Conservationists ex-wardens worried by ‘superficial’ plan
Mementos of the past: drive-in theatres 8-tracks wood-paneled station wagons and… Canada’s national parks?
The treed mountainous destination areas west of Calgary seem like an improbable addition to a list of yesterday’s trends but Parks Canada fears Banff and other national parks are increasingly irrelevant to Canadians. “The numbers of people visiting our national parks and national historic sites right across the country are not keeping pace with the growth in the population” says Mike Murtha planner for Banff National Park. “We’re concerned that maybe we’re not as relevant to folks as we might have been with previous generations.”
Parks Canada wants to boost visitor numbers at national parks — including Banff — by two per cent annually a goal included in the recently released draft Banff Management Plan. The agency wants to woo more recent immigrants city-dwellers and young Canadians to the park using technology (“brief intense visual and/or auditory experiences”) and other tools. But some are worried that Parks Canada’s quest for renewed relevance will do more harm than good as the park already draws in more than three million visitors each year.
“What are the facilities that are going to be needed to deal with those people?” asks Nigel Douglas a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association. “The shops the restaurants the staff to work in the restaurants… the increased pressure and increased infrastructure that will go with an increase in people. That’s the real concern.”
The draft is the second update to the original Banff Management Plan which was introduced in 1997 under a federal Liberal government. That plan focused on restoring the park’s ecological integrity and limiting growth. “That reflected the conditions that were happening in the ’80s and ’90s when there was a lot of development going on and a lot of impact” says Murtha. “It was a reaction to that — the fear that we were losing a lot of the natural characteristics…. We were a little weak on the visitor side in that plan.”
Now conservationists and former park wardens believe the pendulum is swinging too far in the other direction. Mike McIvor president of Bow Valley Naturalists says the draft is more than an update. “This is very much a completely rewritten management plan” he says adding that it reflects a “fundamental shift in direction and in culture” at Parks Canada.
“I think all of us would support the idea of national parks providing opportunities for people to experience the natural world in a meaningful way” says McIvor. “And yet it seems from this draft plan that Parks Canada’s view of visitor experience has much more to do with quantity than quality.” McIvor points out that in the draft Parks Canada acknowledges that “congestion at some locations is increasingly perceived as a problem” in the park.
Former Banff chief warden Perry Jacobson says the 1997 plan “very much was an environmental” one and he believes the updated plan is politically driven. “Right now it’s the tourism end of it and the business end of it that’s taken the priority here” says Jacobson. “No question about that.”
Jacobson is particularly concerned about possible zoning changes. The draft plan would amend the wilderness zone boundary to allow gravel pits near highways and “limited future development of new facilities.”
“That is something that I feel is really dangerous because the wilderness area is really what it’s all about” says Jacobson. “Those boundaries were drawn for a very good reason.” He describes the draft as “superficial” and too short on specifics. “It’s very very difficult to see what’s really going to happen.”
Parks Canada counters that the draft isn’t set in stone and that the park can accommodate more visitors without trouble. “There is quite a bit of capacity which is available already without building anything new” says Murtha. Campgrounds and hotels in the park have room for more he adds. “And additionally the growth limits that we have for the town do permit some additional development. They haven’t reached the limits which are already in place.”
Murtha says Parks Canada won’t be sacrificing the ecological gains made since the original plan was introduced 12 years ago. “Certainly we are much more focused on the visitors in this update but we’re not abandoning any of the commitments to ecological integrity or limits to growth.”
Parks Canada is also considering making park passes available online to cut down on traffic lineups at the park’s east gate on Highway 1 during peak periods. “You’ve got lineups a kilometre back — hardly a nice welcome to a national park” says Murtha. “We want to get around that. We’ve got to find a way to make this an attractive place a welcome place rather than just a frustrating traffic hold-up followed by the need to hand over money at the gate.”
As well the draft proposes a regional transit system that would carry visitors to park destinations. “We see that as a very important initiative to reduce the congestion accommodate more people and also reduce the environmental impact” says Murtha.
Parks Canada is taking public comments on the draft for another two to three weeks. “We expect a lot of feedback says Murtha. The agency will then alter the draft to reflect “where the public wants us to go” before finalizing the update in January he adds.
