The Upper Pitt watershed, a glacier- carved valley northeast of Vancouver, is home to all five Pacific salmon species — a fish so important to Katzie culture and prosperity that they’re considered “family.”

As this Indigenous-led, WWF-supported habitat restoration effort in unceded Katzie territory approaches the mid- point of its 10-year workplan, we’re addressing threats from past and present to ensure a future for this keystone species, which sustains the community, wildlife and even fertilizes the forest itself.

A project to restore Blue Creek, a chinook spawning ground that was blocked by a landslide after a forestry culvert collapsed, began in 2019 as a partnership between Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance, DFO and others. But the ambition for this region soon grew as the challenge of dramatically declining Pacific salmon populations became apparent.

Summer 2022 saw the completion of the 700-metre Sθqəy Channel, doubling available habitat by adding 8,270 square metres lined by 290 new native hardwood trees and 3,600 shrubs to stabilize banks and reduce rising water temperatures. Through September, approximately 1,700 sockeye were observed in this new spawning habitat. (Ongoing monitoring of year-over-year usage will determine if the channel is supporting increased numbers of salmon.)

After several years of environmental surveys, spring 2023 saw work begin on Red Slough. The intertidal waterway was cut off from the Pitt River by forest service roads back in the 1930s, reducing flow so much that the iron ore that gave the slough its colourful name also deoxygenated the water, killing salmon that found their way in.

The Lower Red Slough reconnection involved a series of sediment-capturing pools and a new intake pipe to reintroduce historic freshwater flows. Soon, water will move downstream even during high tide, keeping dissolved oxygen levels high enough for the waterway to act as habitat.

Work also continued apace at Boise Channel, an ongoing project delayed to protect a nearby den of wolf pups. With controllable flow piped over from nearby Boise Creek, the new gravel-bottomed channel was expected to be full of spawning salmon by summer’s end.

This work is made possible through contributions by the H. John McDonald Foundation, Indigenous Watersheds Initiative (delivered by MakeWay and Watersheds BC, with financial support from the Province of British Columbia), Real Estate Foundation of BC, Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation, W.C. Kitchen Foundation and an anonymous donor.

When chinook salmon fight their way into the K’ómoks Estuary near Courtenay, B.C. and up the Courtenay River and Puntledge headwaters to spawn, they’re helped by a confluence of factors: cool, oxygen-rich fresh water that allows them to conserve energy; healthy aquatic habitats with lots of bugs and crustaceans to eat; and sheltered nooks that protect their eggs.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. But for 50 years, a sawmill operated at the juncture of the river and the sea, and its concrete pads quashed native vegetation while its corrugated metal wall narrowed the migration route. The mill closed in 2006, but surrounding habitats remain degraded, compromising the interconnected conditions on which the chinook rely.

It’s fitting, then, that the restoration of this chinook salmon habitat is also a team effort. A coalition of dedicated locals are working to restore the site, now known as Kus-kus-sum, by de- paving and regrading the property and repopulating it with native plants and trees. This is not only improving habitats — it also stores more carbon and protects against flooding.

A joint effort of the Comox Valley Project Watershed Society, City of Courtenay, and K’ómoks First Nation, on whose traditional territory Kus-kus- sum sits, this is just one of six projects supported by our Nature and Climate Grant Program (NCGP).

Funding local and Indigenous-led efforts to enhance habitats, sequester carbon and improve climate resilience since 2021, NCGP participants across Canada have restored more than 465 hectares of habitats, benefitting 57 local populations of species at risk.

The Nature and Climate Grant Program is presented in partnership with Aviva Canada.

The Windsor–Quebec City corridor is the most densely populated part of Canada — and one of the most degraded and fragmented landscapes due to human activities such as agriculture and urban development. It’s also a priority region where WWF- Canada and a network of collaborators are restoring green spaces and improving their connectivity.

On Montreal’s South Shore, we’re working with the cities of Brossard and Saint- Constant, Que., to restore 42 hectares of municipal lands with native plants while advancing the implementation of nature-friendly management practices. We’ve already seen positive impacts on local biodiversity — our pilot year reported almost twice the diversity of insect species in habitats that we’ve restored, with 101 different species on average compared to 60 in “non-restored” habitats. And we began developing partnerships with potential municipalities and conservation authorities in Ontario to expand the Quebec pilot program.

We also launched a maple forest biodiversity restoration and climate resilience collaboration with local foresters, conservationists and sugar bush owners in Quebec — including training, carbon monitoring and partnership development — to improve sugar bush management.

This work in Ontario has been made possible by the Echo Foundation.

Since nearly 200,000 hectares of Secwépemc territory near Kamloops, B.C. burned over three months in the 2017 Elephant Hill wildfire, followed by the Flat Lake and Sparks Lake fires in 2021, WWF-Canada has been supporting the Secwepemcúl’ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society (SRSS) in a multiyear reforestation partnership.

This past year, WWF-Canada has helped SRSS plant 450,000 trees and restore 250 hectares — and we’re just getting going. SRSS will scale up to a million trees a year by 2026 and 10 million in the ground annually by 2030. Thanks to the help of our partners and donors, WWF-Canada will continue to support SRSS’ work to restore more than 1,000 hectares of land and sequester 13,500 tonnes of carbon by 2026.

Following Canada’s worst wildfire season on record in 2023, restoring Canada’s forest ecosystems is now more important than ever. SRSS’s efforts offer a blueprint for how to build more climate-resilient forests by using Indigenous knowledge to select the right mixture of tree species while protecting traditional medicines, food sources and wildlife habitats.

This work is supported by Lowe’s, Natural Resources Canada, the Peter Gilgan Foundation and the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Canada shouldn’t call an area “protected” if ships are allowed to dump harmful waste within it. That’s what 23,000 of you told the federal government last year after WWF-Canada released our groundbreaking National Vessel Dumping Assessment — and the government heard you.

In February 2023, a new MPA Protection Standard was unveiled, fulfilling a promise to prohibit oil and gas activities, bottom trawling and mining in all MPAs established after April 25, 2019. It also included a comprehensive definition of dumping and enhanced restrictions on dumping greywater, scrubber washwater, sewage, food waste and oily bilge water in new and existing marine protected areas. This is an excellent step towards ensuring protected areas live up to their name and is a direct result of your advocacy.

The proposed restrictions on vessel discharges in MPAs will be mandatory in Canada’s Territorial Sea (0–12 nautical miles) and voluntary in the Exclusive Economic Zone (12–200 nautical miles) in accordance with Canada’s authority to regulate international shipping. WWF-Canada will continue working with government and industry to ensure all protected ocean areas have the same high standards of protection.

This work is made possible by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through its commitment to sustainable shipping.

After more than a decade of leadership from federal, provincial and First Nation governments — plus input from coastal communities and marine stakeholders like WWF-Canada — an action plan for a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Great Bear Sea was adopted in February 2023. Doubling MPA coverage in this 100,000-square-kilometre region to 30 per cent, it will guide the creation of what will become the world’s largest Indigenous-led and collaboratively developed MPA network.

While this is a big step forward, there remains much work to be done between now and 2025 to designate and establish these MPAs and make the plan a reality. WWF-Canada will continue engaging in the implementation process.

Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals under development in Kitimat, B.C. are expected to dramatically increase shipping traffic and our models indicate that whale-vessel encounters will increase 30 times for ships more than 180 metres in length by 2030.

According to a peer-reviewed study in Endangered Species Research by WWF- Canada, North Coast Cetacean Society, University of St. Andrews, Fisheries & Oceans Canada and other collaborators, this could result in ship-strike deaths of up to 18 humpbacks (a 390 per cent increase) and two fin whales (a 230 per cent increase) annually. The study’s projections highlight the critical need for mitigation measures such as speed reduction and seasonal restrictions to reduce ship strikes and prevent unsustainable losses.

The 1,100-person Nunavut hamlet of Taloyoak has been working for decades to protect Aviqtuuq, the Arctic lands and waters they share with caribou, polar bear, muskoxen, Arctic char, narwhal and beluga — and progress on establishing a nearly 90,000-square kilometre Aviqtuuq Inuit Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) sped up this year.

Thanks in large part to advocacy by Jimmy Ullikatalik and the Taloyoak Umaruliririgut Association (TUA), with WWF support, the final draft of the Nunavut Land Use Plan prohibits industrial resource exploration and development in Aviqtuuq’s terrestrial area.

WWF-Canada also helped secure $3.53 million in federal funding to expand TUA’s pre-existing terrestrial Guardians program with marine Guardians. Announced in Iqaluit by Ullikatalik and then-Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray, it provides employment via Inuit-led ecological monitoring and will identify sustainable economic opportunities for the IPCA’s future management plan. WWF-Canada also helped TUA secure Environment and Climate Change Canada funding for Inuit-led biodiversity monitoring and management (caribou, migratory birds, polar bears and wolverines) in southern Aviqtuuq via the Community-Nominated Priority Places program.

Ullikatalik also joined WWF to advocate for Aviqtuuq at the December 2022 COP15 global biodiversity summit in Montreal and the February 2023 Fifth International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC5) in Vancouver, where he spoke on panels, conducted interviews and met with cabinet ministers at WWF events.

Over the past year, WWF-Canada staff travelled to Taloyoak to discuss next steps for Aviqtuuq and were joined by our contractors from the Smart Prosperity Institute to interview board members, Guardians and community leaders for a conservation economy case study.

Our team also joined Ullikatalik and his TUA colleague Lena Neeveacheak on successful knowledge-sharing visits to the northwestern Kitikmeot communities of Gjoa Haven and Kugaaruk to promote regional collaborations and discuss local conservation priorities. Attending members of the respective Hunters & Trappers Associations expressed interest in pursuing similar projects as Aviqtuuq to manage land use and protect country food species.

WWF-Canada will continue working with Taloyoak and other interested communities across Nunavut to support and help secure resources for their local conservation priorities.

This work is also made possible through contributions by Alan and Patricia Koval Foundation, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, the Elpis Foundation, Department of Canadian Heritage, Indigenous Languages Branch, the Oceans Collaborative (an initiative of Environment Funders Canada), MakeWay, Polar Knowledge, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and one anonymous donor.

When advocacy and negotiations fail, we may turn to the courts to ensure the protection of nature. Lawsuits have been an effective tool, especially when it comes to offshore oil and gas exploration. This past year we reached a resolution on one such lawsuit and continued an ongoing appeal to protect sensitive marine areas.

On the west coast, Ecojustice lawyers, acting on behalf of WWF-Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation, challenged technically expired (but legally active) oil and gas exploration permits in and around the Scott Island Marine National Wildlife Area and the Hecate Strait/Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area. In early 2023, we dropped the lawsuit after ExxonMobil and Chevron relinquished the 20 permits in question.

Over on the East Coast, we again worked with Ecojustice as well as Sierra Club Canada Foundation and Ecology Action Centre to appeal a court decision that upheld a regulation exempting future exploratory drilling projects off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador from necessary federal impact assessments. We believe this decision will prevent the adequate consideration of the many risks of drilling to offshore habitats and the species that use them. We await a decision on this appeal.

This work is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Following years of consultations, submissions, drafts and reviews, the Nunavut Land Use Plan (NLUP) determining how the territory’s 3.3 million square kilometres of lands and waters can be used finally entered the homestretch. NLUP’s goal is to balance potential benefits of industrial development with the risks that mining, oil and gas, and shipping could have on Arctic wildlife and areas Inuit rely on for food security, cultural continuity and economic prosperity.

WWF-Canada has been actively engaged in this process for more than a decade — providing scientific and Inuit-led analysis and data sets from research supported by our Arctic Species Conservation Fund; facilitating community involvement in NLUP consultations, upon request, with technical assistance and funding to support and amplify local concerns; and submitting our own community- informed recommendations and comments for consideration.

In fact, we’ve been the only environmental NGO at the table during this lengthy development process, headed by Lead Arctic Specialist, Paul Okalik, who also helped negotiate the NLUP requirement into the 1999 Nunavut Agreement.

In this final draft, all caribou calving grounds remain “Limited Use” areas prohibiting exploration and development. It also includes additional calving grounds in the Qikiqtani region (thanks to a joint submission from Qikiqtani Inuit Association and the Qikiqtaaluk Wildlife Board that was financially supported by WWF- Canada) and year-round protections for freshwater crossings (which WWF- Canada assisted local communities to identify and map) and key access corridors, as well as seasonal restrictions on ice breaking specific to each location.

We also supported year-round protections for terrestrial walrus haul- outs and stronger seasonal protections for polar bear denning area, both mapped in part from WWF-submitted data. And we amplified territory-wide concerns over protection of community- identified lakes, rivers and coastal areas to ensure clean water and healthy fish, recommending these areas be off-limits to industrial development. This guarantees the constitutionally protected right of Inuit to fish for food and allows local fisheries to create sustainable alternative economic opportunities.

This work is made possible by The Elpis Foundation, Alan and Patricia Koval Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Measuring and monitoring the amount of carbon stored in nature can be costly and time consuming, making it a challenge to evaluate how effective our conservation efforts are at mitigating climate change. We needed a cheaper, faster and more user-friendly approach to get proper before-and-after comparisons of restored and stewarded landscapes. Enter WWF-Canada’s Nature x Carbon Tech Challenge.

This year, we awarded $100,000 contracts to three award recipients whose new technologies will help identify which conservation approaches have the best outcomes and validate return on investment in the fight against climate change.

“Volunteers and local communities can struggle to raise funds and awareness for their conservation work,” says Sean Rudd, founder and CEO of award recipient Korutu Technology. “Our tech helps tell their story and get the support they need for their important work.

”Innovatree Carbon Group Ltd. was awarded a contract to work directly with Indigenous groups, including the Secwepemcúl’ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society (SRSS), while the Digital Forest Lab at Laval University will work with community partners in Quebec.

“Understanding the impact that the recent wildfires have had on the forestecosystem in the interior of B.C. is critically important to successful restoration and future ecological adaptation to climate change,” says SRSS CEO Angela Kane. “Our forest carbon monitoring is building a justification for increased biodiversity across the landscape, particularly as it applies to culturally important trees and plants.

”WWF-Canada’s Nature x Carbon Tech Challenge is supported by founding partner RBC Tech for Nature and national technology sponsor Microsoft.