I see that geonarcissa has posted about visiting the oldest active geocache in Quebec last Friday. She mentions that this cache is due to be removed because it is an area designated by the NCC as the Integral Conservation Zone. She also points to another pair of geocachers who visited the site on Saturday (and got spooked by a bear).
The info about the cache also acknowledges that it will be removed in a few weeks but encorages people to get out and visit the cache before it is gone.
It strikes me that this may be somewhat the opposite effect that was desired by the NCC in designating the Integral Conservation Zone – which is supposed to be an area of the highest ecological importance and sensitivity and the reason why the geocache is being removed; the idea is to reduce human traffic, not to increase it. Ah, the paradox.
Geonarcissa concludes her post saying “maybe with time, the NCC will recognize that this park’s true value is the open green space it provides to the residents of Ottawa-Gatineau…”
My response to that is that if park users want the NCC to place higher value on people’s experience of the park, this notion needs to be expressed in the next Gatineau Park Master Plan. The NCC marches to the beat of the documents that govern it and both the 2005 Gatineau Park Master Plan and the current Bill C-20 have lots to say about conservation (a good thing) but very little to say about park users.
This isn’t to say that the Integral Conservation Zone should be blasted open for geocaching and all other activities, only to say that if people perceive an imbalance between their interests as park users and their interests as environmentally responsible stewards of the park, the place to correct that imbalance is at the level of the governing documents.
The cards that GuideGatineau has begun distributing to promote the website are considered to be highly environmentally responsible due to the fact that the paper used is 100% recycled and is produced using energy from biofuels plus the ink is vegetable based.
This geocache has been in place since 2001, and to date has only had about 75 visitors in that time. There are no established trails to this spot, so each visitor has to determine his/her own route. We’ve found that geocaches like this, in remote area without trails, have much less impact than easily accessible geocaches close to trails.
Even with the increased traffic that is occurring right now, this is a geocache that requires some level of fitness, determination, and interest to get to.
I agree that park users need to try to get in on the discussions that ultimately lead to these policies.
No, the NCC does not march to the “beat of the documents that govern it.” If that were true, there would be no proliferating residences in the park. And reports would be filed with the appropriate authorities when criminal fires destroy the park’s cultural landmarks!
And the Conservation Plan would not have been two years late (the 2005 park master plan committed to producing it “In the three years following adoption of the Master Plan,” p. 52).
All master plans say private property is detrimental to the park, yet the NCC has failed appallingly to implement its commitments to remove it. In fact, it has allowed 119 new houses to be built inside the park.
For evidence of the NCC’s hypocrisy on this, i.e., its clear commitment to removing private properties from the park, see: Gatineau Park Master Plan, National Capital Commission, Ottawa, 1980, p. 35; Gatineau Park: a Master Plan for the ’90s and Beyond, National Capital Commission, Ottawa, 1990, p. 29; Gatineau Park Master Plan, National Capital Commission. May 2005. p. 52, http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/data/2/rec_docs/1768_Master_Plan_e.pdf).
The NCC marches to a selective beat that allows landowners to desecrate the park’s environment; it hypocritically tells bikers to keep out of the park in early spring–and allows NCC staff and maintenance contractors to drive their heavy vehicles on waterlogged park trails, causing more damage than a thousand bikers on a rainy day. It has the temerity to tell geocachers they harm the environment, while looking the other way and allowing houses to be built in the fish habitat at Meech Lake. Some of them with use of dynamite.
“Keep off the islands to protect the loons, people! But let’s allow the squatters to blast away at the Meech Lake shoreline and build their houses on the lakebed!” A sickening display of cowardice and toadyism…
Master plans are only wish lists the NCC routinely disregards to placate its friends/masters, the park squatters.
For maps that show the extent to which private property strangles public access, see the zooms of an NCC map at: http://www.gatineauparc.ca/maps_en.html.