WCC 2016 Res 085 - Activity Report

Parks Canada team members helped to develop the Nature Playbook, an action guide to connect young people with nature led by the Canadian Parks Council. Parks Canada, UN Environment, and other #NatureForAll partners have collaborated to develop an international version of The Nature Playbook. The #NatureForAll Playbook is being shared globally to help individuals, communities, and organizations connect new audiences with nature.

Parks Canada is contributing the time of two staff and additional resources to help lead the development of #NatureForAll. Through the joint IUCN-WCPA and IUCN-CEC task force, they have helped to build a coalition of close to 200 partners who are advancing the #NatureForAll movement through activities such as sharing of success stories (35 to date), developing curriculum guides, videos and other resources in multiple languages.

Parks Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Federation and the Canadian Committee for IUCN convened a meeting of over 30 Canadian and international #NatureForAll partners to develop a strategy and action plan for implementation of the movement in Canada in April 2017.
Parks Canada also participated in international conferences of the Children & Nature Network, World Environmental Education Congress and the International Association of Experiential Education to raise awareness and build support for the movement.

THE FOLLOWING INPUT WAS PROVIDED BY CO-SPONSORS AND PARTNERS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MOTION -
The Canadian Museum of Nature’s senior experts serve on national and global forums that inform public policy, engage stakeholders and inspire citizens to connect with and respect nature. The Museum serves as the secretariat for Canada’s national committee for IUCN. The Museum serves the Global Biodiversity Information Facility as a vice chair. The Museum hosts two open houses for the general public at its research facility and its public engagement facility.
The Museum is a partner with Nature Conservancy of Canada in a cross Canada natureTALKS series bringing nature inspiration to citizens and stakeholders.

Parks Canada continues to develop and expand programs such as Learn to Camp, Campus Clubs, and Bioblitz that connect people with nature and contribute to the achievement of #NatureForAll. As part of its celebration for the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Parks Canada offered free access to its places for all visitors in 2017 and has announced continued free access for children under 18.

THE FOLLOWING INPUT WAS PROVIDED BY CO-SPONSORS AND PARTNERS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MOTION -
CANADIAN MUSEUM OF NATURE
The Canadian Museum of Nature is part of the growing coalition #NatureForAllCanada and promotes #NatureForAll whenever communicating about natureTALKS, nature programming and Museum collaborations. Centre for Nature Inspiration and Engagement hosted #natureSCENE as a mechanism to connect organizations studying and sharing knowledge about Nature Deficit Disorder.
Beaty Centre for Species Discovery has presented numerous natureTALKS across Canada to sharing knowledge and inspire connections with the species that are key to healthy ecosystems.
Centre for Arctic Knowledge and Exploration hosted a research symposium featuring the science of Arctic biodiversity and the ongoing need for collaboration research across Canada and around the world.

CONANP - Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT) through its National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP for its initials in Spanish)
CONANP, working along with UNDP and the GEF Project “Resilience”, developed a mobile phone application which main objectives are i) to raise awareness about the importance of protected areas as natural solutions to climate change; ii) to provide PAs’ users of relevant information about the PAs they visit (fauna, location, rules, activities to do, weather); iii) to make evident to users that the place they visit is a PA. This app will be available for Android and iOS systems at the beginning of 2018.

Under this same collaboration, the second season of “Beacons of Hope”, an audiovisual project to show the beauty and value of PAs, was developed. A total of 12 videos are available at the CONANP Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/conanp2). The objective of this second season is to raise awareness of protected areas’ importance to provide ecosystem services, to show the impact of climate change on PAs and how these areas are natural solutions to it.