Plan Nature 2030: $1B to protect 30 per cent of Quebec

The Quebec government announced details of its Plan Nature 2030, a $922 million roadmap that will enable Quebec to protect 30 per cent of its territory over the next few years.

Quebec currently protects around 17 per cent of its territory, and Environment Minister Benoit Charette invited the media to the Parc des Îles-de-Boucherville on Monday morning to present his strategy for achieving 30 per cent biodiversity protection.

Nearly $1 billion will be devoted to achieving this target over the next few years, a sum that had already been announced in various government communications since 2022.

Three priorities, 14 targets and 33 objectives

The plan comprises three main areas of action.

The roadmap indicates that $466.9 million will be devoted to nature conservation, $360 million to improving access to nature and $95.7 million to mobilizing citizens to protect our natural heritage.

These three axes are broken down into 14 targets and 33 objectives.

Each of the Nature Plan’s targets includes a multitude of actions that will be financed to achieve 30 per cent biodiversity protection, such as improving the network of protected areas or creating new national parks.

“Over the next few years, with the money available, we’re talking about the creation of three new parks and the expansion of five existing ones,” said Benoit Charette, referring to the possible creation of Parc Côte-de-Charlevoix, in La Malbaie, Parc des Dunes-de-Tadoussac, on the Côte-Nord, and Parc Nibiischii, in Northern Quebec.

Parc du Bic, Parc des Îles-de-Boucherville, Parc de Plaisance, Parc du Mont Orford and Parc du Mont-Saint-Bruno are also among those slated for expansion over the next few years.

According to the Nature Plan, the list of actions to be taken to achieve biodiversity protection objectives is very long. Here are just a few examples: reduce the use of pesticides in agriculture, draw up a portrait of threatened or vulnerable species in Quebec and protect their habitats, promote the conservation and sustainable use of private forests and support forest owners to this end, prevent the introduction of new invasive exotic species and new pathogenic organisms on the territory, support the development of tools facilitating the disclosure of the biodiversity impacts of businesses and investors.

The plan, a 72-page document, reiterates the urgent need to act on the threats causing global biodiversity loss.

The document cites various reports, including one from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which states that “75 per cent of the Earth’s surface is now significantly altered by human activity, 60 per cent of vertebrate populations have disappeared in the last 50 years, and one million species are threatened with extinction or will become so in the coming decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of the factors causing biodiversity decline”.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews