This recommendation complements and strengthens the earlier recommendation for Ecological connectivity: Renewal of Parks Canada’s Ecological Corridors program.
Ecological connectivity is fundamental to tackling the top threats to biodiversity: habitat loss and fragmentation, and climate change. Federal investment is needed for a nation-wide connectivity fund to support work by Crown and Indigenous governments, NGOs, and private entities to conserve areas identified as important for ecological connectivity and to create effective mitigation measures to improve connectivity of fragmented landscapes.
The Green Budget Coalition also recommends establishing a pilot federal wildlife crossings Program. Taking guidance from the successful US Wildlife Crossing Program model, the pilot program would fund provincial and federal wildlife crossings projects in critical regional wildlife linkage areas with high wildlife-vehicle collisions and would: protect biodiversity by maintaining wildlife-movement routes; address climate change as species’ ranges shift; move people and wildlife more safely across roads; increase the efficiency of transportation; stimulate local economies; and create jobs. The pilot could be delivered under Canada’s Natural Infrastructure Fund, if the Fund were expanded to include wildlife crossing structures.
Recommended Investment:
$500 million over five years for a nationwide connectivity fund, and a federal wildlife crossing pilot program [ECCC, PC, HICC]