Budget cuts, overdevelopment, threaten Canada’s cherished parks system

It’s the season when Canadians break out the canoes, hiking boots and backpacks and head off into the trackless northern wilderness to commune with our plaid-jacket inner selves. There’s something in the nation’s psyche that leaps to the churn of paddle on water, or the eerie call of the loon on a remote lake.

Well, that’s the theory, anyway. In practice many of us trek no further than our local national or provincial parks, with their well-marked trails, carefully tended campsites and sandy, child-friendly beaches. But even that is something to cherish, and conserve. From Algonquin Park to the Gatineau, Mont Tremblant, Banff and Jasper, the Nahanni and Gros Morne, our parks are renowned the world over for their rugged beauty and wildlife.

Here in Toronto, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has committed $145 million over 10 years to help redevelop Rouge Park into our first national urban park, a sprawling region of “wilderness and wet” (as the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once put it) on the very doorstep of the country’s largest and busiest city.

But as a sobering report from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has just warned, we can’t take any of this for granted. The nation’s parks face “growing threats” as both Ottawa and the provinces pare back on funding to balance their books, the wilderness advocacy group warns. “The future of our parks as healthy, well-functioning ecosystems is by no means certain,” the report cautions.

In Ottawa, Parks Canada has been hit with a nearly $30-million federal budget cut in 2014 that will lead to the loss of more than 600 jobs nation-wide, the group says, including many of the ecological scientists and technicians who tend to the ecological health of our parks. Many parks are also cutting short their seasons. Provincial spending, too, generally falls sadly short of what’s needed.

Such skimping is short-sighted, given that parks are recognized money makers. A study found that the parks are a good investment, generating $4.6 billion in wealth in 2009 for the $800 million governments spent on them, supporting 64,000 jobs and bringing in $300 million in tax revenues. That’s a return of $5 for every $1 spent.

Yet tight budgets aren’t the only problems parks face. Regionally, they must cope with challenges that range from the threat of logging in Algonquin to mining, road-building, offshore gas and oil exploration and other threats. As funding falls short, the pressure grows for more development.

The picture isn’t all bleak. Apart from the Rouge, Ottawa has invested in new parks and protected areas on Sable Island and in Chignecto, both in Nova Scotia, and in other projects.

Still, the threats are real, and it’s worth taking them to heart as we head out to enjoy our bit of the backwoods this summer. Our parks need careful nurturing and investment not casual neglect.

What would the world be, once bereft of wet and of wilderness? Hopkins wondered. Let them be left. Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Original Article
Source: the star
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