Keep them healthy

If you’re planning to visit one of Canada’s national parks and reserves this year to celebrate the country’s 150th anniversary, you may want to tread gently.

That’s because at the same time as Ottawa is encouraging Canadians to visit the parks by issuing free passes, a worrisome report from Parks Canada has found that half of the forests, freshwater lakes, wetlands and coastal areas in the national parks are in only fair to poor condition.

Still, measuring the problem is the first step to solving it. Indeed, Alison Woodley, national director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, believes the report is “the first step back to transparency” after a five-year absence.

Further, the report is not alone in shining a much-needed spotlight on park problems.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has been holding consultations, which wrap up this week, with a view to protecting the parks’ “ecological integrity.”

And while some conservationists worry the increase in visitors to the parks this year might further jeopardize the precarious health of the ecosystems, the free pass project might instead be just the ticket to focus more attention on the need to protect them.

As Ed Jager of Parks Canada says: “I think the death of our parks is when nobody wants to come to them and when they don’t care about them anymore.”

Considering that 3.4 million Canadians have already applied for this year’s free passes, there appears to be no danger of that.

Now McKenna must follow up on the consultations with action to rejuvenate and protect the park ecosystems so all Canadians can enjoy them — not just this year, but forever.