Partner Spotlight: How Ducks Unlimited Canada is making biodiversity measurable
By Stacie Irwin
Companies and non-profits working on agricultural sustainability increasingly understand the importance of biodiversity in landscape resilience, but with so many possible ways to measure biodiversity, where should they start?
That was one of the central questions explored during a recent Building Bridges Community of Learning and Action (CoLA) lunch & learn with James Paterson, Research Scientist at Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC).
James introduced DUC’s biodiversity mapping and assessment tool as a way to better understand the potential benefits of conservation and restoration activities for wildlife across Canadian agricultural landscapes. DUC has released a public-facing interactive mapping tool that allows users to explore species within a target area, alongside more advanced modelling software used internally by its science team to run customized scenarios assessing how conservation and restoration activities could affect biodiversity outcomes.
The conversation explored a key interest for our community: how can organizations work with increasingly sophisticated biodiversity science to create use cases that help farmers, agri-food companies, and others who want to support biodiversity across Canadian landscapes to take well-targeted, practical action?
From counting hectares to counting species
Many agricultural sustainability standards and corporate biodiversity frameworks measure progress through indicators such as hectares of wetlands restored or acres of habitat protected. These are a useful starting point, but they don’t tell the full story of what landscape change really means for biodiversity.
DUC’s mapping tool helps fill that gap. By combining species observations, land cover, and climate data, it predicts suitable habitat for hundreds of bird, mammal, amphibian, and reptile species. By modelling changes in land cover, such as restoring wetlands or converting marginal cropland into perennial vegetation which can become habitat, DUC’s tool can estimate how conservation activities increase the number of species a landscape is capable of supporting.
This complement to traditional area-based indicators further illuminates potential biodiversity benefits, telling fuller stories about which species may benefit from land use change and sustainability investments.
Figuring out where to start is one of the hardest parts
Discussion touched on how many corporate partners are interested in how their activities may impact biodiversity in the landscape they operate in, but most don’t yet have well-defined biodiversity targets. There’s interest in contributing to progress, but uncertainty about how to go about it. Unlike carbon or other more established environmental indicators, companies often lack clear standardized ways of assessing biodiversity progress, making it harder to act on.
James emphasized the value of collaboration between researchers and the organizations developing agricultural sustainability programs. Understanding what companies want to achieve, and what information they can meaningfully use, is essential to designing useful measures. It’s an interactive process.
DUC’s work offers one possible way forward. Rather than waiting for universally accepted biodiversity indicators, they are beginning to combine measures of habitat conserved or restored with estimates of changes in suitable habitat for wildlife.
Balancing scientific rigour and ability to act
Landscape biodiversity is a complex concept, and no single metric can capture every aspect of ecological change. DUC’s tool predicts habitat suitability instead of confirming which species are present, focusing on assessing changes in land cover rather than measuring the animal biodiversity impacts of specific farming practices, such as cover cropping or grazing management.
As science continues to advance, the number of possible biodiversity indicators can itself become a barrier to action. James encourages approaches that balance scientific credibility with practical usefulness. Rather than developing increasingly complex models without clear applications, researchers and sustainability practitioners can work together to identify measures that are sufficiently robust to inform decisions and accessible enough to support action.
“Propose something that’s defensible, transparent and resonates.” ~ James Paterson.
When researchers, conservation organizations, and agri-food companies work together, biodiversity measures that are scientifically credible, meaningful to partners, and useful for directing investment get clearer.
The goal isn’t to measure every aspect of biodiversity perfectly before taking action. It’s to develop credible ways to learn together, understand progress, and support more meaningful biodiversity outcomes across Canada’s agricultural landscapes.
The ‘CoLA’, convened by FoodBridge, brings together non-profit organizations, including groups focused on organic, diversified, and regenerative practices, working alongside agri-food enterprises to foster resilient, sustainable food systems throughout Canada. If your non-profit organization is partnering with agri-food companies on Canadian agricultural transition initiatives and looking to collaborate with non-profit peers, email info@foodbridge.ca to inquire about participating.
This project is funded in part by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP).
