Canada’s federal government, the province of British Columbia, and First Nations leaders have signed a landmark $1 billion agreement to protect biodiversity, restore ecosystems, and conserve land and water across one of the most ecologically rich regions on Earth. Called the Tripartite Framework Agreement on Nature Conservation, the deal is the first major nature agreement of its kind in Canada — and officials say it will serve as a national model for how governments and Indigenous nations can work together to halt the loss of nature.
At a glance
- BC nature conservation agreement: The $1 billion commitment splits evenly between the federal and provincial governments — $500 million each — and directs funding toward protecting old-growth forests, recovering species at risk, and restoring ecosystems throughout British Columbia.
- 30×30 biodiversity target: The agreement advances Canada’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of its lands and waters by 2030 C.E., a goal set under the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework — which nearly 200 nations signed in 2022 C.E.
- Indigenous stewardship: First Nations are recognized as original stewards and title holders throughout the agreement, with the B.C. Assembly of First Nations describing it as a jointly developed framework that centers Indigenous leadership in all decisions around conservation and land use.
Why this agreement stands apart
What makes this deal different from previous conservation commitments is its three-way structure. Rather than a bilateral agreement between two levels of government, the Tripartite Framework formally includes First Nations as co-architects — not just consultees.
Chief Terry Teegee of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations described the deal as a milestone in recognizing Indigenous peoples as the original stewards of the land. “We have reached a jointly developed framework with sustained funding to achieve our collective goals for biodiversity protection, restoration and stewardship,” he said in a statement at the announcement.
British Columbia is home to roughly 200,000 First Nations people and more than 200 distinct First Nations, many of whom have long asserted rights and title over lands that have also faced pressure from logging, mining, and industrial development. Centering their leadership in a conservation framework of this scale is a meaningful shift in how Canada approaches both environmental policy and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
What the money will actually do
The $1 billion doesn’t arrive as a single new pot of cash. Much of it consolidates and formalizes funding from previously announced programs — including B.C.’s $100 million watershed security fund, a $200 million land restoration fund, and a federal $50 million old-growth protection fund announced in Canada’s 2021 C.E. budget.
Together, these resources are now directed under a unified framework toward three core goals: protecting old-growth forests that shelter at-risk species, recovering biodiversity that has been declining across the province, and restoring degraded ecosystems.
Currently, about 15 per cent of British Columbia’s land is protected from industrial activity. The agreement is designed to more than double that figure over the next several years — a significant lift that will require moving quickly on designating new protected areas and working with First Nations whose territories overlap with priority conservation zones.
The conservation wins already embedded in BC’s landscape
British Columbia is one of the most biologically diverse places in Canada. Its old-growth forests — among the oldest and largest trees on the continent — are home to species found nowhere else, including the endangered spotted owl. These forests also store vast amounts of carbon, making their protection directly relevant to Canada’s broader climate commitments.
The watershed security fund embedded in the agreement will support the rivers and salmon-bearing streams that Indigenous communities have depended on for millennia — and that are increasingly threatened by warming temperatures and habitat degradation.
The deal also opens funding pathways for communities and nations that have historically depended on forestry for economic survival, allowing for the development of alternative economic opportunities that don’t require extracting the very ecosystems being protected.
What remains unresolved
The agreement is non-binding, and conservation groups have been direct about what that means in practice. Organizations including Ecojustice and the Wilderness Committee welcomed the framework while warning that without immediate, concrete protections — including legislation that explicitly prohibits industrial logging in newly designated areas — old-growth forests will continue to fall while governments implement the plan.
In the nearly three years between when the nature agreement was first announced (in 2021 C.E.) and when it was finally signed, old-growth logging in the province continued at largely unchanged rates. The spotted owl’s habitat kept shrinking. British Columbia still lacks standalone species-at-risk legislation, meaning many endangered species have no dedicated legal protection even after this deal is in place.
B.C.’s Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship acknowledged that some “modified activities” — including resource extraction — could still occur within conservation areas where First Nations hold economic rights to the land. How that balance is struck, and by whom, will determine much of the agreement’s real-world impact.
The framework’s architects have called it a model for what’s possible. Whether it becomes that depends on what happens next — not in the language of the agreement, but in the forests themselves, and in the speed with which new protected areas are formally established under Canada’s nature legacy commitments.
Read more
For more on this story, see: CBC News
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Indigenous land rights and 160 million hectares protected at COP30
- Alzheimer’s risk cut in half by drug in landmark prevention trial
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Canada
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