Billion-dollar BC Nature Agreement will Supercharge Protected Areas Expansion across the Province

For Immediate Release
November 3rd, 2023

Conservationists thank the BC and federal governments for the $1.1 billion launch of the BC Nature Agreement. The federal government has provided $500 million and BC is providing $563 million from diverse funding sources — now purposed toward achieving BC’s 30% by 2030 nature protection, conservation, and restoration goals via First Nations conservation agreements.

The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) are greatly applauding the BC and federal governments and the First Nations Leadership Council for launching the BC Nature Agreement, with $1.1 billion in funding to start, to help achieve BC’s minimum protected areas target of protecting 30% by 2030 of its land area. The tripartite agreement, negotiated between the BC government, the federal government, and the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC), comes with a $563 million contribution from the province and a $500 million federal contribution. The fund will continue to grow with major contributions from the philanthropic community and potentially from future government budgets over time.

Funds will be used for supporting First Nations to establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and conservation initiatives, endangered species recovery, compensation of resource licensees, and habitat restoration, with a central mandate to achieve the 30% by 2030 protection target of BC in line with Canada’s national protection target.

“This is the largest provincial funding package in Canada’s history for nature conservation, and we understand it will continue to grow beyond the initial sum of $1.1 billion,” stated Ken Wu, Executive Director for EEA. “Our central campaign focus for years has been on the necessity of government funding for First Nations to establish new protected areas to save old-growth forests and endangered ecosystems in BC. Today, Premier Eby, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, and the First Nations Leadership Council delivered, and we thank them greatly. The funds will be critically important as the ‘fuel’ to enable Indigenous conservation initiatives to help BC reach its minimum protection target of 30% by 2030. Now we need ecosystem-based protection targets connected to these conservation funds to prioritize the most endangered and least protected ecosystems in BC. Without ecosystem-based targets to aim protection priorities wisely, it’ll be like a fire brigade hosing down all the non-burning houses while the houses on fire are largely ignored. Or a surgeon who doesn’t make distinctions between organs, instead just aiming to reach an overall target of removing a couple of kilograms.”

“Because First Nations are legally in the driver’s seat in BC when it comes to on-the-ground protection of their unceded territories, a major fund such as the one announced today is vital to support them and to deal with all the various costs of establishing new protected areas, particularly in contested landscapes,” stated TJ Watt, Campaigner for AFA. “It would be impossible to essentially double the protected areas in BC from 15% now to 30% over the next seven years without it. The major funding that Eby and Guilbeault have just put forward is a big deal. Step by step, the province is moving forward with support from the federal government to create the policy vehicle and funding streams that will enable First Nations to drive where we all need to go: the protection of native ecosystems and old-growth forests in BC. Funding for First Nations-led deferrals in the most at-risk old-growth stands is still outstanding, and we will keep working to see that these vital ‘solutions space’ funds are provided.”

In BC, the province cannot unilaterally establish protected areas and “just save the old growth” on Crown/ unceded First Nations lands — the support and shared decision-making of local First Nations governments is a legal necessity in their territories. Protected areas establishment and logging deferrals move at the speed of the local First Nations whose territories it is — the BC government’s policies and funding can facilitate or hinder, help speed up or slow down, the abilities of First Nations to protect ecosystems. Conservation financing, included in this funding package, is a vital enabling condition that can greatly facilitate and speed up the protection of old-growth forests.

Today’s BC Nature Agreement funds come from four federal funding pots (Enhanced Nature Legacy, Nature Smart Solutions Fund, BC Old-Growth Fund, and 2 Billion Trees program) and most of the funding was, until now, largely inaccessible for BC protected areas. The provincial funds also come from diverse sources — disparate funds that are now newly tasked to fulfill the mandate of the BC Nature Agreement’s 30% by 2030 goal to protect, conserve and restore ecosystems via First Nations’ shared decision-making initiatives. These include the $150 million in provincial contributions to BC’s Conservation Financing Mechanism announced last week, another $100 million from the Watershed Security Fund and $200 million from the Northeast Restoration Fund, and a host of other smaller funding pots.

In addition, the BC Old-Growth Fund, worth $50 million from federal funds and which must be matched by a $50 million provincial contribution (ie. $100 million), comes into force (and will grow by an additional $32 million in federal funds committed earlier, or $64 million in matching total funds), and is mandated to protect the most at-risk old-growth forests (ie. grandest, rarest and oldest stands) in the Coastal and Inland Rainforests, and the Coastal Douglas-Fir biogeoclimatic zone. These are among the most endangered ecosystems in BC, which evolved to naturally exist with high proportions of their landscapes in an old-growth condition, with greater levels of biodiversity adapted to old-growth forests than most other ecosystems (hence, the prioritization of funds for these ecosystems is sensible from a conservation perspective — the other $1 billion is available to protect forests including old-growth in other ecosystems).

While a minor subset of the overall BC Nature Agreement, the BC Old-Growth Fund is indispensable to help protect the “biggest and best” remaining old-growth stands in BC, with a mandate akin to ecosystem-based targets to protect 400,000 hectares to 1.3 million hectares of old-growth and mature forests in the most at-risk old-growth forest types by supporting First Nations conservation initiatives. Some of these hectares might come from the finalization of the ecosystem-based management reserves negotiated years earlier in the Great Bear Rainforest final agreement. Hopefully, with support from the greater BC Nature Agreement funds, most of the remaining tracts of the at-risk old-growth forests in the Coastal and Inland Rainforests and Coastal Douglas-Fir ecosystems are picked up for protection with this fund.

TJ Watt said, “We want to flag that provincial leadership is now vital to fulfilling the mandate of the BC Old-Growth Fund, to identify the key sites, which have already been largely mapped by the province’s appointed Technical Advisory Panel, and to pro-actively approach and work with First Nations and to bring them the resources and support needed to work on protecting these most important at-risk stands. BC bureaucrats sitting on their haunches and waiting to be approached won’t get the job done.”

The BC Nature Agreement fund comes on the heels of the $300 million Conservation Financing Mechanism and in fact, includes the $150 million provincial contribution to that fund. The BC Nature Agreement fund can also be used to augment the Conservation Financing Mechanism, which, unlike the BC Nature Agreement itself, can be used to support First Nations economic development initiatives linked to new protected areas.

EEA and AFA are now focused on closing several additional gaps in BC’s old-growth and protected-areas policies, which include:

• Ecosystem-based protection targets, ie. legally-binding targets set for all ecosystems that factor in “forest productivity distinctions” (sites that grow large trees in warm, rich soils typically at lower elevations and more southerly latitudes, vs. sites that typically grow small trees in cold, rocky, or boggy sites) set by science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees. These targets are vital to ensure that the most at-risk and least protected ecosystems are prioritized — otherwise, protection will still be largely focused on alpine and subalpine areas with low to no timber values, with the exception of the old-growth that the BC Old-Growth Fund protects.
• Deferral or “solutions-space” funding for First Nations to forgo logging in the most at-risk old-growth priority areas as defined by the province’s appointed Technical Advisory Panel (TAP). This is a critical stepping stone to at least get the full remaining 1.4 million hectares of TAP’s priority areas deferred. First Nations with logging interests in these areas need compensation for their lost revenues for two years while deferrals are enacted, during which time they can potentially undertake protected areas and land-use planning.
• Upholding protected areas standards. A provincial Protected Areas Strategy with goals, objectives, strategies, and resources must be developed, and must emphasize Provincial Conservancies, Ecological Reserves, and Protected Areas (PAs), and other real protected areas. Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) have moveable boundaries upon request by logging companies, and many types of Wildlife Habitat Areas allow logging — these loopholes must be closed, and until then, they must not be included in BC’s 30% by 2030 accounting. In addition, the province is developing a new IPCA designation that is considering “flexitarian” standards that might allow for commercial logging (cultural cedar harvesting for First Nations community use, of course, should be safeguarded and is different in scale and purpose than commercial logging). Weak and/or moveable conservation designations are akin to the “cryptocurrency of protected areas,” and BC must focus on real protected areas and close the moveable boundary loophole with OGMAs in particular, as OGMAs are a needed designation to save the labyrinth of remaining old-growth fragments.

EEA and AFA are also noting that much of the funding agreement, with the exception of the conservation financing component ($150 million from BC, and $150 million from the BC Parks Foundation), is narrowly defined so as not to fund First Nations’ owned businesses as alternatives to the nations’ old-growth logging dependencies. The lack of funding to support economic alternatives in First Nations communities, which keeps these communities dependent on old-growth logging revenues and jobs, is the single greatest barrier to the protection of old-growth forests across BC. This barrier is not lost upon many of the key timber-centric senior provincial bureaucrats who continue to marginalize the availability of such funds for First Nations’ economic development, along with the lack of deferral funding. This will also be an issue that our organizations will also be watching and working on.

More Background Info

• Conservation financing is key to meeting First Nations’ needs for sustainable economic development alternatives to their old-growth logging dependencies. Many or most BC First Nations have an economic dependency fostered by successive BC governments on forestry, including old-growth logging, and require support to develop sustainable alternatives in ecotourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood, non-timber forest products like wild mushrooms, and other businesses if they are to forgo their old-growth logging interests to establish new protected areas and to not lose major jobs and revenues. Nations also need funding to develop the capacity to undertake land-use planning, mapping, engagement of community members, stakeholders, and resource licensees, and for stewardship and management jobs in new protected areas.
• On BC’s Central and North Coasts (ie. the Great Bear Rainforest), $120 million in conservation financing from the province, federal government, and conservation groups in 2007 resulted in the protection of almost 1.8 million hectares of land (about 2/3rds the size of Vancouver Island), the creation of over 100 businesses and 1000 permanent jobs in First Nations communities, and significantly raised the average household income in numerous communities.
• BC’s old-growth forests have spawned one of the most passionate and pervasive ecosystem-protection movements in world history, and for good reason. They contain some of the largest and oldest living organisms that have ever existed in Earth’s history — forest giants that can live to 2000 years old and grow wider than a living room. Old-growth forests are vital to support unique and endangered species, climate stability, clean water, wild salmon, First Nations cultures, and BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry. These forests have unique characteristics that are not replicated by the ensuing second-growth tree plantations they’re being replaced with. In fact, second-growth forests in BC are logged every 50-to-80 years on BC’s coast, never to become old growth again.
• Well over 80% of the original, productive old-growth forests (sites where most big trees and timber values reside) have already been logged, and over 5 million hectares of big treed, rare (by ecosystem type), and very oldest old-growth forests remain unprotected in BC, with 2.6 million hectares identified as the top priorities for logging deferrals by the province’s appointed science panel or Technical Advisory Panel.