Canada has one of the oldest and most extensive parks systems in the world. CPAWS advocates for new parks and acts as a watchdog to ensure that existing ones are effectively managed. With pressures on Canada’s wilderness growing, creating more parks and ensuring existing ones are well-funded and protected is more important than ever.

While Canada boasts one of the largest ocean estates in the world, only 13.8% of it is protected through meaningful long-term conservation measures. The federal government has committed to establishing networks of marine protected areas covering at least 25% of Canada’s ocean by 2025, and 30% by 2030. Progress on creating new marine protected areas needs to be made more quickly to meet that commitment.

We focus on protecting large tracts of land, freshwater, and ocean so species like the grizzly bear, woodland caribou, and wolverine have room to roam and whales and fish can thrive.

CPAWS works with companies, Indigenous Peoples, and governments across Canada to create new protected areas that act as safe havens for species to flourish. We help encourage better land use solutions and industrial practices to increase connectivity between protected areas and decrease habitat fragmentation.

Canada’s land and ocean are part of the climate change solution. By protecting our ecosystems from industrial exploitation, we prevent the carbon they store from being emitted. We are also giving those ecosystems, and all species that depend on them, a better chance to withstand and adapt to climate change.