Back to Chapter 7: Science Outreach

Glen Canyon benefits from local science education program
by Joele B. Doty

Students help meet the research needs of the present and future
by Paul E. Super

Bear-proofing garbage cans near Great Smoky Mountains National Park
by Kim Delozier

Growing and greening the economy of Vietnam: A role for the National Park Service?
by Mike Soukup

Program to preserve Neotropical migrants takes flight
by Scott Hall and Gary Johnston

Award-Winner Profile--Karen Wade

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by John G. Dennis

In late 1998, Parks Canada invited the U.S. National Park Service to participate in a Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada's National Parks. The Minister of Canadian Heritage called for the panel because of a growing awareness that Canada's parks are under stress. As in the United States, Canadian parks are meant by law to be maintained unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. However, almost all of Canada's 39 national parks are being stressed by habitat loss and fragmentation, loss of large carnivores, air pollution, pesticides, exotic species, or overuse. The panel was to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Parks Canada's approach to maintaining ecological integrity in Canadian parks and to recommend improvements in these methods. The 11-member panel, which conducted its first field visit in January 1999, comprised a biologist from the Mohawk Council of the Akwesasne, several academics and consultants, a member of a nongovernmental organization, and a Parks Canada scientist. It also included two advisors, one of whom was the author, to represent the international community broadly and the United States specifically.

Over the past several years the U.S. National Park Service has increased its technical involvement with other governments regarding the management of park natural resources. While these exchanges may respond to specific requests for help, they also build collaborative relationships and provide opportunities for the Park Service to learn from managers of parks in other parts of the world. Canada's request for an NPS participant on the panel gave this bureau a chance to exchange ideas with a sister park service and to consider the striking parallels between ecological integrity problems and their potential solutions in Canadian parks and those in the United States.

The panel found that park ecological integrity is being impaired and that a majority of Canadian national parks have significant threats to their natural resources. These threats originate from both inside and outside park boundaries. Solutions are not simple and will require a broad range of initiatives. Participation by citizens, commerce, conservation organizations, and governments will be needed to protect Canada's national treasures.

The findings and recommendations of the panel, published by Parks Canada,¹ are similar to those of the NPS 1999 Natural Resource Challenge and 1980 report on threats to U.S. national parks. This commonality suggests several key points. Worldwide, park natural resources are at risk because of human population growth. Park management must change if parks are to accomplish their statutory mission to protect natural resources unimpaired for future generations. Everyone, not just a few park resource managers, is a contributor to the long-term protection of park natural resources.

The development of the panel's report and the Natural Resource Challenge are serendipitously coincidental. Each identifies a common challenge and offers comparable solutions. Each stresses the need for investment in inventory, monitoring, research, and adaptive management. By sharing knowledge and effort through partnership with Parks Canada, the National Park Service can improve its own field methods, data management techniques, and assessment processes more rapidly and effectively. The two countries also have natural resources in common—migratory animals, ecosystems that extend to both sides of the border, and gene pools of wide-ranging species. By working together, each nation's park service can contribute to the well-being of continental biota. Finally, both the panel's report and the Natural Resource Challenge encourage environmental leadership, especially in action. In striving to be environmental leaders, there is room for partnership. There is also room for healthy competition of ideas and action—competition that can benefit not only both countries but also national parks throughout the world!

¹Parks Canada Agency. 2000. Unimpaired for future generations? Protecting ecological integrity with Canada's national parks. Volume I—A call to action. Volume II—Setting a new direction for Canada's national parks. Report of the Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada's National Parks. http://parkscanada.pch.gc.ca/EI-IE/index_e.htm. Ottawa, Ontario.

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