In March, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature. The government says the strategy will invest $3.8 billion in protecting nature, and aims to “restore critical habitats, ensure industrial strategies complement our conservation efforts, and mobilise new capital for nature.”

That was followed on April 27 by the $25-billion Canada Strong Fund, a sovereign wealth fund focused on “nation-building projects” such as new mines, ports and energy corridors. The two are presented as separate initiatives but they should be closely integrated: nature is vital infrastructure and Canada needs new tools to support it.

We are all familiar with the grey infrastructure we rely on every day: roads, bridges, sewers, pipelines, railways and so on. However, we don’t think as much about the critical value of nature. Without biodiversity and the “free” ecosystem services on which we depend, such as pollination, food, forests, soils and clean water, there is no foundation for our economy.

What we often miss is the direct value relationship between nature and other infrastructure. Consider an urban park, as we did in a recent studio project at the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. When designed with biodiversity and climate resilience........

© The Conversation