Why biodiversity hotspots are still being left behind

By Mark Hall

Op-Ed Commentary

In 2004, Dr. Geoff Scudder of UBC completed one of B.C.’s most important biodiversity analyses. By mapping species rarity and richness, he identified where the province’s most threatened species occur and where biodiversity is most concentrated. These biodiversity hotspots are the places where conservation matters most. These hotspots occur mostly in the South Okanagan, the Lower Mainland, and Southeastern Vancouver Island along with the Gulf Islands.

Despite their global significance, these hotspots remain largely outside B.C.’s protected area network. As Canada advances its 30×30 plan to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030, the gap between what is protected and what needs protection is poised to widen. Canada has committed to 10 new national parks, and B.C. has proposed three new conservation areas.

Yet none of these proposals capture Scudder’s hotspots. Once again, B.C. is protecting more of what is already safe and less of what is truly at risk.

The uncomfortable truth is that Canada’s 30×30 approach is a land‑use strategy, not a biodiversity conservation strategy. Modern conservation science shows that area‑based targets alone cannot halt biodiversity loss. What matters is where protection occurs, how ecosystems are managed, and whether protected areas guard against the drivers of decline.

Global biodiversity mapping shows that even countries with large, protected networks still leave critical species unprotected. Protected areas are often biased toward low‑conflict, low‑productivity lands that are easy to designate. Strategic placement yields far greater gains.

A 2023 study published in Nature that modeled 30×30 scenarios for Canada found that protecting the right five per cent of land can outperform protecting the wrong 30%. Yet Canada continues expanding parks in isolated regions while leaving grasslands, valley bottoms, and low‑elevation ecosystems exposed to development, fragmentation, and extinction.

Climate change adds another challenge. Fixed protected‑area boundaries cannot move as species shift their ranges. As ecosystems transform, species will migrate outside park borders, leaving conservation efforts stranded in yesterday’s landscapes.

Even where parks exist, many are “paper parks” suffering from insufficient staffing, weak enforcement, no monitoring, and no management plan. Coverage means little when management effectiveness is low. Canada’s 30×30 plan does not address major drivers of biodiversity loss such as land conversion, pollution, invasive species, wildlife trafficking, vehicle collisions, unregulated harvesting, or climate change.

Caribou illustrate this failure. B.C. recently announced a new conservation area in the southeast, citing caribou habitat protection. But Southern Mountain Caribou have already been extirpated from the region. Canada had the legal tools under the Species at Risk Act but chose not to use them. The result was predictable, and the caribou vanished.

Interior Fraser River Steelhead tell a similar story. Their runs have collapsed to only a few fish. In 2018, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) altered scientific findings to downplay extinction risk. What good is 30×30 if this is how Canada chooses to manage imperilled species?  Protecting hectares on a map does not force governments to protect endangered species, enforce recovery actions, or follow science.

Freshwater biodiversity is poorly conserved by land‑based protected areas. Marine protected areas (MPAs) cannot stop ocean warming, acidification, microplastics, or IUU fishing (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing).

Many MPAs are too small, poorly managed, or allow damaging activities. Multi‑use MPAs often perform nearly as well as fully closed ones, yet Canada’s system remains inconsistent and under‑resourced.

Meanwhile, environmental NGOs are being paid millions to promote 30×30, creating a conservation narrative that looks good on paper while leaving the most at‑risk ecosystems exposed and people and business displaced. The only guaranteed success is that 30×30 has become a business.

One of Canada’s 30×30 goals, Pillar 3, Valuing Nature and Mobilizing Capital, introduces new risks. Turning nature into financial assets means it can be bought, owned, and controlled. Financial markets reward what is measurable and monetizable, not what is ecologically necessary. This could shift protection toward areas that generate carbon or biodiversity credits rather than those of highest ecological value.

It could also restrict public access or displace land users so that nature assets can be preserved for investors.

Examples from Australia, Africa, the UK, and South America show how this credit scheme can harm both people and ecosystems. Canada’s ecosystems provide trillions in services; if those services become financial assets, public benefit could be replaced by private profit. Commodifying nature also risks making it an exportable product under trade agreements (think transboundary water).

Canada’s task force exploring Pillar 3 must confront these risks directly to avoid steering the country toward ecological feudalism.

When new protected areas are announced, citizens should ask: Where were the planning tables? Why wasn’t the public invited? Who benefits and who loses? Why is Canada relying so heavily on national parks which are expensive, restrictive, and prohibitive to sustainable uses like licensed hunting, trapping, and outfitting, as primary conservation tools, as seen in Manitoba’s Seal River Watershed proposal?

Canadians care deeply about nature. Our identity is rooted in working landscapes and the freedom to live close to and harvest from nature. This traces back to the British North America Act, which ensured natural resource control went to the provinces to prevent federal dominance.

The federal government retained authority over migratory species, marine species, and federally listed endangered species, while provinces control habitat. The result is a constitutional tangle where national biodiversity commitments collide with provincial autonomy and citizens’ rights to shape decisions about their home landscapes.

That is precisely why 30×30 deserves more scrutiny, not less.

The question is not whether conservation matters, it does. The question is whether governments are protecting the places biodiversity depends on or if they are building a political success story out of locking up land.

If Canadians are kept outside planning tables, if biodiversity hotspots remain exposed, if endangered species continue to disappear, and if nature is quietly converted into financial assets, then 30×30 risks becoming a slogan rather than a conservation success.

Before celebrating another protected‑area announcement, we should ask the hard questions: Why this land? Why now? Who decided? Who benefits? Who loses? And above all, does it protect what is most at risk? If the answer is no, the problem is not failing to reach 30%. The problem is that Canada may reach it and still fail nature.

– Mark Hall is the Executive Director of The Wild Origins Canada Foundation.

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