Introduction
Since 2011, the SCCA has provided all candidates engagement opportunities for Sunshine Coast voters to hear from candidates on environmental issues with written Q&A. This year we framed the Q&A in terms of how BC government ministries and mandates intersect with the environment. We hope the background information provided along with the questions helps inform both the candidates’ responses, and public awareness.
We posed four questions to candidates on the following topics:
➡️ BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship
➡️ BC Ministry of Forests
➡️ BC Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy
➡️ BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation
You can read all the questions with candidate responses from October 3rd on our main page for the 2024 Provincial Election.
Background
The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Physical Science Basis report unequivocally verified that human activity has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land and caused widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere which are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of species.
In 2021, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat released a Global Biodiversity Framework to guide actions to preserve and protect nature and its essential services to people, across the world.
The key target of the Framework is protection of at least 30% of land and sea areas on planet earth by 2030. Especially areas of importance for biodiversity.
In 2022, the governments of Canada and BC confirmed their commitment to protect 30 x 30. This commitment to double legislated protected areas in BC is a much celebrated, positive step for conservation and biodiversity.
Approximately 16% of the land base in BC is legally protected through designations such as Class A Park, Ecological Reserves and Conservancies.
On the Sunshine Coast, that number is less than 5%.
If we are to achieve the 30% goal on the Sunshine Coast in the next decade, let alone within the next five years, the provincial government must support local initiatives to remove public lands from the resource extraction and development land base, fund and support protection of biologically diverse areas and create new legally protected areas.
Question for Candidates
Is your political party committed to protecting at least 30% of lands and waters in BC by 2030? If elected, will you work to increase provincial conservation financing and support local governments, First Nations, NGO and community efforts to legally protect 30×30 on the Sunshine Coast?