Environment committee  I agree with what Kate and Aran have said, and there are other mechanisms that can be brought in during that consultation process. For example, the CBFA did put aside some deferral areas for caribou while they were working on developing a caribou action plan. There are mechanisms to mitigate that delay when considering protected areas.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  I'll respond to that. The pan-boreal assessment includes quantitative measures for determining the amount of additional area that's required to be protected. That provides science-based numbers rather than the more policy-based numbers we have coming out of IT, for example. There hasn't been any particular alignment with any type of international agreement or suggestions for the amount of area to protect, other than the science-based numbers we're coming up with.

Environment committee  Thank you. The point I was getting to is that if we add ecological benchmarks, we now have en experiment. If the population declines in both the tenure and the ecological benchmarks, the decline is due to external influences such as climate change, rather than the forestry practices.

Environment committee  —protected areas with the ability to function as ecological benchmarks. Regions in the boreal, highlighted in dark green, are adequately benchmarked by existing protected areas. Regions in lighter green have protected area benchmarks, but they are not sufficient, and additional benchmarks are needed.

Environment committee  Okay. Thank you. I'll just wrap it up with this last slide, then. The following slide illustrates an example of the application of the pan-boreal assessment tools and concepts in the Saskatchewan River delta. The CBFA planning exercise involved direct engagement with the Saskatchewan government, including alignment with provincial protected area initiatives and conservation objectives, such as the protection of species at risk.

Environment committee  Thank you.

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Aran. The work I'm going to present to you today was led by the BEACONs project in collaboration with the CBFA. BEACONs is a collaborative research project with academics from the University of Alberta, Laval, Memorial, and Simon Fraser University. Many of the concepts and methods I will speak to were developed with the support of Environment Canada.

Environment committee  Yes, that's fine.