Flood risk management plans shall take into account relevant aspects such as costs and benefits, flood extent and flood conveyance routes and areas which have the potential to retain flood water, such as natural floodplains, the environmental objectives of Article 4 of Directive 2000/60/EC, soil and water management, spatial planning, land use, nature conservation, navigation and port infrastructure.

Conservation and sustainable management of natural and man-made resources and biodiversity: ecosystems; water resources management; waste management and prevention; protection and management of biodiversity, including control of invasive alien species, soil, seabed, lagoons and coastal areas protection, approaches against desertification and land degradation, preservation of landscape; sustainable use and management of forests; sustainable management and planning of urban environment, including post-industrialized zones; data ma ...[+++]nagement and information services; assessment and foresight relating to natural processes.

As regards the environment, the EU’s activities will include the management of environmental diversity, the improvement of sustainable land management to halt desertification, the conservation of biodiversity, limitation of the effects of climate change and support for the sound management of chemicals.

These partnerships take the form of land conservation programs like the Canadian Wildlife Service Latin American Program in which Canada and its Latin American neighbours join together to preserve the southern habitats of our common visitors.

Over the coming planning period we will see a number of deliverables in this area, and I'll list a number of examples: completion and publication of a report on the health of our atmosphere—this is a companion report to one you've seen before called Health of our Soils; transfer of the Plant Gene Resources Centre to Saskatoon; registration of a high-protein soybean variety for eastern Canada with significant yield to improvement; registration of prairie spring wheat with significant improvement in protein content; development of new anaerobic digestion technology to handle manure in an environmentally sustainable manner; development of te ...[+++]chnologies to improve ruminant nutrition—this again has efficiency and waste reduction objectives; development of processes for extracting food or feed additives from various agricultural products; increased access to safe, reliable water supplies for rural areas; maintenance of biological diversity through sustainable management of federally controlled and private range lands; development of a prairie-wide assessment for land-based issues facing the agriculture and agrifood sector; implementation of the national soil and water conservation program; implementation of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's biodiversity strategy; determination of the environmental sustainability of the departmental policies and programs; periodic assessment and reporting of the progress in implementing the department's sustainable development strategy, which is essentially the implementation of the action plan under that strategy; and development and implementation of the department's hog environmental management strategy, HEMS.

Another non-legislative solution recommended by the ministerial representative was to conduct an evaluation of existing programs, such as the First Nations Land Management Act and the Regional Lands Administration Program, RLAP, which are programs designed to improve the land registry system, as well as the 53/60 Delegated Authority programs and to address any shortfalls in those programs.