For a quarter century, Ducks Unlimited has worked with a broad coalition of partners to conserve vital wetlands and wildlife habitats in the Boreal Forest, a 1.6-billion-acre biome that stretches across northern Canada and into western Alaska. From the beginning, a key DU partner—The Pew Charitable Trusts—has provided visionary leadership to these efforts. “Pew recognized there was an opportunity to protect large tracts of undeveloped ecosystems in the Boreal Forest, which are unlike anything else across the globe,” says Dr. Scott Stephens, DU’s senior director of conservation strategy. “Around 2000, we began engaging with Pew to figure out what that work might look like.”
Early on, DU recognized that new conservation strategies and partnerships would be required to achieve its objectives in the Boreal Forest. “We quickly learned that Indigenous communities really have the lead on land-use planning in northern Canada,” Stephens says. “They’re the decision-making authority around determining how their lands are set aside or used for economic development. So, we needed to engage entire communities in decision making, and we’d be working at their invitation. And before offering any support, we’d need to build trust and credibility.”
As Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) staff began that relationship building, Stephens noticed something interesting. “As I listened to Indigenous people talk about the importance of being on the land, it struck me that it’s exactly what many of our supporters value—time out in the field hunting, fishing, gathering, and being in nature,” he says. “Those shared values became a really important driver in our success.”
DUC’s Boreal program was well under way by 2010, when Pew launched its Boreal Forest Conservation Framework. Partners in this effort included Indigenous communities, DU and other conservation groups, and conservation-minded industries. The framework’s ambitious objective was to conserve 1 billion acres of intact Boreal Forest and wetland habitat, with 50 percent under protection and 50 percent under sustainable management. The framework received strong support from Indigenous communities and the Canadian government, which has committed to protecting 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.
A notable outcome was the creation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA), which are lands and waters protected and governed by Indigenous laws and traditional knowledge systems. In 2018, Canada’s first IPCA, Edéhzhíe, was established in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Two more IPCAs, Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve and Ts'udé Niliné Tuyeta, were established there in 2019. In total, these areas protect 12.5 million acres of land. Additional IPCAs are currently in the planning stages.
DUC also helped establish sustainable management goals, working with industry leaders to develop best management practices and certification standards for natural resources exploration and extraction. Moreover, they provided Indigenous communities with scientific and technical expertise to complement traditional knowledge. “GIS mapping has been huge,” Stephens says. “We’re bringing different layers of data and information to the table that support decisions about land-use planning and identifying areas for protection.” In 2019, DUC completed its largest-ever mapping project, a 77-million-acre inventory of wetlands and other land cover in the NWT for the Akaitcho Assembly.
DUC and Pew worked with Indigenous communities across Canada to form an advisory group to help guide future land-protection efforts in the Boreal Forest. That group subsequently established the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which is the only Indigenous-led national conservation organization in Canada today. Thanks to these Indigenous leaders, the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework achieved its goal of securing 1 billion acres under some form of conservation status—either formally set aside or in the pipeline toward becoming protected or sustainably managed.
Despite these remarkable accomplishments, DU and Pew recognize that there is more work to do. “We still need to push some of the proposed or interim acres across the finish line—particularly in the NWT,” Stephens notes.
To make that possible, Pew has turned to a funding mechanism called Project Finance for Permanence (PFP). Rather than generating funds for single, short-term projects, PFP initiatives bring together government and private partners to secure long-term investments that not only fund creation of protected areas on a regional scale, but also support work needed to manage those areas as well as investments in economic and cultural goals of Indigenous communities.
“Chances were good that we would secure PFP financing, given the fact we’d spent a couple decades figuring out how to work with communities and provide support there,” Stephens says. DU has committed $15 million in private funding to the effort over 10 years, with strong philanthropic support from the Wetlands America Trust board, which has a long history of supporting conservation work in the Boreal Forest. DUC has also helped to support Pew in lobbying for PFP funding from the Canadian federal government.
In 2024, an agreement was announced for “NWT: Our Land for the Future,” a PFP initiative totaling $375 million (Canadian)—including $300 million in government funds matched by $75 million in private funds—for Indigenous-led conservation across the NWT. The agreement made history on two fronts: First, it became the largest single investment in a PFP initiative in Canada to date. And second, it created one of the largest Indigenous-led land conservation initiatives in the world. In fact, 22 Indigenous governments attended a ceremony late last year to mark the first release of federal funds toward the initiative. The ceremony was also attended by representatives from the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and private philanthropic partners, including DU.
As PFP funds are released, they’re placed in a trust administered by Indigenous government–appointed directors who work within an annual operating plan developed with the initiative’s partners. Funds will be used to establish new IPCAs and support Indigenous-led stewardship programs such as training Boreal “guardians” who monitor the health of land, water, and wildlife and help steward cultural sites. Funds will also be invested in land-use planning and climate research as well as the promotion of ecotourism, traditional economic activities, and cultural revitalization programs.
NWT: Our Land for the Future aims to conserve and steward an estimated 95 million acres—an area the size of Montana. Stated objectives include “protecting the land and water, preserving biodiversity, supporting thriving cultures, building community capacity, and contributing to healthy and equitable economies.” These goals align well with DU’s conservation mission in the Boreal Forest, and DU is uniquely positioned to help achieve them thanks to its long history of success there.
“For 25 years now, we have been engaged with The Pew Charitable Trusts, Indigenous communities, and many other partners across the Boreal Forest,” Stephens concludes. “It’s that long-term investment from all these groups that has allowed us to continue our work in the Boreal Forest and have such an impact.”
