“Majestic mountains and a wild river of world significance.”
IUCN. Last modified 2 February 2012.
Retrieved 28 February 2012 from:
“Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada.” Parks Canada. Last modified 21 February
2012. Retrieved 29 February 2012 from:
“Nahanni National Park.” United
Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retreived 29
February 2012 from:
Soutullo, A.
2010. Extent of the Global Network of Terrestrial Protected Areas. Conservation
Biology, 24(2):362-363.
There have been implementations of amazing programs that
seem to arise due to not so amazing people, or rather, types of people. All it
takes is one person (or groups of peoples) to perform actions capable of
catastrophic results. For instance, the word “protection”, in Protected Areas,
implies that regions of Earth need defending from threats, and the biggest
threats seen in most ecosystems are we the humans. With proper management and
vast amounts of money protected areas are very successful at ensuring
biodiversity while also contributing to people’s livelihoods.
There are currently over 161, 000 protected areas (PA) in
the world, covering approximately 10-15% of the land surface area. There are
many different organizations and companies that take on the responsibility of
protecting areas. Of extreme interest to me was the International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) because of the work they
did resulting in several of Canada’s PA. IUCN have developed six magnificent
Protected Area Management Categories that were designed to protect areas based
on their management aims on an international level. They have done a lot of
work with the World Heritage Programme, which coordinated IUCN’s work on the
UNESCO World Heritage Convention – possibly the most important nature
conservation instrument on a global scale.
.ashx.jpg)
The Nahanni National Park Reserve is a World Heritage that
is located in the southwestern corner of the Northwest Territories, covering
approximately 30, 000 km2. It was created in 1976 and two years
later was designated among the twelve first UNESCO World Heritage sites. The
landscape of the park consists of canyons, rivers, alpine tundra and boreal
forest with a vast assortment of wildlife calling it home; including, but not
limited to: wolf, grizzly bear, mountain goat, moose and beaver. There are,
however, seven of Canada’s species at risk residing in this park as well: wood
bison, woodland caribou, olive-sided flycatcher, common nighthawk, rusty
blackbird, yellow rail and short-eared owl. Astonishingly, the park is also the
only known location where a rare plant species, the Nahanni Aster is found. It
is clear to see why this portion of land was a prime candidate for becoming a
protected area, as well as its quality of maintenance it has experienced.
Currently the major threat seen to this area is a proposed road
adjacent to the park reserve that would allow mining trucks access during the
winter season to a lead-zinc mine. Negative impacts on the land, waters and wildlife
are all predicted with the acceptance of this road. I have faith that the First
Nation representatives and Parks Canada will protect the species in the area
and local residence, tourists, and wildlife alike will experience the benefits
of the park.
Protected areas are the key to maintaining biodiversity
while pleasing the needs of humans.
WORD COUNT: 463
Very interesting! That park sure looks beautiful!! I would love to go there and see it in person. It seems to be a very important park for the red listed species.
ReplyDeleteIs the lead-zinc mine inside the park or just close to? Hopefully the road does not go through, as this seems like a very important park with the amount of red listed species and rare plant species found there.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! What a beautiful park. I knew it existed but knew little about it. Do you know if the red listed species were red listed at the time the park was created?
ReplyDeleteAwesome blog! Never new this park existed and how amazing it is in the protection of so many rare species. I would hope that there is another place for the road. Are there any species that are blue listed or up for consideration as well?
ReplyDelete-Christina
Very well put and nice pictures that park is so beautiful.. maybe I shall go there one of these days! as for the mine .. is it close to the park of just the road leading to the mine? Did you find out in your readings when it is set to be decided? Hopefully they deny it or if its just the road make it go a different way :)
ReplyDelete-Krista
As a world heritage site, I don't think truck access should be allowed into the area. They should find some other way to get to their mine in the winter. We don't have that many protected areas, so we need to stand strong and keep these areas free from outside influences. -Erik Vliegenthart
ReplyDeleteIt certainly does seem like a picturesque location. Do you know if there is much ecotourism going on in the area? I think that as we discussed in class, ecotourism is one of the great paradoxical ways to protect an area from people, while attracting people to the area. It will be interesting to see how many PA's adopt ecotourism and conservation methods in the future..
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful looking park! It also seems to be quite large at 30, 000 km2. I like the fact that it protects so many animal and flora/fauna species. I agree with Eric in that I think we need to stand strong and keep areas like this away from major road construction and outside influences (minus limited/controlled ecotourism practices. The whole point of forming a park is to offer protection to plant/animal species and prevent them from being affected by human practices. I think that building such a road and allowing large mining trucks access during the winter season would be defeating this purpose. Plus, if they allowed such a road to be used through the park, would this stimulate more groups to come forward and ask for permission to access the park for industrial purposes. I feel that with some of these industrial companies you give them an inch and they take mile.~Cassandra
ReplyDelete