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Report Objectives
This report provides a detailed inventory and illustrates how Quebec municipalities perceive their role in protecting biodiversity.
It highlights the main obstacles and levers influencing the action of municipalities in terms of biodiversity. In addition, the report identifies key players likely to support or assist them in their biodiversity protection initiatives. It also presents recommendations from these stakeholders to encourage commitment to biodiversity .
This report was produced by Loriane des Alliers , as part of a research mandate with Ateliers pour la biodiversity, in collaboration with Mitacs and the University of Montreal.
CONTENTS
Introduction and presentation of the project
Highlights of the current situation
Context
Methodology
City actions
Main obstacles
Main levers
Supporting actors
Recommendations
Research Opportunities
Conclusion
References and appendices
HIGHLIGHTS
Nearly 90% of municipal stakeholders consider that their municipality should do more for biodiversity.
This proportion raises the project's initial questions: Why aren't these cities doing more? What could help them do more?
POPULATION AS FIRST PRIORITY
The municipalities surveyed center their decisions, general and environmental, around the population and their well-being. Among seven priorities to be ordered in order of importance, their first, by far, is the well-being of citizens. Biodiversity is therefore never the first issue considered by municipal decision-makers. Furthermore, when municipalities make a decision regarding the protection of biodiversity, the element they mainly take into account, after legal obligations, consists of its value for citizens. This includes, among other things, aesthetics, access to nature and access to green spaces. Thus, it is essential and beneficial to use all the existing links between the protection of biodiversity and the benefits to citizens to mobilize and encourage municipalities and other stakeholders to take action. Section 3 of the report provides more details on these elements.
A PERCEIVED RESTRICTED ROLE
Excluding land use planning, municipalities consider themselves primarily responsible for encouraging citizens to enrich the biodiversity on their land. Municipalities consider themselves less responsible for the actions taken by other actors (agricultural producers, forestry owners and producers, educational establishments, consumers, businesses and financial actors) than for the citizen population. There is enormous potential for municipalities to further mobilize all the stakeholders present on their territory in order to achieve municipal objectives, and thus contribute to Quebec targets, even if this is not part of their traditional role. Subsection 3.2 of the report presents the results leading to this conclusion.
KNOWLEDGE AS A LEVER FOR ACTION
The higher the respondents rated their level of knowledge, the more they consider biodiversity to be a priority and the more they believe their municipality should do more. This type of observation helps to justify the importance of continuing to train municipal decision-makers on issues related to biodiversity and the possible solutions to put in place. Detailed data can be found in subsection 2.3.
IMPORTANT LEVERS AND BRAKES FOR IMPLEMENTING ACTIONS
The five most harmful obstacles for municipalities and the five levers that drive action the most are presented in the following graph. They are detailed, respectively, in sections 4 and 5.
Comparing the brakes and levers, we notice that financing is the most important brake and lever and that some brakes and levers are closely linked to each other.
LEVERS TO PROMOTE THE TAKE OF ACTION
Upstream of projects, to convince municipalities to act for biodiversity, certain levers stand out: 1) the values of decision-makers, 2) international conventions or agreements as well as 3) other model cities.
PREFERRED SOLUTIONS AND OTHERS TO DISCOVER
The most frequently carried out and planned measures are the conservation of natural environments as well as the creation of plans, policies or strategies for biodiversity or other related environmental issues. It is therefore not surprising that the supporting actors mentioned most often are conservation organizations. Although conservation is an essential solution, particularly to achieve international and provincial targets of 30% protected areas by 2030, the remaining 70% of the territory must equally integrate and protect biodiversity. Depending on the responses obtained, a slight gap remains so that other types of measures occupy a greater place and a systemic vision of biodiversity protection is put in place. Subsection 3.3. addresses these elements.
SEVERAL ACTORS TO SUPPORT THE INITIATIVES
For these solutions to come to fruition as effectively as possible, many supporting actors must be involved and can combine their expertise with that of municipalities. In this research, the actors were divided into two groups: primary and secondary. While the former are involved in almost all projects, the latter vary, among other things, depending on the category of city, the region and the type of project carried out. Section 6 lists these actors.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations FROM WORKSHOPS for Biodiversity:
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Develop a shared vision of what success represents.
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Provide training on the diverse values of nature.
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Mobilize municipal stakeholders on all issues related to biodiversity.
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Inspire stakeholders with the benefits for citizens and concrete examples.
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Promote all efforts to protect biodiversity.
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Promote collaboration between municipalities from different realities.
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Standardize terms and documentation and simplify access to solutions.
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Account for natural assets in municipal financial statements.
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Continue to improve and share biodiversity data.
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Equip citizens to offer concrete solutions and support elected officials.
Supporting ORGANIZATIONS recommendations:
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Take advantage of regulatory taxation and charging powers.
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Use legal tools and regulatory powers.
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Implement natural solutions with multiple benefits.
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Create bridges between science and municipalities.
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Collaborate to help each other, inspire each other and connect territories.
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Work together with conservation organizations and biodiversity experts.
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Take advantage of available financing.
Discover more details on these recommendations from Workshops for Biodiversity and Quebec support actors in the full report.
THANKS
The research team would like to thank Mitacs and the University of Montreal for their contribution which made this internship and research project a reality.
We would also like to thank all the people who participated in the collection of information as well as all the actors who responded to the questionnaire and/or agreed to discuss and share their knowledge and their point of view on the subject.
Thank you also to the supporting actors who agreed to propose recommendations: Society for Nature and Parks (SNAP Quebec), Quebec Center for Environmental Law (CQDE), Nature Quebec, Habitat, Center for Applied Research on Biodiversity and ecosystems (CRABE), Environment Network, Quebec Ecological Corridors Initiative (IQCÉ), Association of Biologists of Quebec, Nature Conservancy of Canada (CNC), Nature-Action Quebec (NAQ).
Finally, thank you to the National Group of Regional Environmental Councils (RNCREQ), the watershed organizations (OBV), Réseau Environnement as well as all the other people who shared the project or the questionnaire in their network, contributing to the scope of the research.
We hope that the information gathered in this report will be useful to as many Quebec stakeholders as possible.
