In 1992 nearly all countries of the world signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), establishing a long-term goal to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Each party to the Convention is committed to limiting greenhouse gas emissions and protecting and enhancing greenhouse gas "sinks and reservoirs." In December of 1997, as part of efforts to fulfill the Convention, international negotiators signed the Kyoto Protocol in Japan. The Protocol directs developed countries to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other prominent greenhouse gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008-2012. Canada is committed to reductions of 6 per cent and the U.S. to 7 per cent (www.unfccc.de).

To help achieve these targets, the Protocol allows Annex 1 countries (developed nations) to credit removals of greenhouse gas emissions by natural sinks that store carbon. Carbon, a primary component of the most significant greenhouse gases, is sequestered (or stored) in forests, agricultural soils, and wetlands.

Canada is now devising ways to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments. As part of this emerging strategy, the federal government established several issues advisory tables, including a National Sinks Table. At the international level, Canadian negotiators are working to broaden the Protocol's definition of sinks to include agricultural soils and wetlands. Including wetlands would present significant opportunities for Canada, which possesses nearly 25 per cent of the world's wetland area, or over 127 million hectares. Canadian representatives will participate in upcoming seminars and workshops of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to the UNFCCC, as well as the upcoming Conventions of the Parties (COP-5 and COP-6) where the issue of sinks will be debated further.

In April 1999 Canadian scientists and policy-makers met at the Oak Hammock Conservation Centre in Manitoba to consider whether prairie and parkland wetlands are net sinks or sources of greenhouse gases and to provide recommendations regarding the recognition of wetlands as carbon sinks under the Kyoto Protocol. The Prairie Pothole Region is an area particularly endowed with wetlands and potential areas for wetland restoration. Workshop participants agreed that for wetlands to be accepted under the Kyoto Protocol, scientists must be able to provide confident projections of carbon sequestration potential in wetlands and an acceptable method for determining verifiable changes in carbon stocks. Currently, no complete carbon balance studies exist on southern Canadian wetlands. Most urgently, scientists must devise a model that can accurately estimate wetland carbon flux. They must determine whether wetlands can be managed as net carbon sinks over time. As well, a lead agency must be assigned to direct this research and coordinate the wetlands agenda.

The Oak Hammock workshop recommended that the Sinks Table include consideration of wetlands in its pending Options Paper. In situating wetlands, the workshop advised that Canada's negotiators determine whether wetlands should be considered separate from, or part of, forests and agricultural lands. Both areas possess extensive wetlands. In fact, policy-makers attending the workshop debated the possibility of wetlands meriting inclusion in the Kyoto Protocol under the existing definition for forests. Wetlands may also be included as part of agricultural areas through future revisions of the Protocol's definition of land use.

Notwithstanding the outcome of the Kyoto negotiations, the Oak Hammock workshop participants felt the public, domestically and internationally, must be engaged in the wetlands issue. In addition to their potential as carbon sinks, wetlands are one of Earth's most biologically productive and diverse natural systems. They constitute a habitat base for exceptional levels of biodiversity, purify and moderate water resources, and provide food, fibre and water security for local communities. The federal government's wetlands policy describes wetlands as a key life support system, "in concert with agricultural lands and forests. Their importance goes beyond their status as the habitat of many endangered plant and animal species. They are a vital element of national and global ecosystems and economies." The ecological, economic, and social services wetlands provide warrant their ongoing restoration and conservation across the Canadian landscape and abroad.

Funding for the workshop came from the workshop members (DU, IISD and WI-A) as well as from Industry Canada, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA), and Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation (MHHC).

© 1999 International Institute for Sustainable Development