Feds provide $27.5 million for Wood Buffalo
The federal government has announced new funding for Wood Buffalo National Park, which is at risk of being classified as an endangered world heritage site.
The government will give $27.5 million in funding over five years to develop a plan to secure the park, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said in a news release Thursday. The investment comes after recommendations in 2017 by the World Heritage Committee, which oversees UNESCO World Heritage Sites, it said.
“As I have said many times before, the findings and recommendations of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee represent an important call to action,” McKenna said. “Our commitment is real and we will continue to work with all of our provincial, territorial, and Indigenous partners to secure the future of the Wood Buffalo National Park world heritage site for generations to come.”
An environmental assessment report provided to UNESCO said oilsands activity, climate change, pulp and paper facilities, industrial mines, forestry and municipal development and hydro development are fundamentally changing the environment of Wood Buffalo National Park.
The park became a World Heritage Site in 1983. But in 2014, the Mikisew Cree First Nation filed a complaint to UNESCO, saying that Wood Buffalo’s environmental values were being degraded.
UNESCO investigated in 2016 and last year warned that it might put the park on its list of endangered sites. A committee issued a report with 17 recommendations and gave Canada until this year to explain how it would step up conservation efforts.
Wood Buffalo covers almost 45,000 square kilometres of grasslands, wetlands and waterways — one of the world’s largest inland deltas — and is the largest national park in Canada, straddling the Alberta-N.W.T. border. It is the world’s only breeding ground for endangered whooping cranes and home to the largest herd of freeranging wood bison left anywhere. First Nations have depended on the area for generations for cultural and physical sustenance.