Let’s make Canada wilder

Global biodiversity loss is about to take centre stage in Colombia at the Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16) later this month. Canada, with its vast geography and incredible biodiversity, will play a global leadership role. We at the Wilder Institute will be there to make the case for making Canada wilder with the largest co-ordinated approach to managed species recovery in this country's history. Now is the time to act. Before we get to Colombia, it’s important to put into context what’s at stake. Gráinne McCabe. Handout photograph If you have had the privilege to spend time out in nature, you might have been surprised by how loud it is. Contrary to what spa and yoga studio soundtracks may have us believe, nature is not just the peaceful trickle of a creek. Nature is noisy, it lets itself be heard. I am sure many of you have experienced the buzz of insects like cicadas and grasshoppers, the chorus of birds early in the morning, the alarm call of small mammals like squirrels seeing an approaching predator. You may even recall a study published a few years ago that found how loudly fish can chatter under the water—the din can be deafening at times—but these are the sounds of healthy ecosystems. Eleven years ago, I moved to Central Africa. When I stepped into the lush tropical primary rain forest outside the centre where I lived and worked, I was ready to hear that incredible forest soundtrack I had heard so many times before in other places around the world. But what I heard instead was almost silence. This seemingly lush forest and many natural landscapes around the world are experiencing what we call Empty Forest Syndrome: beautiful habitat, forests, grasslands or wetlands virtually emptied of animals. Species in these habitats have been pushed to or past the brink of extinction from a variety of pressures, often a silent extinction that we don’t notice because the landscape appears to still be intact. That’s why Canada’s Wilder Institute created the Wilder Canada Action Plan. A public-private partnership for managed species recovery on a national-scale never before delivered. Canada, like many countries around the world, has ambitious plans to address Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: protect 30 per cent of our landscape before 2030, and this is absolutely necessary. However, for more than 270 species at risk in Canada, protecting land is not enough. Many are tracking to extinction—some within less than a generation—due to small or fragmented populations. Species such as the Atlantic whitefish (an endangered endemic freshwater species from Nova Scotia), Long’s Braya (an endangered endemic plant from Newfoundland), or spotted turtles (endangered from Ontario and Quebec) have such small or fragmented populations that they will not recover with land or water protection alone. They need us to take co-ordinated, evidence-based, collaborative action—not more assessment, not more high-level policy, not more meetings. Action, not just talk. With over three decades of experience breeding and reintroducing wildlife at risk, moving animals between wild locations to bolster populations, and working in close collaboration with Indigenous nations and local communities, industry, other conservation NGOs, government and academic institutions, we know how to form effective collaborations that help bring species back from the brink of extinction. And we are ready to help Canada do this at scale, building and equipping a national movement around wildlife conservation translocations. An example of our impact through collaboration is the conservation of the endangered whooping crane. In the 1940s, there were an estimated 21 whooping cranes left in the wild. Today, there are almost 800 birds, over 700 in the wild—3,800 per cent growth—a big part of this success is our collaborative breeding and reintroduction program with experienced partners here in Canada and the United States. And our work on this program continues today as we aim to establish sustainable populations in other parts of their range. These proven, evidence-based activities are at the heart of Wilder Institute’s Wilder Canada Action Plan. It’s our contribution to Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy, the Nature Accountability Act, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. At COP 16, the world will be discussing how we will measure successful progress towards the Global Biodiversity Framework’s Goals and Targets. Target 4 under this framework is focused on halting species extinction, and reducing extinction risk. For the more than 270 species where conservation translocations are relevant and needed according to published recovery plans, the Wilder Canada Action Plan will lead and deliver action collaboratively with key invested parties around the country, and support other actors in the breeding and translocation space. We will be able to measure our contribution to Target 4 based on the increased number of species that benefit from translocations, and the increase in the number of species where population decline is slowed or stopped altogether. But this plan is more than just a conservation organization leading on translocations. It will also address Target 20 of the GBF: Strengthening Capacity-Building and Sharing, Technology Transfer, and Scientific and Technical Cooperation for Biodiversity. This plan is about empowering others to act in the conservation space. Providing resources, skill-sharing, knowledge exchange, and mentoring as needed or desired with Indigenous nations and local communities, NGOs, or others who have or would like to develop or co-develop a plan for the conservation translocation of species to bolster wild populations locally. A priority of this plan will be to listen, learn from, and support the traditional conservation leaders in Canada, Indigenous Peoples, with translocation programs for nature recovery on their lands. Success will include increasing the number of new actors implementing conservation translocations for species at risk in Canada. The Wilder Canada Action Plan will also support Target 2 (restore 30 per cent of all degraded ecosystems), Target 9 (manage wild species sustainably to benefit people), Target 19 (mobilize $200-billion per year for biodiversity from all sources), Target 21 (ensure that knowledge is available and accessible to guide biodiversity action), and Target 22 (ensure participation in decision-making and access to justice and information related to biodiversity for all). The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission said this about our plan: “With a large, experienced and globally respected scientific team, substantial organizational, industry and donor support, and the ability to scale its resources to deliver on this ambitious plan … the Wilder Institute can help Canada showcase its leadership on the global biodiversity crisis, presenting a model to target species conservation specifically and inspire similar action around the world.” With the world gathering in Cali, Colombia, for COP16, we have the opportunity to showcase Canada as a country that leads the way with an innovative, whole-of-society approach to restore, protect, and sustain a healthy environment and healthy populations of Canadian species for future generations. My team and I will be there advocating for the Wilder Canada Action Plan to be activated for all Canadians. Let’s work together to make Canada Wilder. Grainne McCabe is the chief conservation officer of the Wilder Institute. To find out more about action is being taken for species at risk please visit our website atwww.WilderInstitute.org. The Hill Times

Let’s make Canada wilder

The Wilder Institute will be pitching the case for making Canada wilder with the largest co-ordinated approach to managed species recovery in this country’s history. Now is the time to act.

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