Canada is taking action to help recover species at risk by supporting habitat protection, restoration and conservation, and improvement projects to support biodiversity.
Today, Jenica Atwin, Member of Parliament for Fredericton, on behalf of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, announced more than $8.7 million in funding over the next three years through the Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk. This funding will support sixty-seven conservation projects across Canada, led by communities, individuals, and non-government organizations taking action to recover species at risk in their communities.
The Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk plays an important role in the conservation of land-based species at risk across the country. It supports local actions to steward lands, waters, animals, and plants, as well as the implementation of the Species at Risk Act. In New Brunswick, five projects will receive up to $730,985:
- Nature NB is undertaking a project to support monarch conservation in Southern New Brunswick. They will conduct outreach and engagement activities about the monarch, monitor existing monarch habitat, coordinate milkweed and monarch surveys, and work with municipalities to implement best management practices for monarch conservation.
- Nature Trust of New Brunswick's project will address conserving habitat for two lichens in the St. Croix River watershed. They will survey and secure parcels of forest that contain lichen habitat, enable private landowners to steward land to maintain the habitat and the species, and provide lichen identification training opportunities for landowners and Indigenous partners.
- Groupe du bassin versant de la région de Cap-Pelé (Vision H20) will conserve habitat for bank swallows living in coastal areas in Southeast New Brunswick.
- Société d'aménagement de la rivière Madawaska will conduct surveys of the little brown bat and bank swallows and inform the public and farmers of their key habitat while engaging with landowners to steward their land for species at risk.
- Nature Conservancy of Canada will engage private landowners in three Atlantic provinces, including New Brunswick, to protect three species-at-risk groupings: the Canada warbler, lichens, and Van Brunt's Jacob's-ladder. They will promote voluntary habitat protection measures on their land to address threats from development and forestry activities on privately-owned land.
By working together with communities across the country, the Government of Canada and Canadians are making progress on recovering species at risk, while recovering and protecting the habitats that support Canada's vast biodiversity. Through actions like these, Canada is working to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 and to achieve a full recovery for nature by 2050.
This is just one of the measures the Government of Canada is taking to protect nature as it prepares to welcome the world to Montréal in December 2022 for the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. COP15 presents an opportunity for Canada to show its leadership in taking actions to conserve and restore nature and halt biodiversity loss around the world.
