Can Canada's Parks Be Saved

Edmonton Journal feature writer Ed Struzik spent four months this summer trekking through Canada's national parks, from the High Arctic to Point Pelee, Pacific Rim to Gros Morne. He found a parks system adored by Canadians, yet crumbling due to neglect. Over eight weeks in the Edmonton Sunday Reader, Struzik explores the mounting challenges the parks face.

Can our parks be saved?

GROS MORNE NATIONAL PARK, Newfoundland and Labrador - It takes a boat ride and a half day of arduous hiking through Gros Morne to get the best view of one of the most dazzling icons of Canada's national park system

Like Spirit Island in Jasper, Lake Louise in Banff and Virginia Falls in Nahanni, the fiord that carves its way through the Newfoundland rock at the east end of West Brook Pond is a showstopper.

On this warm, windy day in August, George VanDusen, the big burly American who oversees one of the province's largest tree-cutting companies, gets to drop in by helicopter before showing off the harvesting that Corner Brook Pulp and Paper is doing along the Main River near here.

Jeff Anderson, the director of resource conservation for Gros Morne, couldn't be more happy to offer a man, who might well have been seen as the enemy in the past, this bird's-eye view.

"George is one of our strongest partners," says Anderson. "With his help, we're keeping the park ecologically connected with the broader landscape that is integral to the well-being of Gros Morne."

Because most of Newfoundland's old-growth forest has been cut down for lumber and pulp production, Gros Morne represents one of the last strongholds for animals like woodland caribou, lynx and a small population of marten that don't do well in clear-cut environments.

Encompassing 1,805 square kilometres, the park alone, however, lacks enough of the necessary forest habitat to support a viable population of these species.

So when VanDusen was asked whether Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, which has rights to harvest most of the forest land on the southern and eastern park border, would consider moving from clearcuts to selective harvesting in some areas to help the animals out, he willingly obliged.

"We're still making money doing it this way," says VanDusen. "Not as much, mind you. But if this is what the public wants, and what it takes to help species like marten recover, we're willing to try and help."

GETTING ALONG WITH THE NEIGHBOURS IS KEY FOR THE FUTURE OF THE PARKS

After being pummelled by more than a decade of budget cuts, Parks Canada is looking for as many friends as it can get to help maintain the integrity of the country's national parks and historic sites, many of which are in an advanced state of disrepair.

Elk Island's Steve Otway and his staff are trying to do it with the Province of Alberta and the county councils that administer lands around the park, just east of Edmonton. Nahanni's Chuck Blyth has done it by forging a strong relationship with the Deh Cho First Nation of the Mackenzie Valley.

But even with a public approval rating that is the envy of every other government department, Parks Canada has had a rough time registering on the radar of Prime Minister Paul Martin's government and getting Canadians fired up about what's happening to the national park system.

All across the country, Parks Canada employees have been rolling their eyes in despair and disbelief as federal Environment Minister Stephane Dion talks about putting trees on rooftops in Ottawa and getting Canadians to drive energy-efficient vehicles when many parks employees are putt-putting around in gas-guzzling clunkers that are so old they measure distance travelled in miles rather than kilometres.

Many people worry that it may reflect the Liberal government's growing disconnect with conservation issues and cultural heritage.

At least that's what some people at both the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Nature Conservancy of Canada are beginning to think. With blue-chip supporters like Edmonton businessman/philanthropist John Poole and former prime minister John Turner, neither organization could be viewed as remotely radical.

Recently, however, the Nature Conservancy and WWF have been striking out in getting the federal government to match the millions they're raising to protect areas that border national parks that are too small in and of themselves to adequately sustain the wildlife and wilderness within.

"I can't tell you how many times we knocked on the government's door to help out with the 100 square kilometres of ranchland that we eventually acquired outside of Waterton National Park with very generous donations from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation and John and Barbara Poole," says Larry Simpson of the Nature Conservancy in Calgary. "In fact, we've
offered to do the same thing for national parks right across the country, without any success."

Monte Hummel, president-emeritus of WWF, is the kind of individual who has had no trouble getting the ear of cabinet ministers or even the prime minister himself. Like the Nature Conservancy, WWF doesn't like to get political.

But even Hummel concedes he was extremely frustrated by the federal government's unwillingness, until last Tuesday, to put up funds to match the money his organization is raising for a protected-areas strategy in the North that includes expansion of Nahanni National Park and the creation of two new national historic sites along Great Bear Lake.

"It's a great start," says former prime minister John Turner, commenting on the government's decision last week to put up $9 million for WWF's protected areas strategy in the North.

"But there's still a long way to go. The 'conservation first' principle has got to come into play before all of the development occurs in the North."

A longtime supporter of WWF, Turner was one of the original backers of a national park on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake. He says that like Bathurst Inlet, the so-called northern Shangri-la on the coast of the central Arctic which was once a candidate for national parks status, the East Arm proposal could be overtaken by other developments if action is not taken soon.

While funding is no doubt one of Parks Canada's biggest problems, others believe the agency needs to do something bold, like re-introducing wolves to Gros Morne to get people excited about parks again.

Not only would such a plan herald the return of a key species that has disappeared from the island, it would also go a long way towards controlling the booming non-native moose population that is literally destroying the park's forests.

By re-introducing wolves to Yellowstone in the 1990s, national park officials in the United States not only solved a festering ecological problem caused by an overabundance of deer and
elk, it captured the imagination of the nation.

Some people, however, argue that Parks Canada needs to radically change the way it is doing things if it's ever going to marshal what public support there is for national parks and
historic sites and turn it into political muscle.

John Whitaker has farmed on the border of Manitoba's Riding Mountain National Park for more than 30 years.

During that time, he's spent nine years on the municipal council and co-chaired the Riding Mountain Biosphere Reserve, an organization that works with Parks Canada to manage lands
along the national park's border.

"I've never hesitated in telling Parks Canada how to do their job, and they've never hesitated telling me to bugger off," says Whitaker.

"But what Parks Canada needs most is a new ethos. Liking Riding Mountain, parks are becoming islands in a sea of agriculture and human development. The agency needs to do a lot of things differently if it's going to keep things green and people happy."

Whitaker believes Parks Canada might start off by standing up for national parks instead of letting environmental groups do it for them.

"I had a minor role in a study of black bear movements in and around Riding Mountain in the late 1980s," says Whitaker.

"It concluded that bear baiting, which has resulted in Riding Mountain being ringed by several hundred bait stations placed by hunting outfitters, is having serious effects on the park by unnaturally modifying bear behaviour, movement and age structure.

"I spoke at several public meetings with a park warden who also worked on the study and is unrivalled in the techniques of bear capture, darting and radio-collaring. Although he tells
truly captivating bear stories, he would not talk about the study's conclusions because of the controversy it would generate. So he left it up to me."

David Schindler, the internationally acclaimed ecologist from the University of Alberta, couldn't agree more. He and his wife, Suzanne Bailey, an accomplished scientist in her own right, have conducted research in several parks for many years.

Both believe that Parks Canada has suffered from a "head-in-the-sand attitude" that has resulted in a steady stream of developments that are making it difficult for large
carnivores like wolves and grizzlies to survive.

ADVOCATES WANT TO SEE STAUNCH DEFENDERS OF THE ECOSYSTEM

"What Parks Canada really needs to do is to get some hard-assed superintendents in there who say the integrity of the ecosystem comes first," says Schindler. " 'Sorry, I don't need any more front-office or PR people. I need to hire three or four scientists.' And you need a bureaucracy to support that."

Perry Jacobsen says that's not going to happen unless some way is found to buffer Parks Canada from federal cabinet ministers who, he says, routinely interfere with the mandate of
the agency even though it's supposed to be a hands-off relationship.

He should know. During the 29 years he worked for Parks Canada, he held some of the most senior positions in the mountain parks.

Jacobsen points to former heritage minister Sheila Copps stepping in and directing Parks Canada to allow a winter road to go through Wood Buffalo National Park, even though roads
have been a nightmare for parks.

"What Parks Canada needs is a national board of directors of high-profile Canadians who would not only make sure that politicians don't interfere with the mandate of the national
parks, but who would put our senior administrators' feet to the fire to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing," Jacobsen says.

Paul Galbraith says he retired early from Parks Canada -- after 34 years of playing the role of warden, chief park warden and superintendent -- because some of his bosses had lost track
of what national parks are all about. The decision to allow summer recreational use of the Lake Louise ski hill when studies showed it would hurt grizzlies was, for him, the last
straw.

"Every park now has to come up with something that's called a sustainable business plan," he says.

"The emphasis is to find some ways of generating revenues. That's fine. But how do you make money protecting endangered species, or making sure that visitors are safe, or keeping
backcountry trails and bridges in good shape?

"With three million visitors paying the price of admission each year, Banff might be able to do it. But what about all of the other parks like those in the North? You're never going to
get more than a few hundred or maybe few thousand people going there. So what? Do we really want all of them to be like Banff? That's not why those parks were created. They were set up to protect areas of natural significance that are disappearing from all corners of the country

"Here in Canada, we've done something truly unique," says Galbraith.

"Our national parks define this country. But the reality is we're blowing it, and we're blowing it fast."

To be fair, senior officials at the highest levels of Parks Canada have been racking their brains trying to capitalize on the fact that a backcountry warden on horseback is as much a national icon as is the RCMP in uniform.

But the strategy of hiring scores of public relations people, media consultants and image makers to bolster Parks Canada's image in recent years hasn't been very successful.

The problem is that most of these people are outsiders who don't have a clue what parks are all about. As a result, what Parks Canada has often been getting in return are newly
designed uniforms that catch fire or look silly, web pages that contain incorrect information and, with some notable exceptions, public relations people who are defensively
circling the wagons around an agency that should be charging into the hearts and minds of Canadians with all the good-news stories that national parks can tell.

University of Alberta historian Ian MacLaren says he was never more concerned for the future of parks than, when reading the Banff-Bow Valley: At the Crossroads report in 1996 and hearing its authors field questions at a conference, he discovered that a blue-chip panel had made no recommendations for collaborations with school boards for the purpose of educating the public.

"Surely, education is the only hope for parks," says MacLaren who was involved in a major study that documented ecological and cultural changes in Jasper National Park.

"Why would, say, the sixth-grade curriculum in Alberta schools not include a field trip of at least a week's duration for all pupils so that they could travel to one of the Rocky Mountain national parks to be schooled in the purpose, value, workings and meaning of parks?

"Think of how much of even the existing curriculum could be covered at such a school. Think of what good it would do for the morale of parks employees to have warden/teachers form part of their permanent cohort.

"And yet the Banff-Bow Valley report, which was meant to serve as a model for all national parks, fell silent on the issue of how to go about garnering support, and spent all its
attention raising its voice about prevention/prohibition strategies, all of which are necessarily negative-sounding and protectionist, however needful and justified by good scientific data. There's no reason why every kid in every part of the country couldn't have such a week's schooling in the nearest national park.

"If Parks feels marooned," adds MacLaren, "it's because no one is doing any evangelism in their name."

MacLaren is not alone in suggesting that what else is needed are leaders who understand that parks need to be valued in a way that will garner public, and thus parliamentary, support.

"When Bunny Harkin, the first commissioner (1875-1955), stated in 1915 that mountain scenery was worth $13.88 per acre compared to $4.91 per acre of prairie farmland, he was making his point in a way that parliamentarians could understand and could take to the electorate," he says.

"Ninety years later, that lesson and strategy have been forgotten, or so it seems. It's that sort of political savvy that Parks relied on during the national system's busiest years of
expansion, and it is needed again today."

Harvey Locke, a lawyer who was born in Lake Louise, has spent a good part of his adult life working with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the organization that promotes national parks. After years of lobbying the government, he's come to the conclusion that the challenges facing Parks Canada in the 21st century exceed the agency's abilities to adapt and make the necessary changes.

"What I think is required is a national strategy for protected areas," he says.

"Because of the way things work in Ottawa, Parks Canada can't do it alone. You can't have one arm of the government, for example, supporting an expansion of Nahanni National Park
while another arm of the government is promoting a mine in the expansion area and giving out staking permits.

"Somehow, someone has got to get all of those government departments to sit down with Parks Canada and decide what the future is going to be.

"Otherwise, we'll never complete the national parks system and many of our parks will soon look like the paper parks you now see in many parts of the Third World. There'll be a sign
pointing to a national park, but there won't be any trees or wildlife to see."

After years of cutbacks that have resulted in the closing down of trails, campgrounds and historic sites, not to mention jobs, most Parks Canada employees would welcome almost anything other than the status quo.

But what the most passionate among them fear most is change that will undermine the tradition that has made working for Parks more a lifestyle decision than a career goal.

"Budget cuts have really hurt us, but so has an erosion of tradition," says one chief park warden who reflects the views of many of his colleagues.

"Down in Goat's Haunt in Waterton, there's this nice pavilion that celebrates Waterton and Glacier as an international peace park and World Heritage Site. The U.S. Department of
Interior's parks service board has remained unchanged since it was first put up. The Canadian one is full of holes because every few years the name of the agency changes or the department in charge of us has changed.

"Truth be told, the last thing my staff needs is a new uniform that makes them look like they're in a Gap commercial. Sure, they could use better pay. But I think what they cherish
most is a sense of pride that can only come with tradition. Without the tradition that comes by maintaining the backcountry warden on horseback and all of the other things that keep us connected to the public, we're lost."

estruzik@thejournal.canwest.com

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