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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Policy and Governance
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1434731
This article is part of the Research Topic UN International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples: Indigenous Peoples and Climate Resilience View all 7 articles

Biodiversity Conservation Policy Reform and Reconciliation in Canada: An analysis of the Pathway to Canada Target 1 through the policy cycle model

Provisionally accepted
N. Emmanuel Tamufor N. Emmanuel Tamufor 1,2*Robin Roth Robin Roth 1David B. MacDonald David B. MacDonald 3
  • 1 Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada
  • 2 Guelph Institute of Development Studies, Guelph, Canada
  • 3 Department of Political Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In this article, we conduct an analysis of the Pathway to Canada Target 1 biodiversity conservation policy process to determine its level of inclusivity towards Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems. Also known simply as the Pathway, the policy focuses on Target 1 of Canada's efforts to meet Aichi Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity by 2020.The study aims to showcase the importance and meaningfulness of Indigenous involvement in the policy process.Simply including Indigenous actors does not automatically mean that their knowledge contributions to the policy were considered. Knowing why, when, and how Indigenous Peoples were engaged in the policy process helps us to see the role their presence and contributions played in co-producing policy knowledge for informing the Pathway to Canada Target 1 policy process. This is fundamental in reconciliation and in the improvement of conservation policies. After a review of the history and structure of the Pathway, paying attention to the importance of building relationship with Indigenous Peoples early in the policy process, we use the policy cycle model, outlining five stages of the policy process, to enable our analysis. While we have chosen the policy cycle model as a general framework for analyzing the stages of the policy process, it is a Western model, which falls short in its ability to reflect Indigenous worldviews adequately. Its use reveals, however, the degree of Indigenous engagement in each of the stages, demonstrating that the Pathway to Canada Target 1 did engage Indigenous Peoples at certain stages, in ways potentially reflective of what the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) Calls to Action demand. We conclude with recommendations for more collaborative governance in policymaking that would be more attentive to including Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems at all stages of the policy cycle.

    Keywords: biodiversity conservation policy, Policy process, Policy cycle, Indigenous Peoples and knowledge systems, Pathway to Canada Target 1, Reconciliation

    Received: 18 May 2024; Accepted: 05 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Tamufor, Roth and MacDonald. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: N. Emmanuel Tamufor, Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.