The following letter is in response to the letter in issue #19/23 “Once Again, The Old Timers Had A Lot Right”
The recently announced $30 million effort between Parks Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada is part of a large conservation goal called 30 by 30. A United Nations Initiative created the target of conserving at least 30% of land and water by 2030; Canada and 55 other countries have made the commitment to this goal.
Why is this important?
One reason is because conserved lands provide valuable ecosystem services such as filtering water, holding carbon, reducing erosion, producing oxygen and offering us humans a slice of undisturbed nature to enjoy. These services have been evaluated to quantify their economic value to humans and turns out, THEY’RE SUPER VALUABLE! A 2023 report by the World Economic Forum found that “over half the world’s GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature, yet we are losing nature at a startling speed”.
The 30 by 30 initiative is ambitious and to meet these goals, conservation groups will have to take a versatile approach. As was stated in the article Program Launched To Accelerate Conservation of Areas Around Canada’s National Parks which prompted the letter Once Again, The Old Timers Had A Lot Right: “areas will be conserved through a variety of ways, such as land purchases, donations, conservation agreements with landowners and tools like other effective area-based conservation measures”. So, we might see agreements being made with local landowners to add pockets of pollinator plants to fields or to improve their agricultural water management, not necessarily just conserving mature forest land.
I do agree with this statement from the letter Once Again, The Old Timers Had A Lot Right: “Our next generations have little to no chance of owning any parcels of land”, but I believe this has little to do with local conservation efforts. If the current housing market situation continues as it is, most people of the next generations will be without real estate, but hopefully they’ll still have tracts of undisturbed nature to find solace in.
Beige McIntosh
