State of Environment Reporting

How Does British Columbia Compare with Other Provinces?

Across Canada Comparison of Protected Areas

SOURCE: Numbers for British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland/Labrador and the Northwest Territories are current for 2001 and are provided by the jurisdictions. The remaining numbers are from World Wildlife Fund Canada, July 2000. NOTES: Numbers stated for PEI and New Brunswick are considered current to 2001. No numbers are available for Nunavut. The value for Canada is slightly underestimated, as it does not include up to date information from Quebec or Nunavut. Areas included in this analysis must be exempted from any type of resource extraction or human manipulation that would cause long-term or large-scale impacts to natural character; exempted activities include logging, mining, the development of hydroelectric dams and oil or gas extraction. These protected areas are managed for the conservation of natural diversity and maintenance of ecosystem integrity as defined by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) categories I, II, and III. Protected areas include national parks, ecological reserves, class A and C provincial parks, recreation areas and protected areas established under the Environment and Land Use Act. They do not include wildlife management areas, migratory bird sanctuaries and regional parks.

How does British Columbia compare?

• In February 2002, the percentage of the provincial land base in protected areas was 12.5%, tied with Alberta for the highest in Canada.
  
  
• In 2001, approximately 7.3% of Canada’s land base was protected, up from 3.0% in 1989.
  
  
• Between 1989 and 2001, Manitoba had the greatest increase in the percentage of protected areas (from 0.5% to 8.4%) followed by British Columbia (from 5.3% to 12.5%).
  
  
• From 1989 to July 2000, almost 39 million hectares were added to Canada’s protected areas network. Over 1,000 new parks and reserves were designated, more than doubling the land area protected from coast to coast.
  
  
• In 2000, Canada ranked 33rd, globally, for percentage of land base in protected areas.