© GaryAndJoanieMcGuffin.com / WWF-Canada

Protecting Ecosystems

WWF’s plan to Regenerate Canada is safeguarding the remaining places where species at risk of extinction live and thrive, which are also helping keep planet-warming carbon emissions in check.

The vast landscapes and seascapes in Canada are home to some of the most extraordinary creatures on Earth — and some of the most threatened, as our country faces the ongoing crisis of habitat destruction.

And as intact nature grows increasingly endangered, so do the species that make it their home. The result is both a loss of biodiversity and the release of the greenhouse gases naturally sequestered in those ecosystems.

WWF-Canada’s plan to Regenerate Canada aims to prevent this destruction by stewarding at least 100 million hectares of vital ecosystems by 2030. That means safeguarding habitat where threatened species can thrive while ensuring stored carbon stays locked in nature, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, governance and self-determination are supported.

Read on to learn about the threats facing Canada’s ecosystems or jump straight into what WWF-Canada is doing to protect them.

Why are protected ecosystems important?

Healthy ecosystems provide vital habitat for wildlife, as well as critical “ecosystem services” for people, such as regulating the climate, filtering air and water, and producing oxygen.

Yet many important habitats like forests and rivers remain completely unprotected, despite being critical to the survival of at-risk species, many of which are of global importance. That’s especially alarming given populations of species assessed as at-risk nationally have declined by an average of 73% since 1970.

The natural world can’t survive without protected ecosystems — and neither can we.

How is WWF-Canada safeguarding ecosystems?

By 2030, WWF-Canada aims to steward at least 100 million hectares of natural habitat across the country.

Here’s how:

Hudson and James Bay Lowlands © James Snider / WWF-Canada

Assessing priorities

WWF-Canada’s national Beyond Targets assessment identified major gaps in Canada’s network of protected areas, as well as priority regions for protection. If protected, these priority regions would benefit species at risk, sequester carbon and create long-term climate refuges — places where wildlife can thrive in the face of a changing climate.

Read more about this research here, including a detailed map of priority regions from coast to coast to coast.

© WWF-Canada / Casa di Media Productions

Supporting Indigenous conservation and scientific research

Many of the largest carbon stores are found on Indigenous territories, thanks to millennia of responsible stewardship by Indigenous peoples. These include the Hudson and James Bay lowlands in northern Ontario, which are covered with carbon-rich peatlands. A groundbreaking collaboration between WWF-Canada and McMaster University has produced Canada’s first-ever carbon map: a detailed account of how much carbon is stored in terrestrial ecosystems across the country, and where it can be found. This map will help target conservation measures more effectively.

Work has now been completed between WWF-Canada, McMaster and the area’s traditional First Nations rightsholders, represented by the Mushkegowuk Council to better understand the nature and quantity of carbon stored in the region. This will help inform recommendations on development and resource extraction.

This effort, and others like it, support broader efforts by Indigenous communities to steward their lands.

Read more here.

A pod of Humpback whales bubble-net feeding in Whale Channel, British Columbia, Canada. © Tim Irvin / WWF-Canada

Humpback whales, Great Bear Rainforest, BC

Strengthening existing protections

Canada’s current network of protected areas is fragmented and incomplete, and the protections they provide often overlook major threats.

For example, a recent WWF-Canada assessment found that every year, ships legally dump 147 billion litres of harmful waste into sensitive Canadian waters — including in marine protected areas conserved by federal law. This is significant waste — sometimes more than 100,000 times as acidic as normal ocean water, and frequently containing heavy metals and carcinogens.

WWF has undertaken a deep dive into these dirty waters, quantifying the kinds of waste being dumped, the types of vessels most responsible and which areas are most affected. Now, we’re leading efforts to better regulate ocean dumping and ban all dumping in protected areas.

Read more here.

© Brandon Laforest/WWF Canada

Spence Bay HTA and WWF-Canada meeting in Taloyoak to plan future work on Aviqtuuq IPCA

Supporting new protected areas

Protected and conserved areas are one of the most effective tools we have to safeguard large, connected ecosystems — but they’re only truly effective when they protect the right areas, for the right reasons, in the right way.

Additionally, with so many priority areas for conservation in Indigenous territories, it’s crucial to prioritize equitable and just conservation outcomes, and advance Indigenous rights, responsibilities, governance and economies, including through the establishment of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), with the full consent, participation and leadership of Indigenous communities that live within them.

For example, Taloyoak — the most northerly community on the mainland in Canada — is working to establish an Inuit Protected and Conserved Area in their traditional lands of Aqviqtuuq. The proposed area would cover almost 90,000 km2 of marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in Nunavut, helping safeguard caribou, polar bear, muskox and Arctic whales. The region is under threat from international shipping and mining, which also threaten the community’s food security and economic prosperity.

Read more here.

Ships at Ridley Terminals, a coal loading and unloading facility, Port of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada.

Ships at a loading terminal with mountains in background

Advocating to reduce industry impacts on wildlife

Industrial activities are among the most substantial threats to wild ecosystems. In an economy like Canada’s, which relies heavily on resource extraction and industrial development, those threats are magnified.

That’s why WWF-Canada works with communities and Indigenous groups to identify threats posed by industrial activities. It’s why we work with industry as well—to mitigate threats and help develop more sustainable industrial approaches.

It’s also why we take a strong advocacy and amplification role when needed, pushing policymakers to better regulate or even halt harmful industrial projects. Take Baffinland’s Mary River Mine, the largest industrial development (and private-sector employer) in Nunavut, which had proposed doubling production to 12 million tonnes of iron ore, a plan which would also nearly double shipping traffic through the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area.

During the environmental review process, WWF-Canada supported Inuit from affected communities like Pond Inlet to ensure their voices were heard as well as providing relevant data collected from our Arctic Species Conservation Fund research projects.

The federal government listened to local concerns over the impacts that pollution from underwater noise and vessel dumping have on narwhal and other vital marine species, rejecting the expansion. However, Baffinland is now planning to triple the mine’s output via a new shipping route that will threaten bowhead whales, walrus, polar bear and seals. It also includes constructing a deep-water port and the first-ever railway in the Canadian Arctic, a 150-kilometre route through critical caribou habitat. And so, our efforts to ensure local voices are heard and environmental impacts are minimized continue.

Read more here.

Protecting Ecosystems

Why are protected ecosystems important?