ID: 1893
Presenting Author: Justina Ray
Session: 682 - From Theory to Practice: Nature Positive Landscapes in the Mining Sector
Status: pending
Canada’s critical minerals surge risks biodiversity and climate goals. This talk explores regional assessment and spatial tools to align efficiency, effectiveness, and Nature Positive development.
Canada’s ambition to position itself as a global supplier of critical minerals is driving a surge of exploration and mine development, backed by significant government investment. Framed as essential for economic resilience, but also for defense and the energy transition, this push is accompanied by mounting political pressure to accelerate the review and approval of individual projects, including, removing regulatory “barriers” and environmental oversight. Yet, project-level assessment and mitigation remain ill-suited to address the cumulative ecological and social effects of this rapid expansion -- particularly in northern and boreal regions where Indigenous Peoples form the majority population and that contain high-integrity ecosystems, intact faunal assemblages and extensive carbon-rich peatlands.
Drawing on policy developments and examples from across Canada, we will examine how current approaches to critical minerals project planning and development risks undermining its biodiversity and climate commitments and highlight tools and practices that can support a more strategic, Nature Positive path forward. These include the use of regional and strategic assessments and screening and spatial prioritization tools to identify limits, trade-offs, and development areas best suited to risk mitigation and maximized nature and climate outcomes. Embedding these tools in planning and permitting processes can make efficiency and effectiveness mutually reinforcing.
President and Senior Scientist of WCS Canada since 2004, Justina Ray leads research and policy advancing biodiversity conservation in northern boreal regions. She is also an Adjunct Professor at U of
Coauthor 1: Victoria Goodday