Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Geospatial Database

CPCAD contains the authoritative spatial and attribute data for all marine and terrestrial protected and conserved areas in Canada. It is compiled by Environment and Climate Change Canada in collaboration with federal, provincial, and territorial authorities to support national and international reporting. The database includes areas recognized under IUCN governance categories and Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures.

Use Cases

• Analyze the spatial distribution of marine protected areas versus terrestrial protected areas across Canada.
• Assess conservation coverage by IUCN governance categories for national reporting.
• Identify Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) recognized as protected or conserved areas.
• Support land management planning by integrating Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) data.

Strengths

• Authoritative national source for protected and conserved areas data in Canada.
• Includes data from all federal, provincial, and territorial reporting authorities.
• Adheres to national and international (IUCN, UN Convention on Biological Diversity) reporting standards.
• Freely available to the public under an open license.

Limitations

• Specific row count, column count, and total spatial area are not provided in the input.
• Data is provided in specialized geospatial formats (FGDB/GDB, ESRI REST, WMS) requiring GIS software.
• Prior years' data may not be directly available and require contacting the maintainers.

Provenance

Source

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).

Collection Method

Compiled and managed by ECCC in collaboration with federal, provincial, territorial, and other reporting authorities.

Time Range

Current as of the most recent revision; temporal coverage for prior years is unspecified.

Freshness

Data is current as of the most recent revision, with a metadata update date of 2026-03-25.

Geography

Canada (marine and terrestrial areas).