The biodiversity lens

DUC’s expertise and experience are standout strengths that help propel national biodiversity gains. Preserving and restoring wetlands and grasslands is foundational to biodiversity recovery — including the waterfowl and other wildlife species that we love to see thriving there.

The same adaptable and scalable approach to habitat conservation that has driven the success of the habitat joint ventures for four decades —since the inception of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan — underpins DUC’s value for biodiversity gain. Our work’s benefits to biodiversity occur through research and assessments, habitat conservation and restoration, and the sustainable management of a legacy portfolio of conservation lands.

In addition, our environmental education programs are helping to secure the future by guiding youthful enthusiasm into conservation careers.

Our commitment to preserving this natural heritage — and restoring nature’s former glory where it has been dimmed — is increasingly aligned with public and private interests. Partnerships with national, provincial, Indigenous and local governments are critical to conservation and, more often now, business and industry partners also come to the table with pledges of sustainability.

Committed to environmental targets, these businesspeople can leverage social responsibility for biodiversity protection and restoration. Newer innovations in funding models, such as biodiversity credits and conservation impact bonds, continue to bring conservation goals closer to economic ones. Biodiversity credits, for example, allow private interests to meet their sustainability targets by funding environmental projects that create biodiversity gains — similar to carbon credits.

Thanks to our forward-thinking and receptive mindset, we’re discovering new and meaningful partnerships that will help us secure the means to ensure long-term sustainability for Canada — and for our work in wetland conservation. But working together is not just about funding; it’s about an ethos of shared responsibility for the land.

In the broad vista of conservation, we see a promising future of unprecedented community involvement and investment in nature. We won’t be left behind.

The conservation actions required to support biodiversity have been core to DUC’s work for decades. Learn more: ducks.ca/biodiversity.

Tools for life

Many of DUC’s projects do more than protect life; they breathe new life into Canada’s rich landscapes.

Easing ecosystem pressures

Voluntary legal tools help us shield at-risk ecosystems, from smaller, interspersed habitats up to the historic conservation easement that protects 55,000 acres (22,000 hectares) of habitat at McIntyre Ranch in Alberta. The McIntyre Ranch conservation easement was funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program, a unique partnership that supports the creation and recognition of protected and conserved areas through the acquisition of private land and private interest in land.

Perennial partnerships

Financial partners can extend our reach, like Farm Credit Canada’s Sustainability Incentive Program that helps farmers in DUC’s Marginal Areas Program turn unproductive cropland into pollinator-friendly forage.

Restoration innovation

Pilot projects make space for innovation, like the Sturgeon Bank tidal marsh restoration in Richmond, B.C. (left), where new techniques to replenish marsh sediment show promise for biodiversity recovery.

Positive policies

Regulation can light the way to positive action and that’s why DUC was involved in developing the Government of Yukon’s wetland policy, a landmark guide to mitigate development impacts and conserve biodiversity.

Up for the count

DUC’s education team is cultivating tomorrow’s scientists with learning events like a competitive “bio-blitz”— a short-term biological survey of a given area — for students in DUC’s Wetland Centres of Excellence program.