With effective protections in place, Canada can emerge as a global leader in safeguarding nature and supporting Indigenous-led conservation.
Through the conservation Canada project, The Pew Charitable Trusts works with in-country organizations, Indigenous leaders, and policymakers to conserve ocean areas and the boreal forest, and to protect the health of marine and terrestrial habitats for the benefit of residents and others who depend on these ecosystems.
Pew also works alongside Indigenous communities, philanthropists, and other partners to advance conservation in Canada through the Enduring Earth collaboration, and supports Indigenous-led conservation efforts through the Blue Nature Alliance partnership. In addition, through Pew’s international fisheries and ocean governance projects, the organization is engaging with Canada as it works to protect rich and diverse global marine life.
The people of Pabineau First Nation (PFN) have lived along the banks of the Nepisiguit River since time immemorial—as they say—in what is now the province of New Brunswick, Canada.
A steady breeze carries the smell of smoking goose and beaver meat to a circle of people gathered on the shore of lake Pekuakami on a brilliant mid-June day in the Ilnu community of Mashteuiatsh, Quebec. The group is sharing stories about working together, some for more than two decades, on a campaign to conserve the lands and waters of the boreal forest in Canada.
Freshwater habitats, including wetlands, lakes, streams, and rivers, sustain human well-being and global biodiversity. They provide clean drinking water, flood control, and carbon sequestration and support recreation and tourism.
Spanning the North American continent east to west, and from the Great Lakes north to the top of the world, Canada is one of the largest countries and has the longest shoreline on Earth. Its lands and oceans include wetlands, peatlands, and forest; the icy waters of the Arctic; deep-water trenches off the west coast that host unique methane-based plants and animals; and Atlantic coast whale migration routes that connect waters off Florida in the southeastern U.S. to the Hudson Bay.
Marine animals, including critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, can die after becoming entangled in fishing gear, particularly the ropes that connect pots and traps on the seafloor to buoys on the surface. To help solve this problem, gear developers have created “on-demand” or “ropeless” fishing gear that require fewer ropes, reducing the risk to marine creatures. This type of gear uses global positioning systems (GPS) or acoustic marking technology instead of buoys at the water’s surface to mark the locations of traps.
