Panellist
Dr. Matthew Mitchell, University of British Columbia

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Canada has committed to protecting 30% of its land by 2030 for conservation, but can it do this and protect the benefits nature provides to people at the same time? This session will present results from a recently published paper that identifies key locations for ecosystem services in Canada to help inform national-scale conservation planning (Mitchell et al. 2021. Environmental Research Letters. 15: 124075). This research is directly relevant to how Canada will meet its 2030 target, what locations it will protect, and how effective this will be at safeguarding both nature and the benefits nature provides to people.

The paper also highlights key locations for one or more ecosystem service, including the forests of British Columbia and the Hudson Bay lowlands for above- and below-ground carbon; north-central Quebec, the eastern mountains of British Columbia, and the north shore of Lake Superior for freshwater; the Rocky Mountains, eastern Ontario, and southern Quebec for nature-based recreation; and the eastern slopes of the Rockies and central Manitoba for their combination of freshwater, carbon storage, and recreation.