January 2002
Parks in Peril?
by Laura Jones & Sylvia LeRoy
Our national parks are "in peril." This disturbing conclusion was first published by Parks Canada in their State of the Parks 1997 Report. According to the report, all but one of Canada's then 38 national parks were "ecologically impaired." More than 85 percent of the parks evaluated suffered at least "significant" impairment. Sixty percent of those parks were in the two most serious categories: "major" or "severe" impairment. Since then, environmental groups including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and the Sierra Legal Defense Fund have been promoting the idea that human activity is threatening Canada's parks (see, for example, CPAWS, 2001) . The Canadian Nature Federation even released its own alarming list of top 10 "endangered" parks. The Globe and Mail considered this worthy of a story on page A1 headlined "Popular Parks Placed on Imperiled List" (Mitchell, 1999).
Anyone who has recently visited our postcard-perfect parks could be forgiven for being confused. Those who have had the opportunity to look across the deep azure waters of Jasper's Maligne Lake to the splendor of snow-capped mountains, or to go camping in its backcountry would hardly guess that this park suffers from "major impairment." Few Canadians have had the opportunity to see for themselves the quiet beauty of Ivvavik, located in the northernmost Yukon (155 visitors last year), or gaze out at the icefloe in Aulavik National Park's arctic wilderness (Parks Canada's website warns visitors not willing or capable of engaging in self-rescue to think twice about going there). Despite their isolation, both these northern parks are considered "significantly impaired." Even Ellesmere Island, a park in Nunavut that covers 37,000 square kilometers of the most remote, rugged land in North America, is considered "impaired."
How did Parks Canada come to the conclusion that so many national parks are in trouble?
The ratings are based on the results of a subjective survey that Parks Canada sent to study teams in each of 37 national parks. While subjective surveys can sometimes yield useful information, the Parks Canada survey was so poorly designed that the results are meaningless.
Table 1: "Stresses" Considered by Parks Canada
|
Stressor |
Examples |
Possible Impacts |
Number of Parks Threatened by Stressor |
|
Park infrastructure |
Warden's cabins, roads used for day and overnight park visitors |
Habitat loss and species reduction |
12 |
|
Park management practices |
Lawn mowing, fire suppression, sanding a road, flood prevention |
Habitat loss and species reduction |
19 |
|
Transportation/utility corridors |
Powerlines, railways, pipelines |
Habitat loss, air quality reduction, water or soil chemistry changes |
22 |
|
Visitor/tourism facilities |
Campgrounds, hotels, fences, roads, etc. |
Habitat loss and species reduction |
24 |
|
Forestry |
Access roads, use of machinery and harvesting trees |
Habitat loss and species reduction or species increasing, water or soil chemistry changes |
18 |
|
Mining |
Rock quarries, gravel pits, exploration, development, access roads |
Habitat loss water or soil chemistry changes |
15 |
|
Agriculture |
Livestock grazing, cultivation of land, drainage, infilling of wetlands, deforestation |
Habitat loss, water or soil chemistry changes, changes to water levels, species reduction or loss |
17 |
|
Dams |
Dams, weirs, dikes |
Water level changes, habitat change, water or soil chemistry changes, species reduction or loss |
17 |
|
Urbanization |
Housing, expansion of suburbs, tourism facilities including marinas, campgrounds, and hotels |
Habitat loss, species reduction, air quality deterioration, water or soil chemistry changes |
22 |
|
Climate change |
Drought, storms, changes in cloud cover or precipitation, rising ocean levels, global warming |
Species loss, habitat change and loss |
7 |
|
Poaching |
Killing animals illegally |
Species reduction or loss |
6 |
|
Sport hunting |
Killing animals legally |
Species reduction or loss |
11 |
|
Sport fishing |
Fishing legally for sport |
Species reduction or loss |
19 |
|
Commercial fishing |
Species reduction or loss |
9 |
|
|
Vehicle/wildlife collisions |
Species reduction or loss |
6 |
|
|
Human disturbances |
Trampling vegetation, creating new or temporary trails, collecting firewood, touching or harvesting wildlife, noise, taking pictures or feeding wildlife |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, soil compaction or erosion |
14 |
|
Exotic vegetation |
Vegetation that is not considered native |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, interbreeding that will lead to genetic changes |
21 |
|
Exotic mammals |
Mammals that are not considered native, introduced through human activity |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, interbreeding |
12 |
|
Exotic birds |
Birds that are not considered native |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, interbreeding |
12 |
|
Exotic fish |
Fish that are not considered native |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, interbreeding |
8 |
|
Exotic invertebrates |
Invertebrates that are not considered native |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, interbreeding |
6 |
|
Exotic microorganisms |
Microorganisms that are not considered native |
Species reduction or loss, habitat loss, interbreeding |
3 |
|
Sewage |
Human waste, detergents, soaps, microorganisms, chemicals |
Soil or water quality, habitat loss, species reduction or loss |
14 |
|
Petrochemical pollution |
Boat discharges, oil spills, leaks during transportation |
Species reduction, water or soil chemistry changes, habitat loss, air quality deterioration |
15 |
|
Pesticides |
DDT, chlorinated hydrocarbons |
Population reduction or increase, water or soil chemistry change, habitat loss |
14 |
|
Heavy metal pollution |
Mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, selenium, batteries, treated wood |
Species reduction or loss, water or soil chemistry change |
2 |
|
Acidic precipitation |
Rain, snow, or fog |
Species reduction or loss, genetic impacts, habitat loss, water and soil chemistry change, air quality change |
5 |
|
Solid waste |
Dumps, landfills, industrial waste past and present, recycling depots |
Water or soil chemistry changes, habitat loss, population increase, air quality changes |
15 |
|
Ground level ozone |
Smog |
Air quality deterioration, species reduction, plant and animal mortality |
2 |
|
Source: Parks Canada (1998); Woodley and Sportza (1996). |
|||
Each team was asked to consider a list of 29 "stressors" and to determine whether they were causing "significant impairment" to the park's ecological integrity (see table 1). To evaluate whether the stressor caused significant impairment, respondents were given a list of questions to consider. Three questions on the list determine whether the stress is significant.
First, the stressor must produce a definite ecological impact. While this sounds reasonable, it assumes that the relationship between the stressor and the impact can be isolated. In every case, however, the ecological impact that the team observed could have been caused by another stressor, or by nature itself. Even if one could isolate a cause-and- effect relationship between the stressor and ecological impact, the list of possible ecological impacts is too broad to be meaningful (see table 2). Population increases and decreases, for instance, are both considered ecological impacts.
Table 2: Ecological Impact
|
Once an ecological impact has been identified, two other tests determine whether a stressor should be considered an ecological threat. The trend in the intensity of the stress must, in the opinion of the study team, be increasing or stable. But for most stressors, there are no data with which to evaluate a trend. Even where there are data, this standard is nonsensical: why would a stressor that was stable, or even increasing, always be considered a threat? By this reasoning, existing "parks infrastructure" such as wardens' cabins and roads will be considered a threat unless parks managers are removing it.
The final criterion is that the scale of the impact of the stressor must be greater than one square kilometer. Of course, this is impossible to determine for many of the stressors since a cause-and-effect relationship between stressor and ecological impact has not been established.
To further confuse things, the list of "stressors" is just too sweeping to be relevant. Mining, forestry, agriculture, and sport hunting are on the list of stressors, but none of these activities are allowed in our national parks. Nonetheless, they were counted because survey respondents were instructed to define the ecosystem in which their park was located, and told specifically not to limit their thinking to the park boundary. In other words, any of the listed stressors could be considered a threat to the park if they occurred anywhere in the same ecosystem. By this loose criterion, Nunavut's Auyuittuq National Park is counted as being threatened by the impacts of urbanization and utility corridors, although neither occurs within the park itself. In fact, the only way to travel to the park is by dogsled, boat, or skidoo (few, if any, roads connect Nunavut's few scattered communities). The closest "urban center" is Nunavut's capital city, Iqaluit, which is a good one hour's flight away. Because what should constitute an ecosystem is never defined, each team was left to envisage a study area as small or large as they thought appropriate. Thus, while Banff National Park is generally considered to be located within an ecosystem seven times bigger than the park itself, the bounds of the ecosystem will vary depending on whom you ask. As geographer Allan Fitzsimmons, former advisor to the US Department of Interior and Engery put it, ecosystems are "geographic free-for- alls" (Fitzsimmons, p. 3).
On the basis of the ratings for the individual stressors, each park was given an overall rating by the team and assigned to the following categories: "no impairment," "minor impairment," "significant impairment," "major impairment" and "severe impairment."
These ratings are arbitrary. There is no consistent relationship between the number of stressors in each park and its overall rating. Jasper National Park in Alberta, for example, is rated as suffering from "major impairment" with 18 significant stressors, while Bruce Peninsula Park in Ontario receives the same rating with only three significant stressors. Ivvavik in Yukon has the same number of stressors as Bruce Peninsula, but is rated as suffering from "significant impairment." The rationale for these conclusions is unclear.
If Parks Canada is interested in a meaningful assessment of environmental quality in our national parks, we have a suggestion: base the assessment on objective data. While actually measuring air quality in a park is a reliable indicator, asking a panel their opinion about whether urbanization hundreds of kilometers away is affecting air quality is not. The main environmental indicators that Parks Canada are concerned about—habitat loss, species reduction, water quality, soil condition, and air quality—are all directly measurable.
Incredibly, the Parks Canada ratings continue to be reported as though they constitute scientific proof that Canada's national parks are suffering severe environmental degradation (Parks Canada Agency, 2000). What is even more alarming is that the conclusions are being used to justify such radical measures as exterminating non- native species, tearing out roads and trails, and bulldozing visitor accommodations, each of which has its own negative environmental effect (LeRoy and Cooper, 2000).
The rationale for these bizarre policies is clear: eliminating the stressor will eliminate the threat and improve the ecological integrity rating of the park. Since Parks Canada managers are held accountable for these ratings, they have a strong incentive to reduce or eliminate any and all so-called stressors (Parks Canada, 2001). Whether or not this actually improves the environmental condition of the park is irrelevant. In fact, given that Parks Canada has offered no real proof that the parks are actually suffering from environmental degradation related to human activity, the only problem appears to be the one the federal agency has created by publishing results based almost purely on speculation.
References
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) (2001). "National Parks Funding Crisis—Money Needed in December Budget." Action Alert. Nov. 20. Available at http://www.cpaws.org/alerts/national-park-funding.html.
Fitzsimmons, Allan K. (1999). "Ecosystem Management: An Illusion?" Defending Illusions: Federal Protection of Ecosystems. PERC Reports 17, no. 5. Bozeman, MT: PERC.
LeRoy, Sylvia and Barry Cooper (2000). Off Limits: How Radical Environmentalists are Shutting Down Canada's National Parks. Public Policy Sources, number 45. Vancouver, BC: The Fraser Institute.
Mitchell, Alanna (1999). "Popular Parks Placed on Imperiled List." Globe and Mail. Dec. 13, p. A1.
Parks Canada (1998). State of the Parks 1997 Report. Ottawa, ON: Minister of Public Works and Government Services.
Parks Canada Agency (2000). Unimpaired for Future Generations? Protecting Ecological Integrity With Canada's National Parks. Vol. I "A Call to Action." Report of the Panel on Ecological Integrity (Jacques Guérin et al.). Ottawa, ON: Supply and Services Canada.
Parks Canada (2001). Parks Canada Guide to Management Planning. Feb. 6. Available at http://www.parkscanada.gc.ca/library/index_e.htm.
Woodley, Stephen and Lucy M. Sportza (1996). Ecosystem Stresses in Canada's National Parks: Guide and Questionnaire. Revised edition (unpublished).
Laura Jones (lauraj@fraserinstitute.ca) is Director of Environment and Regulatory Studies at The Fraser Institute. She received her M.A. in Economics from Simon Fraser University.
Sylvia LeRoy(sylvial@fraserinstitute.ca) is a research analyst in The Fraser Institute's Calgary office. She is co-author, with Barry Cooper, of the Public Policy Source Off Limits: How Radical Environmentalists are Shutting Down Canada's National Parks
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