Protected Areas through Time

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Abstract

A protected area is a geographically defined area that is designated, regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives. Canada has a long history of establishing protected areas. The first such area, Banff National Park, was created in 1885. Although there was a conscious effort to establish policies to protect land and wildlife in the early years after Confederation, networks of protected areas have been created more systematically in more recent decades as a means to set aside areas free from resource-extraction activities. Over time, an increasing diversity of protected-area types has been created: forest reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and ecological reserves, to name but a few.

This map illustrates the 1385 protected areas in Canada as of 2007, that are greater than 10 square kilometres and administered by the federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal governments. They are classified according to the year they were established, and together illustrate the progression through time in the growth of Canada’s protected areas.

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The Early Years (1885-1928)

The first formally designated conservation areas were established in the latter part of the 19th century. Banff National Park, Canada’s first protected area was established after hot springs were discovered on the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. Today it is the most frequently visited national park in the country.

Last Mountain Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada’s first waterfowl refuge, was created in 1887. Last Mountain Lake is an important migratory stopover for hundreds of thousands of birds travelling across the Prairies between their northern breeding grounds and their southern wintering grounds.

In 1893, Ontario was the first province to establish a conservation area: Algonquin Provincial Park. It was followed by Rondeau Provincial Park, also in Ontario, the following year.

The number of protected areas grew during the early part of the 20^th century as several laws were established to conserve Canada’s land. These included the Northwest Territories Game Act and the Migratory Birds Convention Act (1917). In 1919, the first migratory bird sanctuaries were created under this act. The pressure on wildlife led to the creation of 10 more migratory bird sanctuaries along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in 1925. The Dominion Parks Branch (now known as the Parks Canada Agency) was established in 1911, the world’s first organization charged with the management of national parks. The first 12 national parks were established during this period.

During the first 60 years after Confederation, Canada and the provinces had established 33 large protected areas. Two-thirds of these were administered by the federal government and the others were provincial conservation areas.

The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

During the 1930s, the Prairies went through a long occurrence of drought. To alleviate the crisis in agriculture, the federal government created more than 30 community pastures to protect native grasslands and provide food for cattle. During the 1930s and early 1940s, the number of protected areas tripled. Most of the newly created protected areas were community pastures located in Saskatchewan and administered by Agriculture Canada’s Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration. The Saskatchewan government also started a provincial community pasture program. The goal of these community pastures was to provide grazing and breeding opportunities to farmers, promote soil conservation and generally improve the economic development of surrounding areas.

The National Parks Act was passed in 1930 and four national parks were created in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and Ontario during the 1930s. Three large migratory bird sanctuaries were established in the James Bay area between 1939 and 1945.

The Post-War Years (1946-1970)

In the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, there was a two-fold increase in the creation of protected areas relative to the previous 16-year period. Half of the newly protected areas were created in Saskatchewan as the community pasture programs, both federal and provincial, continued to expand. Although most of the protected areas were previously administered by the federal government, this trend was reversed as three-quarters of the conservation areas created in this period were provincially administered.

At the federal level, the National Wildlife Policy and Program was put in place in 1966. As a result, many large migratory bird sanctuaries were established in the North, including Queen Maud Gulf, still the largest protected area in Canada today. Two national parks were created in the newly formed province of Newfoundland.

Early Environmental Awareness (1971-1991)

During this period, Canadian conservation groups, such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the World Wildlife Fund of Canada, launched an ‘Endangered Spaces’ campaign. The campaign’s goal was to “establish a network of protected areas representing all natural regions of Canada by the year 2000”. The Canadian Wilderness Charter was signed by 600 000 Canadian citizens, making it one of the largest petitions in Canadian history (Monte Hummel et al, 1995). Between 1971 and 1991, the number of protected areas greater than 10 square kilometres almost doubled. Ninety percent of the newly protected areas were created by provincial or territorial governments. British Columbia established 61 protected areas during this period, Ontario created 60, Alberta 23, Saskatchewan 22, Manitoba 13, Quebec 17, the Maritime Provinces 3 and the Yukon 2. Newfoundland created its 17 first provincial protected areas, including Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, the most easterly protected area in Canada.

The Canada Wildlife Act of 1973 gave the Canadian Wildlife Service of Environment Canada authority to purchase land to set aside as National Wildlife Areas, instead of leasing it. Habitat protection evolved to include landscapes other than wetlands, for species other than the waterfowl population. Nine national wildlife areas of more than 10 square kilometres were created during this period. The national parks network continued to expand, with the creation of 13 new parks, including Quttinirpaaq, the most northerly national park; and Kluane and Ivvavik, on the Yukon-Alaska border, the most westerly national parks.

Recent Years (1992-2007)

In 1992, the federal, provincial and territorial ministers of environment met to discuss the protection of Canada’s endangered spaces. They produced a statement of commitment to complete Canada’s network of protected areas representative of its land-based and marine-based natural regions by the year 2000. This commitment triggered an impressive increase in the number of protected areas, as indicated in the graph below. Within 15 years, the number of protected areas increased by four times, 98 percent of which were provincial or territorial. All of Canada’s 10 provinces and 3 territories now have networks of protected areas. Today, close to 1 million square kilometres of Canada’s lands, or about 10 percent of the country, are conserved as some form of protected area.

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Figure 1. Number of Protected Areas Established, by 5-Year Intervals

Marine Protected Areas

Although Canada is surrounded by three oceans, protection of marine areas and resource inputs have lagged behind when compared to initiatives for terrestrial areas. Some protected areas, such as migratory bird sanctuaries, national wildlife areas and national parks, include important shorelines and marine components. As of 2008, roughly 0.5 percent of Canada’s oceans have been included as protected areas, since it is only recently, with the implementation of the Oceans Act in 1997, that exclusively marine protected areas have been legislated. Canada has emphasized national and international commitments to accelerate the growth of its network of marine protected areas.

Since 2000, there have been important changes in the way that some federal, provincial and territorial governments plan and develop their lands and waters, thereby opening up new avenues for protecting the natural capital of Canada. Integrated landscape and seascape management is enabling decision-makers from the private and public sectors to work together to simultaneously identify which lands should be set aside for industrial-resource extraction and which ones should de dedicated for conservation.

More Details and Photos on Significant Protected Areas

An International Perspective

Canada is not the only country actively working to protect its special places. There have been international commitments for the development of networks of protected areas. In 1972, the Stockholm Declaration from the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment endorsed the protection of representative examples of all major ecosystems as a fundamental requirement for national conservation programs. Since then, the protection of representative ecosystems has become a core principle of conservation biology, supported by key United Nations resolutions-including the World Charter for Nature (1982), the Rio Declaration (1992) and the Johannesburg Declaration (2002). In 2005, member countries to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity developed the Programme of Work on Protected Areas, which committed them to complete networks of terrestrial protected areas by 2010, and networks of marine protected areas by 2012. As a signatory to these conventions, Canada has substantially increased the number of its protected areas in the last decades.