Good morning. I am Professor Ryan Norris. I am from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph. My research focuses on conservation of wild populations, primarily birds, butterflies and salamanders. I’ve done quite a bit of research on parks nationally and regionally, and I have done quite a bit of work inside parks as well.

I am involved in a reintroduction of an endangered butterfly species here in Ontario. I’ve done a number of macro assessments of the effectiveness of the parks system in Canada. Thank you.

Yes, that’s it. Thank you.

Yes, I do think it strengthens those tools. It provides Parks Canada with more power around substances, such as pesticides, that might come into parks. I think that’s good.

Expanding the area of parks is always a good thing. We are at a fairly low level of total protected areas in Canada, I would say. Obviously, Parks Canada contributes to the total amount of protected area in Canada. It’s about 3% or 4%, so it is important to expand the boundaries of the parks, too. Anything that can create a buffer between parks, protected areas, such as national parks, and non-protected areas will always be a good thing.

I just want to say that I’m in full support of the amendments that Dr. Lem proposed. I don’t have a specific amendment, but I would just like to take this opportunity to recognize that, in particular, some of the parks in heavily urbanized areas and heavily developed areas really need more than what is currently being added here. We need to keep a focus on that. Some of these parks are really islands in the middle of heavily developed areas.

I’m happy to talk about specifics if the committee wants, but really we need more protection around those islands. I know that won’t be an amendment to the bill but just wanted to put that in.

Yes, thanks. To address your kind of broad question about migratory birds and insects, it’s been estimated that we have lost about 3 billion birds since 1970 in North America. That’s a lot. Many of those birds are migratory. Many of the birds go elsewhere, outside the spring and summer months, many to Central America, South America, the Caribbean. We are also in an insect apocalypse, that is, a decline in insects worldwide. It’s not necessarily in every location, but in several well-documented places there has been a decline in insects. That’s been linked to several things, including the application of pesticides, of course.

Do parks effectively conserve species? That is a big question. It is a good one. It is something that we have been quite interested in, as well as other research groups, about how we effectively monitor protected areas, including national parks.

It’s very difficult for a number of reasons. If we look at migratory animals, they may be using parks for only part of their annual cycle. Generally, I would say that protected areas in Canada tend to be situated in key locations. They may be a key breeding location for one or a group of species. They may be locations that migratory animals use as refuelling stopover sites as well, such as Point Peele, for example.

Monitoring the effectiveness of already-established parks and new parks requires, in a rigorous way, some sort of control, and that is monitoring unprotected areas as well. It’s really not enough to just monitor a protected area. You have to have some sort of design which you can compare.

I would say, in general, if we look at the hundreds of studies that have attempted to look at the effectiveness of protected areas in terms of conserving biodiversity, probably a majority of them have found that protected areas do a good job or have a positive influence on protecting biodiversity, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t need more of them. We absolutely do. As a country, we have about 15% protected areas. Of course, the broad target is 30% by 2030.

I have a lot to say on this. I could keep going, but I won’t take up too much of your time.

Yes.

Once again, it’s something I could go on about.

I’m good at being brief.

I don’t specifically know the criteria that the government uses to select national parks, but I can say that they are generally less nimble than land trust organizations that tend to be privately owned. Other players in the protection of protected areas in Canada are private land trusts and NGOs.

We have analyzed species diversity in private protected areas and government-protected areas. It’s a bit of a wash. Private protected areas tend to have higher species diversity currently, but they are more nimble. They tend to be able to set up smaller protected areas than the government wants to. Because of that and because they can form agreements with private land owners as well, they are better able to target high-diversity areas.

The government tends to come in with larger areas, and they do a good job, generally, of selecting the right areas. I don’t know the politics behind it, though.

You have two major players there. Of course, the Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, or IPCAs, have increased quite a bit in the last five to ten years. They will play a major role if we ever do meet the target of 30%. The IPCAs will play a major role in that.