Stop development on edges of Canada’s national parks

If you’re heading to one of Canada’s more than 40 stunning national parks this summer, you might want to leave your bathing suit behind and bring a gas mask instead.

A new report from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society warns that “inappropriate” development projects are encroaching on Canada’s parks, threatening the water, air quality, wilderness and wildlife, not to mention a booming tourist economy.

In particular, the report singled out proposals to drill and “frack” for oil within metres of Gros Morne National Park, a 1,805-square-kilometre area in western Newfoundland, which UNESCO describes as a “spectacular” meeting of “coastal lowland, alpine plateau, fjords, glacial valleys, sheer cliffs, waterfalls and . . . pristine lakes.” The report cautions that fracking alone could sully that pastoral scene by contaminating “local air, water and soil, creat(ing) constant noise and heavy truck traffic, and harm(ing) wildlife and people.”

Not very idyllic. That’s why UNESCO contacted the federal government earlier this year to say that plans to extract oil near the park could jeopardize its world heritage site status.

Gros Morne is not the exception. The Harper government should be commended for aggressively expanding national parkland over the last six years, establishing no fewer than five new parks since coming to power. But a closer examination of the government’s policies suggests its commitment to preserving Canada’s natural bounty doesn’t run very deep.

Take Sable Island, a small Atlantic land mass near Halifax. Last month, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May briefly blocked legislation that eventually succeeded in establishing the island as a National Park Reserve. Her problem: the bill explicitly “opens the door to oil exploration on Sable Island and sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of our National Parks.”

Or take Naats’ihch’oh National Park Reserve, a 4,840-square-kilometre tract in the Northwest Territories. Established last year, the park protects large portions of the upper waterhead of the South Nahanni River, as well as the area’s grizzly and woodland caribou habitats. All good. Except it could have been much better.

Parks Canada proposed three versions of the reserve, of which the government selected by far the smallest and least popular among locals. The chosen proposal did, however, have the benefit of leaving 80 per cent of the area’s potential mineral riches accessible for exploitation. As former N.W.T. premier Stephen Kakfwi put it: “That is not a national park; that is a joke.”

National parks exist to protect and provide access to our most important and impressive ecological sites. Clearly there is a moral imperative to do so. But there is also an economic one. A recently uncovered Environment Canada memo estimates that 13 per cent of our GDP depends on healthy ecosystems.

Unfortunately, as the government well knows, pollution does not respect the artificial borders around protected areas. If the government has created these reserves in good faith and for reasons beyond politics, it will heed the scientists and stop development on the edges of our parks.

Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Editorial