July 17, 2009
Ottawa – In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, its second annual review of the state of Canada’s parks, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) reports that the pace of new parks creation slowed significantly in the past 12 months compared to 2008, which it had hailed as a “banner year”.
Despite this year’s slowdown, there were still some bright spots, including final protection for over 35,000 km2 of national park and historic site lands in the Northwest Territories, an end to logging in all but one of Manitoba’s provincial parks, and the creation of new provincial parks and nature reserves in British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The bad news is that Canada is lagging even further behind than last year in meeting its commitment to establishing a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) by 2012 under the Convention on Biodiversity, with not one new MPA announced in the past 12 months.
On the “ugly” side, CPAWS is reporting a lack of progress in addressing problems in several parks where industrial or commercial activities within or close to their boundaries are threatening to harm the sensitive ecosystems the parks were intended to protect.
View the entire report below, as an attached Pdf.
Or, let Caribouman review the parks report (more fun, and you can dance with him!) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6kiOUnavK0