People receive many benefits from nature: food, timber, flood protection from salt marshes, and enjoyment of the natural environment. These are all examples of ecosystem services, which play a critical role in understanding the connection between people and ecosystems, and the potential impacts on human well-being when ecosystems change.
Provisioning services refer to the amount of organic material such as plants and fish harvested from ecosystems. For example, agroecosystems in Canada provide crops and forage, forests provide wood and wild harvested products, and marine, coastal and freshwater ecosystems provide fish and shellfish. These harvesting activities provide economic and social benefits to communities.
Provisioning services from commercial activities totalled 293 million tonnes in 2020, with 51% from agricultural ecosystems, 49% from forests, and 0.3% harvested from marine, coastal and freshwater ecosystems.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).