Current Policy Priorities 2025

Prioritizing Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health in BC

BC faces a biodiversity crisis. The province relies on a patchwork of legislation that prioritizes resource extraction over ecological values, leading to piecemeal protection, ecological degradation, and uncertainty on the land base. We need a clear framework, and ultimately a law, to prioritize biodiversity and ecosystem health. This was recommended in the Old Growth Strategic Review, which government has long committed to implement in full. It is critical for the BC government to finalize this work and enshrine this prioritization into law to support thriving ecosystems and communities, now and into the future.

Watershed Security for BC

The past half decade in BC has seen record-breaking drought, wildfire, and floods due to a changing climate and the destruction of our watersheds. These crises are putting the safety, security and livelihoods of people across the province at risk. Urgent action is needed to strengthen the health of BC’s watersheds—the foundation of our natural wealth and our natural defences to the growing water crisis. BC needs to establish a system of local watershed boards that unite communities around shared priorities, and to invest in front-line watershed workers to restore the health of their home watersheds. This work should be funded by raising water rental rates for industrial users, as has been done in other jurisdictions.

Protecting 30% of BC by 2030

Natural ecosystems and protected areas are at the core of our identity, culture and form the backbone of a sustainable economy. In 2022, BC committed to protect 30% of lands and waters by 2030, in partnership with First Nations. Protecting natural ecosystems is a proven way to address rapid loss of wildlife and the worsening impacts of climate change. To achieve this goal, the province must launch transparent, well-funded processes that will result in new protected areas. BC must ensure that new protected areas safeguard Indigenous-led conservation areas, preserve intact watersheds that are largely undisturbed by industrial activity, safeguard natural habitats for wildlife connectivity, and increase ecosystem representation.

Holding Oil & Gas Accountable for their Climate Pollution

No sector threatens the province’s ability to reach our climate targets more than the oil and gas sector, especially LNG development. Government must ensure this sector does its fair share to reduce emissions by removing subsidies and other preferential treatment for LNG, reducing methane emissions to near-zero by 2030, and implementing the promised provincial oil and gas emissions cap. Strong action is also needed to reduce the spillover effects of this industry, such as better addressing toxic wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, and prioritizing BC’s clean electricity for climate solutions, not oil and gas.