global scale. COP15 is our opportunity to take a major step forward.
Anything less isn’t enough: for Canada, and for the world.