Wood Buffalo is an illustration of what is unfolding the world over \u2013 where protected areas are allowing species to recover and ecosystems to hold, while facing mounting pressures that no fence or park boundary can withstand. In 2023<\/a>, during Canada\u2019s most destructive wildfire season on record, several fires tore through an area of the park almost twice the size of PEI. A single blaze among them released roughly as much carbon dioxide as Argentina emits in a year, according to UNESCO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bison bison athabascae, larger than their prairie cousins, are the biggest land animals in Canada. An adult wood bison can weigh up to 1,000 kilograms, as much as a small car.<\/p>\n Paul Colangelo\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n Wood Buffalo National Park contains a large part of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, the largest inland freshwater delta in North America. It is also a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance.<\/p>\n Paul Colangelo\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n These wetlands in the park are a nesting ground for whooping cranes, whose breeding pairs are carefully managed to help the species avoid extinction.<\/p>\n Paul Colangelo\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n Smoky skies and burnt trees are a seasonal hazard in the park. But because of climate change, wildfires across Canada have been starting earlier and burning more intensely.<\/p>\n Paul Colangelo\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n The world\u2019s protected areas are working, but only just. Two major studies \u2013 a first-of-its-kind UNESCO assessment, People and Nature in UNESCO Sites: Global and Local Contributions<\/a>, released for Earth Day, and a peer-reviewed study released in early April in Frontiers in Science<\/a> \u2013 warn that nature is not a resource to exploit or a luxury to preserve but the system on which everything else depends \u2013 our economy, our culture, ourselves.<\/p>\n Drawing on satellite data, geospatial analysis and peer-reviewed research to examine all the agency\u2019s designated sites, the UNESCO report<\/a> offers encouraging findings and a stark warning. The network of 2,260-plus World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves and Global Geoparks covers more than 13 million square km, a geographical footprint larger than Canada by an area roughly the size of Ontario and Quebec combined. While global wildlife populations have declined by 73 per cent since 1970, populations within UNESCO-designated sites have remained comparatively stable.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the intensifying environmental pressures worldwide, UNESCO-designated sites have been remarkably resilient,\u201d says Tal\u00e8s Carvalho Resende, a natural heritage specialist at UNESCO\u2019s World Heritage Centre in Paris and one of the report\u2019s lead authors. <\/p>\n The sites are not wild preserves set apart from human life. More than 900 million people, roughly 10 per cent of the global population, live in and around the network\u2019s sites. \u201cThis really conveys a very strong message: Nature and people can thrive together,\u201d says Dr. Carvalho Resende.<\/p>\n The network stores an estimated 240 gigatons of carbon in soils and sediments \u2013 the equivalent of nearly two decades of today\u2019s global carbon dioxide emissions. Yet nearly 90 per cent of sites face high levels of environmental stress, with 98 per cent having experienced at least one extreme climate event since 2000. Climate-related hazards have intensified by 40 per cent in the past decade, and more than one in four sites could reach critical tipping points by 2050.<\/p>\n The Frontiers in Science study<\/a>, published in early April by Canadian conservationist Harvey Locke, vice-chair for nature positive at the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas<\/a>, and co-authors including Dr. Little Bear, argues that the global response to nature loss has been held back by a fundamental misconception.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world runs without people,\u201d says Dr. Locke. \u201cPeople don\u2019t run without the world. The economy is there to serve people \u2013 it has no other purpose. And we are getting to the point where the very conditions that have made us able to flourish as a species are being degraded by our own behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n The paper calls for what it terms a \u201cnature positive\u201d approach \u2013 halting and reversing the loss of nature by 2030, treating biodiversity with the same urgency as climate change. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re digging a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. Then you start filling it in,\u201d says Dr. Locke.<\/p>\n Canada is trying to do both. On March 31, Canada committed $3.8-billion to A Force of Nature<\/a>, its nature strategy, mapping a path to protecting 30 per cent of the country\u2019s lands and waters by 2030 \u2013 a target stemming from the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework<\/a>. <\/p>\n To achieve 30×30, Canada must protect an additional 1.6 million square km of land and freshwater and 815,000 square km of ocean.<\/p>\n \t\t Closing Canada\u2019s 30×30 gap<\/p>\n To protect 30% of land and waters by 2030, Canada must safeguard an additional 1,597,547 km\u00b2 of lands and freshwater and 815,723 km2 of ocean<\/p>\n New federal projects\/ <\/p>\n marine conservation <\/p>\n areas<\/p>\n the globe and mail, Source: GOVERNMENT <\/p>\n OF CANADA<\/p>\n \t\t Closing Canada\u2019s 30×30 gap<\/p>\n To protect 30% of land and waters by 2030, Canada <\/p>\n must safeguard an additional 1,597,547 km\u00b2 of lands and freshwater and 815,723 km2 of ocean.<\/p>\n New federal projects\/ <\/p>\n marine conservation <\/p>\n areas<\/p>\n the globe and mail, Source: GOVERNMENT <\/p>\n OF CANADA<\/p>\n \t\t Closing Canada\u2019s 30×30 gap<\/p>\n To protect 30% of land and waters by 2030, Canada must safeguard <\/p>\n an additional 1,597,547 km\u00b2 of lands and freshwater and 815,723 km2 of ocean.<\/p>\n New federal projects\/ <\/p>\n marine conservation <\/p>\n areas<\/p>\n the globe and mail, Source: GOVERNMENT OF CANADA<\/p>\n Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, reached in Berlin ahead of this month\u2019s G7 Environment Ministers\u2019 Meeting, says she is optimistic about closing that gap.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are very big issues: How do we protect the environment? How do we fight climate change? Being able to do the work \u2013 that\u2019s a file of hope,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n For Ms. Dabrusin, those questions are grounded in the natural spaces where she has made memories with her family \u2013 from the carpets of starfish that emerge when the tide washes out in Tofino, B.C., to the deep-coloured sunsets along the north shore of Lake Superior in Ontario, to the rocky limestone monoliths of the Mingan Archipelago on Quebec\u2019s Gulf of St. Lawrence. But even in her home riding of Toronto\u2013Danforth, she says, nature has a way of finding you. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I just get to walk by somewhere and I get to see a bunny, or I get to see colourful birds down at Tommy Thompson Park, those are places too,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park is a popular nesting spot for birds within the riding of Julie Dabrusin, the federal Environment Minister.Sami Siva\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n Part of doing big things, she says, is getting Canadians out to experience what\u2019s at stake. This summer, the Canada Strong Pass<\/a> offers free access to national parks, national historic sites and marine conservation areas from June 19 to Sept. 7 \u2013 renewed as part of the nature strategy. Last year, the pass helped drive a 13-per-cent increase in visits to Parks Canada sites.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you asked every single Canadian, they would be able to name one special place \u2013 big or small, a tree that\u2019s special to them, a waterway,\u201d she says. \u201cBeing out and exploring nature gives people an opportunity to build those connections.\u201d And those connections, she says, define Canada. \u201cIf you were going to describe Canada to someone, you would describe our Rocky Mountains, or our oceans, or our prairies, or maybe our Arctic spaces. It would be nature that we would use to describe our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Kluane National Park in the Yukon, Perc\u00e9 Rock in Quebec and Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland are among the Canadian sites with some form of UNESCO status.<\/p>\n Todd Korol\/The Globe and Mail; Jacques Boissinot; Colin Perkel\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n Canada has 46 UNESCO-designated sites \u2013 22 World Heritage Sites<\/a>, 19 Biosphere Reserves<\/a> and five Global Geoparks<\/a> \u2013 covering approximately 350,000 square km, roughly 3.5 per cent of the country\u2019s total area. <\/p>\n The four most-recent<\/a> World Heritage additions \u2013 Pimachiowin Aki, Writing-on-Stone\/\u00c1\u00eds\u00ednai\u2019pi, Tr\u2019ond\u00ebk-Klondike, and Anticosti \u2013 each defined by Indigenous stewardship or ecological rarity, reflect how Canada\u2019s approach to designation has evolved. <\/p>\n Ten more sites are on the tentative list<\/a> awaiting nomination, among them Wanuskewin in Saskatchewan and Sirmilik National Park and Tallurutiup Imanga in Nunavut, where Inuit-led conservation is already under way.<\/p>\n The latest studies, along with Canada\u2019s nature strategy<\/a>, are unequivocal that protecting nature requires Indigenous leadership. The Frontiers in Science paper goes the furthest, arguing that Indigenous knowledge systems are not supplementary to conservation science but foundational to it.<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n UNESCO has pressed Canada for years to make sure Wood Buffalo is protected from the downstream consequences of oil and hydro projects.Johane Janelle<\/p>\n The strategy also commits $90-million over five years to a Wood Buffalo World Heritage Site Action Plan<\/a> \u2013 Canada\u2019s formal response<\/a> to years of pressure from UNESCO, over threats from upstream oilsands development, hydroelectric projects on the Peace River and the need to strengthen co-management with Indigenous rightsholders. <\/p>\n In its latest decision<\/a> in 2025, the World Heritage Committee reiterated its concerns while noting Canada\u2019s continued efforts and underlined the need for further progress. The park is not currently on UNESCO\u2019s List of World Heritage in Danger, and Canada has invited a third Reactive Monitoring Mission in August, 2026, to review progress on the plan\u2019s 138 actions \u2013 which include strengthening Indigenous partnerships, advancing conservation connectivity, monitoring the health of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, and protecting wildlife and habitat.<\/p>\n \u201cIt represents a comprehensive, collaborative approach, with steady progress made to date,\u201d says Janna Jaque, the plan\u2019s action manager at Parks Canada.<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n The bison in Wood Buffalo are a ‘keystone species’ not just for the environment, but for local Indigenous culture, researcher Leroy Little Bear says.Leah Hennel\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n For Dr. Little Bear, the park\u2019s fate is inseparable from the broader nature positive argument, that the relationship between people and nature is fundamental. Rematriation \u2013 a word coined by the late Indigenous scholar Lee Maracle<\/a> \u2013 captures what the International Buffalo Relations Institute<\/a>, which Dr. Little Bear co-founded, is working toward: the return of bison to their historical range and the restoration of the relationship, including the knowledge, spirituality and ways of living that developed alongside the animal over millennia.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to align ourselves, thinking-wise, knowledge-wise, with that buffalo,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause of his long experience \u2013 20 million years of memory \u2013 I can learn from the buffalo.\u201d<\/p>\n The UNESCO assessment offers reason for cautious optimism. The global network of protected sites has grown continuously since 1976, and inside its boundaries, nature is holding on. <\/p>\n \u201cWorld Heritage sites show us that when we focus, we accomplish. When we invest, we achieve outcomes. We can live in a nature positive world, if we want to,\u201d says Dr. Locke. <\/p>\n When we find ourselves in nature, we find ourselves, says Dr. Little Bear. \u201cThe buffalo never followed us around. We followed the buffalo. It\u2019s on its migratory paths, its seasonal changes. It brought us to all the right places. Learning from other species, other sentient beings \u2013 we can learn a whole lot about how we can fit in.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. <\/p>\n Where there are bison in the Peace-Athabasca Delta, there are wolves to prey on their weakest members. This, too, is part of the balance the park is built to protect. Experts like Dr. Little Bear believe the animals have much to teach us: \u2018We have to align ourselves, thinking-wise, knowledge-wise, with that buffalo.\u2019<\/p>\n Paul Colangelo\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n In our nature: More from The Globe and MailThe Decibel podcast<\/p>\n The Arctic is getting warmer, fast.<\/a> That\u2019s a geopolitical challenge for Canada, and a potential threat to Inuit communities<\/a> that risk becoming more remote and harder to feed. Journalist Jenn Thornhill Verma took The Decibel to Nunatsiavut,<\/a> in northeastern Labrador, to see how elders are adapting. Subscribe for more episodes.<\/a><\/p>\n Commentary<\/p>\n Stewart Elgie: Mark Carney gets it right with bold new nature strategy<\/a><\/p>\n Margaret Munro: Vancouver must go wild \u2013 for the good of us all<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/CD5EA5BV4ZETXGGYEWYFIIHMCM.jpg\")
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