2014
Workshops & Agms
Overview
The Canadian Council on Ecological Areas (CCEA) is hosting a national workshop to resolve key outstanding issues for the forthcoming Canadian Guidebook for the Application and Reporting of IUCN Protected Area Categories and Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures. The workshop will be a unique opportunity for conservation experts to come together and develop solutions for how to report on progress towards achieving Aichi Target 11. Workshop participants will include experts from Canadian protected area and conservation agencies and from IUCN, the scientific community, the fields of land stewardship and Aboriginal and community land-use planning, and from national non-governmental conservation
organizations.
Workshop Goal
To discuss, resolve, and establish a common understanding of the major issues associated with identification and reporting of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and to develop clear guidance for finalizing the Canadian interpretation regarding the application and reporting of IUCN protected area categories and other effective area-based conservation measures.
Context
CCEA’s forthcoming Canadian Guidebook will help answer the question: “How much of Canada’s territory is primarily dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity?”
The question is an important one because, over the past 50 years, in Canada and around the world, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history. Over the past few centuries, species have been lost, as a result of human activity, at a rate believed to be as much as 1000 times the background rate typical of the Earth’s history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).
At the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010,
the Parties adopted a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2010-2020. Target 11 from this plan (Aichi Target 11)
relates to protected areas and states:
“By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland waters, and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas,
especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through
effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected
areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into wider landscapes and
seascapes.”
In February 2013, CCEA hosted a national workshop: Interpreting Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 in the
Canadian Context in order to develop a science-based consensus on criteria for assessing what kinds of
areas fit within Aichi Target 11. Particular attention was paid to the new term “other effective area-based
conservation measures”.
The forthcoming Canadian Guidebook will update CCEA’s 2008 Canadian Guidebook for the Application of
IUCN Protected Area Categories by providing guidance on:
- identification, categorization, governance, and application of protected areas in the Canadian context and in light of updated IUCN guidance;
- interpretation of “other effective area-based conservation measures” in the context of Aichi Target 11;
- evaluation of risks to biodiversity associated with different approaches to the governance of subsurface resource rights and uses in conservation areas;
- identification of the different kinds of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures that may be appropriate in specific circumstances;
- identification and categorization of marine protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures;
- reporting protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures to the national Conservation Areas Reporting and Tracking System (CARTS); and
- other issues which often spawn debate or confusion in the assessment of areas as potential protected areas or other effective area-based conservation measures.
The new Guidebook will also provide numerous case studies of the screening and categorization of potential
protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures to assist practitioners in reporting
on Canada’s progress towards achieving Target 11.
2014 CCEA Workshop Welcome and Introduction, David McKinnon
2014 CCEA Workshop Presentation, Marine Considerations, Stephen Woodley