Biodiversity Boreal Climate change Conservation planning Freshwater Indigenous partnerships Natural resource development Peatlands

The National Peatland Strategy: Implementation Opportunities for Manitoba

Goodday, V., Tanguay, L., Radatus-Smith, N. & Harris, L

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To facilitate uptake of the National Peatland Strategy, opportunities for implementation at the federal level and in each province and territory have been identified. This document outlines opportunities for the province of Manitoba.

Key points

• Canada’s peatlands are of global importance, storing over 150 billion tonnes of carbon.
• Canada's provinces and territories have the primary responsibility for properly stewarding these climate-critical ecosystems.
• Manitoba is responsible for the 2^nd largest peat carbon stock in Canada - about 197,000 km² of peatlands containing an estimated 34.4 billion tonnes of carbon.
• Top opportunities for the Government of Manitoba to achieve better outcomes for peatlands, and the communities and ecosystems that rely on them, include:
  • Carrying out robust regional land-use planning, in meaningful partnership with Indigenous Peoples, to identify peatland areas to avoid and strategically designating peatland conservation areas.
  • Imposing stricter avoidance of harm requirements, limiting peat extraction activities, and looking at the cumulative effects to peatlands when making protection and peat allocation decisions.

The full strategy is available in both English and French.

Recommended citation

Goodday, V., Tanguay, L., Radatus-Smith, N. & Harris, L (2025). The National Peatland Strategy: Implementation Opportunities for Manitoba. Wildlife Conservation Society Canada [WCS Canada]. https://doi.org/10.19121/2025.Report.52386.p05.en