Protected and conserved coastal areas in Canada: insights with respect to Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

Abstract

Despite coastal area being recognised as an important subcomponent in protected and conserved areas targets for over a decade, it has been orphaned in both national and international reporting. In this paper, we provide the first progress report on protected and conserved coastal area in Canada. While 13.6 per cent of Canada’s coastal area is protected and conserved, there is substantial variation across Canada’s three oceans and Great Lakes, jurisdictional authorities, and marine/terrestrial ecosystems. Importantly, Manitoba (37.3 per cent) and the Yukon (45.1 per cent) have already achieved the 30 per cent coastal protection target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF). However, Newfoundland and Labrador (7 per cent) and the Northwest Territories (8 per cent) currently fall significantly short. Very poor protection is evident in several marine bioregions and terrestrial ecozones, including across the Arctic, the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves (0.7 per cent) and the Hudson Bay Complex (5.1 per cent). The Great Lakes require urgent and focused conservation attention, with lakes Ontario (3.6 per cent) and Erie (3.7 per cent) exhibiting a dismal amount of coastal protected and conserved area. Our results highlight the importance of explicitly reporting on the status of coastal area protection and we outline several considerations that can be used by the global conservation community to support more effective coastal protection, accounting and reporting vis-à-vis Target 3 of the KM-GBF