Huge wildlife corridor project is 1st Canadian finalist for Earthshot Prize

Elk graze on a wildlife overpass, one of more than 200 that aim to enable animals move from Yellowstone Park to the Yukon. The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative was named a finalist for the 2026 Earth Prize on Sept. 28, 2026. (Government of Alberta)Social SharingWhat if wolves, elk and other wildlife could roam through protected lands from Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. to Canada's Yukon? A project to create such a massive 3,400-kilometre habitat corridor has become the first-ever Canadian finalist for Prince William's annual environmental prizes.

The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) was one of three finalists announced today in the Protect & Restore Nature category of the 2026 Earthshot Prizes. In all, 15 finalists were announced across five categories, and each category winner will get £1 million ($1.9 million Cdn), which will be awarded in a ceremony in Mumbai in November.

The Earthshot Prize highlighted Y2Y as "one of the largest conservation collaborations in history, reconnecting a vast mountain landscape across Canada and the U.S. so wildlife can once again move freely as it did for millennia."

The corridor is home to large mammals such as wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines and endangered mountain caribou. It already includes 25 million hectares of protected land, an area slightly larger than the United Kingdom. 

Y2Y was started as a joint U.S.-Canada initiative in 1993 by a U.S. non-profit and a Canadian charity. (The Canadian group was named as the Earth Prize finalist.)

This map shows the area that the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative aims to protect, and the land that is already protected. (Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative)Inspired by a wolf named PluieThe project was inspired by data from a wolf named Pluie, who was fitted with a satellite tracking collar near Banff National Park in 1991. Over two years, she travelled through more than 100,00 square kilometres in three U.S. states, two Canadian provinces and three national parks.

Jodi Hilty, president and chief scientist for the initiative, said conservationists started to realize that while protected areas were important, "they're not sufficient, and really if we want to sustain animals like Pluie the wolf, we actually have to think at the scale that nature needs."

Conservationists at the time were also aware that with climate change and warming temperatures, animals (and plants) would have to migrate north and to higher elevations — and would if they could. The problem was that many were in isolated, fragmented habitats.

Hilty added, "Our work seeks to solve that problem."

In the past three decades, Y2Y has made progress by increasing protected areas from nine per cent to nearly 18 per cent of the corridor, working with 800 partners, including governments, Indigenous nations, private landowners and scientists. It has also helped build more than 200 wildlife road crossings and worked with Indigenous partners in B.C. to bring back the Klinse-Za caribou herd from near-extinction.

Hilty said there have been benefits for people, too, such as more parkland to enjoy and reduced vehicle collisions due to the wildlife crossings. She added that protected land has been shown to absorb a huge amount of carbon and preserve and restore clean water in the region.

The initiative has many more protected areas and crossings under development.

Hilty acknowledged that even if the initiative beats fellow finalists in Australia and Bhutan to claim the $1.9-million Earthshot Prize, the money won't go very far — a single wildlife overpass or underpass can cost up to $20 million.

Grizzly bears are among the large animals that need big tracts of connected habitat. (Eric Johnston)But she said that being recognized by the Earthshot team can help get the initiative's story out, encourage other people to join the effort and connect them with other resources and groups around the world tackling similar challenges, including past winners from places like the Amazon rainforest.

"We have so much in common," Hilty said. "The baseline issues are the same: habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, challenges with coexisting with hard-to-live-with animals and so forth."

The Earthshot Prize has been awarded annually since 2021 in five categories: Protect & Restore Nature; Clean Our Air; Revive Our Oceans; Build a Waste-free World; and Fix Our Climate.

Its goal is to foster innovation to fight climate change and solve environmental challenges. The award is expected to continue until 2030.

Emily Chung covers science, the environment and climate for CBC News and is co-editor of CBC's What on Earth newsletter. She was part of teams that won a Silver 2024 Kavli Science Reporting Award and a 2019 Digital Publishing Award for best newsletter for What on Earth. She has a PhD in chemistry from the University of British Columbia. You can email story ideas to emily.chung@cbc.ca.

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