Written by: Alison Ronson, Interim National Executive Director

For CPAWS, today is an exciting day. Why? Because today marks the beginning of the Nature Champions Summit, a gathering of philanthropists, business leaders, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies, Indigenous leaders, and environment ministers from around the world. Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change has promised that the Summit will “ramp up global action to protect nature” and that “by bringing global champions of nature together, we can find the innovative solutions that the world needs.”

And nature needs solutions: with species populations in drastic decline around the world and ecosystems rapidly changing in the face of global climate change, we need these global champions to step up with ambition – and, more importantly, commitments related to how they are going to work to protect nature.

Protecting nature is CPAWS’ nature. Our exclusive focus on protecting public land, oceans, and freshwater ecosystems is unique in Canada, and over the last 55 years we have played a key role in protecting over half a million square kilometers of land and sea – an area larger than the entire Yukon territory!

CPAWS was the first national organization in the world to adopt the goal to protect at least half of Canada’s public land and ocean, now a “Nature Needs Half” global movement! Scientific evidence is been growing that we need to be protecting between 30 and 70% of different ecosystems to sustain the survival of wildlife and people into the future. If we want fresh air, clean water, and safe environments to live in, this scale of conservation action is what nature champions need to be championing!

CPAWS is committed to ensuring that Canada lives up to our full conservation potential and will be making our own ambitious commitments at this Summit – so stay tuned! I will also be live blogging from the Nature Champions Summit to keep you updated about the ambitious steps the other Nature Champions will be taking to keep our planet and our country wild.

We are honoured and inspired to be at this Summit – we are #AllInForNature!