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Conservationists ask: Will Ontarians spend $7 a year to save 88 species?
THE NARWHAL
By Jennifer Cole | News | Climate Solutions
March 20, 2026
Emily Giles spends a lot of time thinking about the Blanding’s turtle, a freshwater reptile that spends its days in the wetlands of the Lake Simcoe-Rideau ecoregion of southern Ontario. As senior manager for science, knowledge and innovation for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada, it’s not just the turtles on her mind: it’s how the region is under increasing pressure from a growing population.
“I don’t think development has to come at the cost of conservation, nor should it,” Giles says.
Yet it has. Stretching from Lake Huron in the west to the Ottawa River in the east, the ecoregion is one of Canada’s most densely populated www.ontario.ca/page/ecosystems-ontario-part-1-ecozones-and-ecoregions and includes cities such as Barrie, Peterborough, Ottawa and Kingston. Here, intense industrial and urban development has polluted waterways, increased greenhouse gas emissions and threatened habitat for at-risk species.
A report t.co/VReMgohts3 released last fall by WWF Canada and the University of British Columbia (UBC) warned that without immediate and targeted conservation action, 130 of the 133 species currently at risk in the ecoregion could be locally extinct t.co/WkjfyOcbar by 2050.
Giles, along with conservationists from UBC’s Martin Conservation Decisions Lab www.taramartin.org/, used a decision-making tool known as Priority Threat Management (PTM) to map out a solution that could prevent almost all the extinctions.
Based on Ontario’s current population www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2018005-eng.htm of about 16 million people, if every Ontario resident contributed $7 annually, at least 75 per cent of the species currently under threat in the ecoregion could recover.
Saving species at risk
Among the species that would benefit is the Blanding’s turtle.
About a foot long and with a characteristic bright yellow throat www.ontario.ca/page/blandings-turtle, Blanding’s turtles live in shallow water, usually in large unbroken wetlands.
That means the fragmentation of habitat due to development is particularly problematic for this species; it’s not unusual for Blanding’s turtles to travel hundreds of metres looking for food or a mate. To do this, they often cross highways and roads. The more roads there are, the worse the danger from passing cars.
But there are ways to keep them safe: wildlife crossings, such as specially designed culverts known as “ecopassages,” can allow them and other species to travel safely. And that’s exactly the kind of intervention that could be on the table.
The planning tool used to arrive at this conclusion was developed by Tara Martin, a UBC forestry professor and founder of the lab.
More than a decade ago, while she was working as a senior research scientist for Australia’s National Science Agency, she developed the PTM modelling using ecological data and input from local conservation experts to identify the threats facing species. The framework outlines the strategies that are most effective for their recovery.
“It is very similar to a cost-benefit analysis,” Martin says.
In Canada, it has been applied to eight regions, including the Wolastoq (Saint John River) watershed in New Brunswick. Centuries of human activity and development, coupled with climate change, have degraded the watershed, eroding banks and severely damaging wetlands. In 2021, inspired t.co/wKGBcv1vro by PTM research, which recommended tree planting to revegetate parts of the watershed, WWF Canada and other conservation groups planted over 20,000 trees t.co/7eQb4XKG87. As the trees grow, over time, they will provide nesting areas for birds and stabilize riverbank soils, lessening the risk of flooding.
The modelling has now recommended wwf.ca/.../05/FINAL-2025-WWF-PTM-FACT-SHEET_EN.pdf eight individual strategies and seven combination strategies for the Lake Simcoe-Rideau ecoregion — 48 actions in total — to improve outcomes for species at risk.
“If I were to pick out of those eight strategies which ones I want to move forward with, that would be what we call the nature-based climate solutions,” says Giles.
This includes habitat protection and stewardship, along with restoring degraded habitats, such as wetlands and grassland areas.
The modelling recommends affordable, small interventions with big results, such as working with landowners to retain or introduce vegetation areas around streams and ponds, or planting woodland buffers alongside farmers' fields.
Protecting and restoring habitats at an annual cost of $97 million, according to Giles, would secure 88 out of the 133 species. The co-benefits of this could sequester up to 137.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents and could, over time, make up for Ontario's annual greenhouse gas emissions, improve water quality and create (according to Martin) more than 340 new jobs.
Feasibility
If the development of the past has put pressure on the Lake Simcoe-Rideau ecoregion, then the past year’s desire to disentangle the Canadian economy from the US — by opening new mines and building new homes and roads — has opened the floodgates.
Ontario’s Bill 5, the “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act ero.ontario.ca/notice/025-0380,” is designed to fast-track approvals for infrastructure and resource development in Ontario. The bill amended the Endangered Species Act to, among other things, narrow the legal definition of “habitat” to the immediate area around a den or nest.
This leaves the territory an animal may need to forage for food or find a mate unprotected and vulnerable. It also limits how groups, such as the WWF, can provide the best possible outcomes for species at risk.
Giles’ concerns about this legislation are echoed by other groups, including the Lake Simcoe Regional Conservation Authority lsrca.on.ca/index.php/home/the-lake-ecosystem/ (LSRCA), which monitors the environmental health of the Lake Simcoe watershed, part of the larger ecoregion.
“Bill 5 marks a notable change in how Ontario protects species at risk,” says Julia Marko, natural heritage ecologist for the LSRCA. “In the Lake Simcoe watershed, this may create some efficiencies, but it also brings uncertainty for species at risk.”
The PTM analysis was presented to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has led the province’s charge toward new development. But according to Martin, there has been very little response to it.
In February, the Ontario government invested t.co/DdnVg4IGbn $20 million through the Species Conservation Program to help protect species at risk and 46 community-led projects, working to protect species such as monarch butterflies, Blanding’s turtles and butternut trees.
The province’s environment ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article. In a press release, Todd McCarthy, Ontario minister of environment, conservation and parks, said: “Under the new Species Conservation Program, Ontario has quadrupled its investment in species conservation. … [We] are taking action to restore habitat, support species recovery efforts and protect Ontario’s rich biodiversity for generations to come.”
But Giles says those actions fall far short of what’s needed, and they’re not being directed as keenly as they could be.
“Our study provides a very clear blueprint where kinds of investments can be made, and we're falling short of where we need to invest,” Giles says. “We need five times more than that just to do the nature-based climate solutions.”
Giles believes there’s support from the public, too. When WWF organized a public advocacy campaign last year, asking supporters to let the Ontario government know that they were concerned about Bill 5, more than 5,000 people sent letters to their local MPPs. If Ontarians knew there was a cost-effective solution to save species at risk in the province, Martin and Giles believe people would pay an additional $7 a year in tax to take action.
“I suspect that most Ontarians — given the choice — would say, ‘Yes, please,’” Martin says.
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