Problems of the National Park System

• Location of Parks and Usage

• The beginnings of the system creates an imbalance that is difficult to remedy

• The most desirable acquisitions from the federal standpoint are free– already owned– Provincial donations

• The first urge - parks in the west and north

• Problem of erratic designation of desireable areas

• Lack of consistency

• Plus older, established Provinces would have a developed park system that would protect land

• To the 70’s the Yukon and NW Territories had 5% of Canada’s population and 59% of the National Park space

• Ontario and Quebec had 65% of the population and 1% of National Park space

• Result -

Data tends to be accurate since admit by person (fee) for most parks

Impact of large numbers within the current parks

Extremes of July and August

Link to Boomer population - tendency to travel more after 54

• National Parks Total (April 1 – March 31 fiscal year)• 2000 – 2001 12,409,796• 2001 – 2002 12,592,724• 2002 – 2003 12,576,695• 2003 – 2004 11,972,426 *Change in counting methodology

• 2004 – 2005 12,328,750

• Increase from 2003/2004 to 2004/2005• 3 %

• Parks closer to population centres or tourist routes will be pressured

• Situation could continue as Provinces (owners of resources) do not wish to relinquish their rights in perpetuity to National Parks (problem of gypsum finds in Wood Buffalo National Park)

• Uneven use of parks internally

• “Windshield visitors” - use is concentrated around roads and transit systems and tourist facilities

• The majority of visitors are facility oriented. About 80% of our park space is not visited. This is a solution to use but the remaining space is overused

• Containment not diffusion

• Using parks as point resources (small selected sites) rather than areal resources

• This normally means a high degree of modification

• Expectation about the presence of facilities - the extension of urban amenities– Cathedral Groves

• Conflict of ‘proper’ usage

• Original desire to allow for use of resources - land was not for sale but long term leases for logging, mining, cottaging

• Wood Buffalo National Park is an area of international ecological importance formally recognized by the United Nations as having the same World Heritage Site status as the Pyramids and the Grand Canyon.

• The huge Japanese forestry giant Daishowa is responsible for logging both Wood Buffalo National Park and the unceded traditional Lubicon territory -- in both cases working through wholly-owned subsidiaries rather than under its own name.

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The story of Daishowa clear-cutting Wood Buffalo National Park broke in December of 1990 precipitating a massive public outcry. Responding to that massive public outcry Federal Environment Minister Robert de Cotet lamely offered to buy back from a wholly-owned Daishowa subsidiary named Canfor the rights to clear-cut 49,700 hectares of Wood Buffalo National Park. (49,700 hectares is about 122,811 acres, or over 190 square miles, or nearly 500 square kilometres.)

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• Daishowa representatives shrewdly agreed to talk to Federal representatives about the possibility of selling back the cutting rights in Wood Buffalo National Park while at the same time stepping-up their logging operations there to 24 hours a day.

• They also announced that they wanted to negotiate "suitable replacement timber rights" from the Alberta Provincial Government -- from whom they've already purchased the hardwood timber rights to 40,710 square kilometres of northern Alberta at the bargain-basement price of only 28 cents per cubic metre. (By way of comparison the same wood costs $10.58 per cubic metre in the neighboring Canadian Province of British Columbia, $22.00 per cubic metre in Austria and a whopping $70.00 per cubic metre in Japan.)

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• At the time that Daishowa simultaneously agreed to talk and stepped up their logging operations in Wood Buffalo National Park to 24 hours a day, it was obvious to anybody with two brain cells that "suitable" replacement timber" would be hard to come by, that Daishowa would insist upon "suitable replacement timber" from the Province as part of any deal to sell back Wood Buffalo logging rights to the Federal Government,

• Daishowa engaged in as much foot dragging as possible during talks while continuing to clear-cut Wood Buffalo National Park 24 hours a day. (It was apparently not obvious to representatives of the Federal and Provincial Governments, or perhaps, as they have both done with the Lubicons on previous occasions, both levels of Canadian Government simply thought that the facade of "negotiations" was the best way to defuse growing public outrage over the appalling pillage going on in Wood Buffalo National Park

• Facilities

• If we want more people to utilize parks (public support and financial input) then should we maximize the experience for them – campsites, motels, gas stations

• roads are a massive problem – development, clearing, air pollution, noise pollution, roadkill– Banff loses on average 40 bighorn sheep a year to traffic – wolves do

not die of old age

• Back up surveys seem to indicate support for increased road traffic

• Cordon surveys are used to analyze demand (block traffic and run a random sample)

National Parks Total 12,409,796 12,592,724 12,576,695 11,972,426 12,328,750 3

sense of false demand

Problem of peak demand and in western parks the only available routes

• Question of Activities

• Question of innocence - an activity is allowed unless it is proven to be damaging

• Burden of proof– Need to look at type of activity– Volume of use (intensity)

• Sense of carrying capacity of the area (intensive Vs extensive use)

• Will participants cause mutual damage to other participants in the same or different activities

• Will an increased number of participants reduce the pleasure from the activity (little analysis of this)

• Will participants cause physical or ecological damage to the environment (little work - depends partially on perception)

Economic Pressure• Past uses that under different visions were proper

uses of park property – hotels, ski resorts and golf courses

• Do they have the right to stay? Are these ‘proper’ activities in a modern park system?

• The perception of species and values varies from individual to individual

• Some species are loved - bears– two thirds of bear attacks on humans are by conditioned

bears. (handouts and garbage)– Bighorn sheep in Banff suffer from malnutrition because

their bellies are full of white bread– Or they die from eating tablecloths, cardboard and plastic

bags

• Add this to uncertainty about the system– Lack of data

• counts on mobile populations are inaccurate

• Questions on system tolerance (how much can be removed. What can the system handle?

• How recuperative are the systems

• What do we do with incompatible uses?

Data Base

• The base needs work

• Greater emphasis on cost (foreseeable trend)

– cost of running fish and game organizations, policing, posting, fencing

– cost of lost resources

• Against these are the benefits– licenses (general revenue)– aesthetics (difficult to go against set costs)

• agreement and compromise are difficult when different languages are being used

• Solutions?

Selection of representative areas

• Practical Problems

– Size of the zones needed for ecosystems - for ‘ecological integrity’

– Interconnections between areas (parks) for species that need large areas and long time periods for genetic diversity (grizzly, beaver)

– Problems of incompatible uses - side by side

• Parks have turned into little isolated islands surrounded by a myriad of uses– outside uses will impinge on the park environment (air,

water, land uses - forestry clearing, runoff, erosion, etc)

• So ecosystem management is key to the survival within National Parks– Linkages to Provincial systems and private

developments to accept common goals