Protecting 30% of BC by 2030

Wildfires, floods, and droughts are among the most pressing and devastating impacts of climate change faced by the people and ecosystems in BC. The urgency of the twin climate and biodiversity crises requires immediate action, including protecting biodiversity. BC must match Canada’s commitments to protect 25% of its lands and waters by 2025, increasing to 30% by 2030 and support efforts by First Nations and communities to protect wildlife, species-at-risk, and ecosystems, and support global efforts to respond to climate change. To achieve this the BC government must allocate the necessary resources while co-developing legislative, regulatory, and capacity pathways to facilitate Indigenous-led conservation.

From the disappearance of caribou herds in the Kootenays to the almost-vanished grizzly bears of southwest BC, the province is in a nature emergency. Expanding BC’s protected areas system is necessary to halt the rapid and widespread loss of wildlife we are seeing from the coast to the Rockies. Committing to protect 25% of BC’s lands and waters by 2025 and 30% by 2030 in partnership with Indigenous peoples and the federal government is an essential step towards taking real action for a sustainable and healthy environmental future.

  • Protected areas are widely considered by international experts to be an essential part of the strategy in addressing global biodiversity declines, and a key component in the toolkit to allow species to adapt in the face of climate change.

  • Larger and linked protected areas help maintain ecosystem balance and increase resilience in the face of extreme climate events like forest fires and flooding, and play a critical role in supporting healthy and abundant wildlife populations.

  • Committing to match and achieve the federal targets could mean an approximately two-thirds increase of BC’s protected area system by 2025, and a near doubling by 2030 which would have wide-ranging benefits to wildlife and human communities alike

  • Indigenous-managed lands and protected areas in particular play an important role in reducing the severity of climate change impacts, and have been found globally to have higher levels of biodiversity compared to lands not managed or protected by Indigenous peoples.

  • Parks and protected areas not only safeguard wildlife habitat and waterways, they also deliver human health benefits and sustainable jobs to rural communities, making them even more important to our province and the people who live here.

Prime Minister Trudeau recently committed to protecting 30% of Canada by 2030 at the UN Summit on Biodiversity. This followed the Trudeau government’s previous commitment to protect 17% by 2020 and subsequently 25% by 2025 through the Pathway to Canada Target 1 initiative. 

The federal government announced over $3B over five years to protect land and oceans across Canada. This funding builds on top of the already invested $500M to support First Nations, provinces and territories to contribute to meeting this target. This is a time-limited opportunity for BC to harness the momentum behind these federal commitments, and to address priority issues in their new mandates. It also creates opportunities to bring additional federal funds on related files like climate change.

A BC government commitment to protecting 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 will help the province on a wide variety of Ministerial mandates, including supporting indigenous-led conservation, climate action, modernized land-use planning, old growth protection and wildlife protection, while at the same time unlocking a large source of federal government funding.