Threats to Canada's parks
Industrial activity
In some provinces and territories, the words "park" and "protected" are not synonymous. Four of Manitoba's major southern provincial parks have at least half of their area allocated to logging or mining. And in Ontario, large swaths of Algonquin Park are open to logging.Isolation and Fragmentation
A major advance in conservation science is our understanding of the threat that isolation poses to protected areas. It is now widely accepted that parks surrounded by urban development or a radically changed landscape are like ecological islands disconnected from the broader ecosystem. Species become trapped on these islands and are vulnerable to sudden population declines -- or even local extinctions -- caused by disease, predation or habitat loss. It is often difficult or even impossible for species -- and their genes -- to migrate in or out of these islands, leading to inbreeding and weakened populations of both animals and plants.Connecting our parks together as networks by managing the surrounding landscape in a way that allows species to move is critical if our parks are to effectively protect nature into the future.