Communities of Saint-André and Drummond, with the Northwest Regional Service Commission (CSRNO) worked with MNAI between January-April 2020 to develop an inventory of their natural assets, a first step towards their natural asset program.
RESSOURCES
Infrastructure verte pour l’adaptation au climat : Visualisation, analyse économique et recommandations pour six communautés de l’Ontario (Anglais uniquement)
The report, published by Ontario Parks Association (OPA) and Green Infrastructure Foundation, outline strategies to incorporate green infrastructure into adaptation plans. One of the key findings of the report is that green infrastructure projects can have shorter pay back period while providing greater value.
Un rapport montre que les investissements dans les infrastructures naturelles ont un rendement économique important (Anglais uniquement)
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CISION, By GreenBelt Foundation, Juin 2, 2020, 08:55 ET
Investing in Ontario’s Natural Assets will Strengthen Climate Resilience While Rebuilding Ontario’s Economy Post COVID-19 according to New Greenbelt Foundation Report
TORONTO, Juin 2, 2020 /CNW/ – Canada’s built, or ‘grey’, infrastructure requires an estimated investment of $5.3 billion per year in order to keep pace with the effects of climate change. This comes as COVID-19 puts unprecedented strain on our economy. A new Greenbelt Foundation report suggests a way to address infrastructure needs and build climate resilience, while helping the economy recover.
Investing in the Future: The Economic Case for Natural Infrastructure in Ontario illustrates how by investing in natural areas, municipalities can save money, reduce reliance on expensive built infrastructure, mitigate the effects of extreme weather and create much-needed jobs. The Greenbelt Foundation worked on this report with three Conservation Authorities to determine the return-on-investment of ecological restoration efforts in their jurisdictions: the Brock Lands, Saltfleet Conservation Area and Lake Scugog.
“Restoring the function of our natural assets will support economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Kathy Macpherson, VP of Research and Policy for Greenbelt Foundation. “Natural infrastructure projects create good jobs. According to a US figure, the job creation resulting from these projects could be as high as 33 per $1 million US invested. In contrast, the oil and gas sector supports approximately 5.2 jobs for the same investment.”
According to the Greenbelt Foundation report, ecological restoration efforts in Brock Lands will create recreational greenspace valued up to $35 million, while additional ecosystem services, such as restored groundwater catchments, could add $56 million in infrastructural benefits to Durham Region. In addition to the Brock Lands, the report illustrates how through restoration of the Saltfleet Conservation Area, new wetlands and natural areas will be able to provide flood attenuation and other ecosystem services valued up to $44 million for the Hamilton area.
“This is timely and important work,” says Lynette Mader, Ontario Provincial Manager of Operations for Ducks Unlimited Canada. “The case for natural infrastructure investment is clear: building back better means building back greener. Restoring natural cover such as wetlands upstream, naturalizing built-up systems downstream and ensuring new development includes meaningful natural spaces is the path forward: the overcrowding of city parks tells us that Ontarians want more opportunity to enjoy greenspace and will demand nothing less.”
While the economic cases for Brock Lands and Saltfleet emphasize the value of those natural assets as infrastructure, research into The Lake Scugog Enhancement Project demonstrates how investment in natural areas can also boost local Tourism & Recreation economies. In this case, by investing in restoring Lake Scugog’s function (with no action the lake could eventually become so shallow it would no longer really be a lake), the tourism industry, which the surrounding community relies on, will be saved.
About Greenbelt Foundation:
Greenbelt Foundation is a charitable organization, solely dedicated to ensuring the Greenbelt remains permanent, protected and prosperous. We make the right investments in its interconnected natural, agricultural and economic systems, to ensure a working, thriving Greenbelt for all. Ontario’s Greenbelt is the world’s largest, with over 2 million acres of farmland, forests, wetlands and rivers working together to provide clean air, fresh water, and a reliable local food source.
Website & Social Media:
Website: greenbelt.ca
Instagram: @ongreenbelt
Twitter: @greenbeltca
Facebook: Ontario Greenbelt
SOURCE Greenbelt Foundation
Le gouvernement fédéral doit se concentrer sur le renforcement de l’infrastructure naturelle du Canada dans son plan de relance (Anglais uniquement)
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IPOLITICS-Shawn McCarthy. Published on Juin 3, 2020 12:00 am
“Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau can be front and centre in that green stimulus effort by dramatically expanding a program that pays farmers to conserve and reclaim wetlands and other natural spaces on marginal agricultural land.”
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has tabled the first-ever management plan for the Rouge National Urban Park (pictured). (Rouge National Urban Park Twitter Account/Parks Canada photo)The federal government has the opportunity to put real “green” in its planned economic stimulus program by conserving and expanding the country’s natural infrastructure.
As the Liberal cabinet prepares to shift from emergency COVID-19 funding to a longer-term stimulus package, key ministers are working to ensure the planned fiscal measures are consistent with the government’s overarching climate-change commitments.
Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau can be front and centre in that green stimulus effort by dramatically expanding a program that pays farmers to conserve and reclaim wetlands and other natural spaces on marginal agricultural land.
Farmers are facing myriad economic threats as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and programs that pay them to be better environmental stewards would provide another stream of income to help them survive and prosper.
At the same time, wetlands reclamation and reforestation would create jobs to replace ones that may be permanently lost in the broader economy.
Other ministers will have to play their roles in making nature-based solutions a major plank in the government’s climate strategy and its recovery plan.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna can ensure that projects that protect or reclaim wetlands, grasslands and forests are included in her multi-billion-dollar infrastructure envelope. Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson can lead efforts to establish the economic value — as well as environmental benefits — of nature conservation.
In May, 43 environmental organizations delivered a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urging his government to finance natural infrastructure projects as part of the country’s post-COVID-19 recovery.
Destruction of Canada’s natural spaces is too often seen as a cost-free proposition, similar to the dangerous practice of dumping carbon into the atmosphere.
However, nature-based solutions are an important component in the battle against climate change, both to reduce emissions and to adapt to the severe weather that will result from global warming.
There is a growing movement to put a price on environmental goods and services, and find ways to generate revenue from natural assets.
Soil stores carbon but releases it when heavily tilled. Growing trees absorb carbon dioxide. Other benefits include water filtration, flood protection, species-at-risk habitat and maintenance of pollinator populations.
Farmers benefit financially when governments and corporations are willing to pay for those services. Rural municipalities and Indigenous communities can also participate in programs that trade on the financial benefits that accrue from conservation.
The idea of putting a price on nature is troubling for some people. It suggests that the value of a wetland or woodland is limited to the utility it holds for human populations, rather than having intrinsic importance for the health of all species that inhabit the planet.
It is that human-centric, economic perspective that has resulted in the environmental peril of climate change and the biodiversity crisis.
However, we have learned the hard way that whatever isn’t assigned an economic price is viewed as worthless, and hence disregarded. Acknowledging the value of ecological goods and services is a necessary part of the effort to reverse our environmental negligence.
The Liberal government already has announced a target to conserve 25 per cent of the country’s land for nature by 2025, with a goal of 30 per cent by 2030. That commitment often clashes with other priorities, including housing development, resource industry projects and farming practices.
In Alberta, the United Conservative Party government has announced plans for coal mining in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in areas now protected as parkland. In Ontario, the Progressive Conservative government has proposed amendments to species-at-risk rules that would allow housing developers to pay into a fund in lieu of protecting critical habitat.
Regulation is one tool to protect critical ecosystems. Providing payment for ecological goods and services is a complementary one that rewards landowners, and local communities.
In a paper written for Corporate Knights magazine, authors Ralph Torrie and Celine Bak propose that the federal government embark on a 10-year, $4-billion effort to preserve or reclaim 10-million acres of marginal land for natural areas that would store some 22 million tones of carbon annually by 2025.
Ottawa could scale up an existing program, ALUS Canada, that works with farmers and ranchers in six provinces to conserve less-productive land for environmental purposes.
ALUS currently has 27,000 acres set aside with payments coming to landowners from a variety of sources. The organization is ready and able to scale up its operations should the federal government agree to finance it, ALUS senior vice-president Lara Ellis said in an interview.
Another promising avenue is the plan under Ottawa’s Clean Fuel Standard to allow industrial GHG emitters who are covered by climate regulations to purchase “offsets” from farmers and Indigenous communities that are land guardians.
In that case, the GHG savings must be verified and certified, and the emitter essentially pays for the right to emission credits that can be applied to their own regulated operations.
At the same time, groups like WWF-Canada and the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation are working with rural municipalities to assess the potential for natural infrastructure to help with flood mitigation, soil erosion and nutrient loading in lakes.
The Intact Centre worked with the Insurance Bureau of Canada and Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development on a 2018 report outlining the potential for natural infrastructure to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
It noted that Canada continues to lose wetlands, forests and vegetation. Southern Ontario, for example, has lost 95 per cent of its original wetlands. Clearly, more needs to be done, the study concluded.
“We need to conserve what we have, restore what we’ve lost, and build what we must,” Intact Centre’s director of climate resilience, Natalia Moudrak, said.
Les communautés du nord-ouest du Nouveau-Brunswick explorent l’approche des biens naturels pour gérer les inondations (Anglais uniquement)
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Spring has arrived in Canada, but for many communities that brings both flowers and flooding. The MNAI team has worked with numerous communities to explore how natural assets can help them address flooding, and one of the most recent projects was with the Northwest Regional Service Commission (CSRNO) in New Brunswick. Over the years, the inland and coastal flooding events there have substantially increased the number of disaster financial assistance programs and the situation has become quite urgent.
“Despite being quite far from major watercourses and experiencing far less development than urban centers, some communities in New Brunswick’s northwest are at risk of inland flooding,” said Adrian (Adje) Prado, Territorial Analyst – Research and Sustainable Development with CSRNO. “With the anticipated increases in precipitation as a result of climate change, we expect this will become even more of a concern over the coming decades. We believe it is essential to integrate natural asset planning into our work to better understand how different types of land-use can affect the region’s resilience, especially in relation to runoff management and other water-related concerns.”
Since natural assets – such as wetlands, green spaces and forests – have proven to be effective in reducing flooding risks, the CSRNO, together with the communities of Saint-André and Drummond, partnered with MNAI and have just completed their first step towards a more comprehensive natural asset program by creating an inventory of their natural assets.
The inventory lists the types of natural assets in the region, the services they’re providing to the communities, their condition, and what risks may exist. Some of the highlights of the inventory indicate:
- The sub-watersheds surrounding the communities comprise significant natural assets – including 36,000 hectares of coniferous forest and 20,000 hectares of deciduous forest. These assets are likely to provide a range of services to the local residents that include carbon storage, stormwater management and water filtration, air purification, improvements to community health, wildlife habitat, recreation, and aesthetic value.
- Much of the study area is rated low permeability. This means it has limited ability to absorb and hence manage flood waters.
- The condition of the assets from a species diversity perspective is either very good or good.
The completion of the inventory is only the first step in the whole asset management cycle. This project also created a roadmap so Saint-André, Drummond and CSRNO can decide what their next step to managing their natural assets and reducing flooding will be.
One option is status quo. The other option is proceeding with a full natural asset management project and implementation, which would include planning, regulatory, financial operations, maintenance, acquisition, and monitoring interventions, with MNAI’s technical support, advice and guidance.
To read the full project report, please click here.
Right now, as the world starts cautiously moving from the emergency response phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to the recovery and rebuilding phases, it’s critical to plan how to build back better. The pandemic has dramatically impacted most local government budgets, but the climate crisis is still barreling ahead and infrastructure is still falling apart. Natural assets can play a key role in helping communities continue delivering core services to their residents and businesses in a cost-effective, climate-resilient and sustainable way, even helping prevent more emergencies from occurring.
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Kingsclear First Nation: Brochure (English Only)
New Brunswick Environmental Network collaborated with Kingsclear First Nation and Dillon Consulting to create a brochure on their shoreline protection and Indian Brook Enhancement project.
Kingsclear First Nation: Brochure
NBEN partnered with Kingsclear First Nation and Dillon Consulting to create a brochure on their shoreline protection and Indian Brooke Enhancement Project.
Panel d’interprétation de Vision H2O
Le RENB a collaboré avec Vision H2O pour concevoir et installer un panneau sur leur projet de restauration des dunes.
Magazine “Valores Natural Infrastructure” (en français uniquement)
Le RENB a collaboré avec Valores pour un magazine sur les infrastructures naturelles.
Cliquez ici pour voir: valores pdf
Une évaluation de l’impact économique du secteur de l’infrastructure verte en Ontario : Coalition pour l’infrastructure verte en Ontario
Ce rapport a été publié par la Green Infrastructure Ontario Coalition et la Greenbelt Foundation pour définir la portée de l’infrastructure verte en Ontario, fournir une évaluation de l’impact économique du secteur de l’infrastructure verte et démontrer la possibilité de stimuler la croissance économique en Ontario grâce à un investissement accru dans l’infrastructure verte.