Wood Buffalo National Park at risk of losing international heritage designation
OTTAWA — Canada has eight months to put forward a detailed plan to improve the health of its largest national park or risk having the United Nations add it to a list of world heritage sites considered to be in danger.
Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories, has been a world heritage site since 1983. In March the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization in March issued a report warning the park was at risk from industrial development, including oil sands and hydroelectric dams, and would be designated “in danger” if Canada didn’t implement 17 recommendations to save the park.
The park is home to one of the world’s last self-regulating bison herds and is the only remaining nesting ground of the endangered whooping crane.
The UNESCO report, based on a visit to the park by experts last fall, came after a complaint from the Mikisew Cree First Nation in 2014. The UN agency’s world heritage committee recommendations include improved staffing, better collaboration with indigenous partners on the park’s management and a risk management review of oil sands tailing ponds, focused on the impact on the Peace-Athabasca delta.