Environment committee  We don't really lease the land. We sign an agreement.

Environment committee  We sign an agreement. There's no fiscal exchange. We have about half a million acres that we own, and 5.5 million acres that we have under agreement.

Environment committee  Certainly. They are some of our core partners. We work with both those levels of government on a multitude of things.

Environment committee  We at Ducks Unlimited have talked to them about the national wildlife areas that exist where those critical pieces you could pick up are complementary. We've been working closely with their staff on some key properties that are coming onto the market, have come off the market, or are coming back on.

Environment committee  I think there are also opportunities to be creative and to think about what we are actually trying to accomplish as an end game. Are there many different tools that we can bring to bear that'll provide some level of protection, recognizing that the longevity of some of those protections might not be as long as we'd like but they provide steps along the road to ultimately attaining conservation on the landscape?

Environment committee  It is extending what we are doing and then adding in some of the other activities that we could do to help with recovery strategies for species at risk, for example. Many of those strategies are pretty new. It's adding value within the national wildlife area system.

Environment committee  Right, and doing them differently so we can accommodate some of these other benefits that we're trying to accrue on the lands.

Environment committee  The action is really about maintaining the ecological integrity that exists within the national wildlife area. Are there pieces of infrastructure, like dikes and water-control structures, that need to be rebuilt? Are there grasslands that need to be managed to enhance and maintain their biodiversity?

Environment committee  Madam Chair and members of the committee, Ducks Unlimited Canada has been working to restore wetlands on 19 of the 54 national wildlife areas in Canada. This partnership extends back to the beginning of the national wildlife area program where the federal government secured lands, and Ducks Unlimited invested in the restoration of the wetlands on the properties.

Environment committee  Now it's changed.

Environment committee  If you looked at that number, the bulk of that number is made up from conversions that happened as agriculture cleared the land. So much of that wetlands loss was a result of clearing the land and settling the land. It's probably safe to say that 80% of that is agriculturally based.

Environment committee  In terms of direct loss, it's that, plus ongoing agricultural activities on the landscape.

Environment committee  The primary loss is urban expansion and development and industrial expansion of our urban centres.

Environment committee  The rehabilitation restoration typically involves restoring the hydrology to the system. If the wetland was drained by a ditch or by some diversion of the water, restoring the hydrology to it.... If you create the capacity for the basin to hold water again, the systems come back.

Environment committee  The big factor in the Great Lakes is really the value of the land and the cost of the underlying access to the land. If you're able to do it on a piece of property where you're working with a landowner who wants to see the restoration happen and you don't accrue any land costs, the costs are relatively similar.