Protected Areas Initiative

Natural Region Representation

The goal of Manitoba’s Protected Areas Initiative is to create a network of protected lands that represents the biodiversity in each of Manitoba’s 18 natural regions.  So how do we know where to capture the biodiversity?  We use something called enduring features. 

All biological organisms share a connection to the landscapes in which they are found.  Unlike plants and animals, soils and landforms are more stable over time and endure.  When an ecological process such as fire passes through an area, the area’s biodiversity is temporarily changed, but there is potential for it to return to its previous state because the soils and landforms remain.  As a result, it is much easier to define these somewhat more permanent enduring features, than it is to identify the complex biodiversity that occupies a given site over time as natural ecological processes such as succession occur. 

Representation is the underlying principle in designing Manitoba’s network of protected areas.  “Representativeness” is a measure of the degree to which an individual protected area, or our network, portrays the enduring features, and by inference, the biological diversity of the natural region.  The Protected Areas Initiative routinely conducts a gap analysis to evaluate representation as we undertake protected areas planning on a regional basis.  The representation map of Manitoba's enduring features gives an indication of where the job of establishing protected areas is complete and where more work needs to be done.  The degree to which Manitoba's enduring features are adequately, moderately, partially, and not represented are shown for the following years:

• 1990
• 1995
• 1997
• 1999
• 2001
• 2004

Although much work remains to be done before the network of protected areas within Manitoba is complete, the Protected Areas Initiative has made significant progress towards the goal of representing the biodiversity across Manitoba. During the last four years, almost 1 million hectares of land has been permanently protected. See the Chronology.