Census of Environment: Harvesting benefits from nature
Released: 2025-05-13
Ecosystem provisioning services are the contributions to the benefits extracted or harvested from ecosystems in Canada. Measuring timber and crop harvests, as well as harvest of shellfish, wild fish and other biomass provides important information to understand the important role of ecosystems, and potential impacts on human well-being when ecosystems change.
In 2022, commercial harvesting activities totalled nearly 270 million tonnes of biomass from ecosystems with 138 million tonnes (51.2%) from agricultural ecosystems, 131 million tonnes (48.5%) from forests, and 0.8 million tonnes (0.3%) from marine, coastal and freshwater ecosystems.
Most provisioning services supplied by ecosystems in western Canada
Alberta and British Columbia contributed the most to the supply of ecosystem provisioning services in Canada, mainly due to the strength of their forestry and agricultural harvests. In total, 59 million tonnes of biomass were harvested in Alberta and 50 million tonnes of biomass were harvested in British Columbia in 2022. Meanwhile, both provinces saw decreases in forest harvests from 2021, with British Columbia harvest down 9.2% in 2022 and Alberta harvest falling by 5.6%.
In 2023, the bulk of harvests from marine, coastal and freshwater ecosystems occurred in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia. These three provinces accounted for nearly three-quarters (74.4%) of the total harvest of fish and shellfish.
Map 1
Ecosystem type with the most harvested biomass, by province and territory, 2022
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Note to readers
Statistics Canada's Census of Environment program reports on ecosystems in Canada, providing information to help Canadians make evidence-based decisions to protect, rehabilitate, enhance, and sustain our environment. It follows the internationally accepted environmental–economic standard for producing information on ecosystems' extent, their condition and the services they provide.
Provisioning services encompass goods and materials supplied by ecosystems and include food, wood, water and fuels. Provisioning services is one of the categories of ecosystem services, which also include the regulating services and cultural services.
This release reflects the latest data available on ecosystem provisioning services (Table 38-10-0171). This table provides information on the supply of biomass provisioning services, by type of ecosystem and province and territory. Estimates include commercial harvesting activities and exclude subsistence, recreational and cultural harvesting activities related to Indigenous food, social and ceremonial use.
Today's release also includes new Census of Environment geospatial files and metadata associated with the Statistical Ecosystem Register grid system. This product contains reference files that define the nested spatial grid system used by the Census of Environment.
Data product specifications are also available for the previously released Land Cover Register (Census of Environment: Land cover, 2020).
For more information, see the page Canadian System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounts (5331).
In July 2025, an error was identified with the colour used for Nova Scotia in Map 1. Nova Scotia was originally shaded yellow but should have been shaded green as it had the most harvested biomass from forest ecosystems.
Products
"Statistical Ecosystem Register grid system reference files: Geospatial files," "Statistical Ecosystem Register grid system reference files: Data product specifications," and "Land Cover Register: Data product specifications" are now available in Census of Environment: Spatial information products (16-510-X).
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).
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