Nature can help restore Canada after COVID-19


CONTRIBUTORS
OPINION
Nature can help restore Canada after COVID-19
ML
By Megan Leslie Contributor
Wed., July 29, 2020

It’s almost time; we can all feel it. But know that we are not passive observers, waiting to see what’s on the other side. The coronavirus crisis has created a potentially transformative pivot point in history — and it’s up to us to meet this moment and safeguard our future.

So will our leaders' post-pandemic recovery plans focus only on fixing our economic present, or will they be bold enough to also fight the still-looming crises of biodiversity loss and climate change?

Canada’s COVID-19 fight has proven that we are capable of taking extraordinary action to meet such existential threats head-on. Now Canada has a chance to repair both our country, and our planet. We simply cannot return to the failed policies that have left Canada’s endangered species and habitats in dramatic decline, while climate impacts such as flooding, fires, and melting sea ice increase exponentially. We must instead grow a green and just economy of the future that rises to the challenges of our time — and nature can help us do it.

This is what Canadians are calling for. An Ipsos poll showed 61 per cent of us want the economic recovery to prioritize climate change, and 60 per cent “agree that if [our] government does not act now to combat climate change, it will be failing all citizens.”

Economists are also on board. Research on this “generational opportunity” from Oxford University shows COVID-19 recovery investments in the environment are better for the economy because “green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per dollar spend, and lead to increased long-term cost savings, by comparison with traditional fiscal stimulus.”

That Oxford report calls for “natural capital investment for ecosystem resilience and regeneration,” or as we call it, “restoration.” This nature-based solution creates employment in rural, urban, and Indigenous communities, while reversing biodiversity loss and reducing climate change. It achieves this through massive restoration and stewardship of forests, wetlands, grasslands, and shorelines — which protects Canada’s globally important wildlife and our natural carbon stores.

Restoration makes sense everywhere, but particularly here in Canada, where our iconic nature has been progressively degraded and destroyed by deforestation, urban sprawl, coastal development, agricultural expansion, large-scale dams, and the mass draining of wetlands.

In other words, there’s a lot of work to invest in! WWF-Canada has already seen successes from our restoration efforts with Katzie First Nation on the West Coast, and in the Saint John River Watershed in the east. And our 2019 Wildlife Protection Assessment used carbon mapping to identify places across the country with the most at-risk species and the most stored carbon, from BC’s Okanagan Valley and the prairie grasslands to the Arctic tundra and southern Ontario and Quebec. We’re expanding that work in our National Carbon Mapping project with McMaster University, modeling carbon storage above and below ground to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of future conservation actions.

How much does this matter? Well, right now nearly 800 plant and animal species in Canada are at risk of extinction, and we’re still on track to miss our 2030 emissions targets by 77 megatonnes. But nature-based solutions can protect endangered species while bringing down carbon emissions (through new storage and avoided release) by as much as 29 per cent of our current output.

Of course, that’s just the potential. This is a complex process requiring the right actions in the right places for the right outcomes — otherwise, positive impacts will be much less than what’s possible. But right now, we have a brief moment where anything and everything is possible.

As terrible as this tragedy has been, it’s providing a rare opportunity to not just imagine the world we want to live in, but also to fund it. As we start rebuilding our lives and businesses, it’s critical we do so wisely. We can transition to habitat-friendly renewable energy, improve public transportation, reduce overconsumption, increase sustainable development and, yes, invest in restoration.

We can redesign our economy and our communities to make them resilient and strong, and to protect people and nature. But this moment won’t last forever, and future generations are depending on us to seize it.


Megan Leslie is a former NDP MP and the current President and CEO of WWF-Cana