Although Pink Lake was closed to swimming and restoration measures undertaken more than two decades ago, the Parks Canada website has recently posted a case study on the restoration effort.
Two items caught my eye recently and apply to user activities in Gatineau Park.
The first was a comment by a Park user concerned with potential restrictions to unofficial trails. He said:
“In the spirit of conservation by users, I wonder if the fiscal reality that unofficial trail users have much greater capacity to monitor what is actually going on in the Conservation Zones than Gatineau Park staff is another valid and useful point.”
This matches my way of thinking; that the Park is best protected by fostering a sense of responsibility among Park users, and that “power users” are in the best positions not only to be “on the ground” where good or bad user behaviour can be influenced, but these power users are also most likely to have the dedication to understand contextually what is good or bad behaviour.
The second item actually dates from almost 80 years ago, before Gatineau Park officially existed. In January 28th 1931the Ottawa Ski Club newsletter demonstrated the same concept among Gatineau hills wilderness users in a membership and fund-raising drive:
“One hundred Life Memberships would enable us to buy a few more hundred acres of magnificent bush land traversed by our trails around Camp Fortune, and that will soon be laid low by the woodman’s axe if nothing is done to save them.”
As part of her report to the Board of Directors today, Marie Lemay included the following under the heading of Ecosystem Conservation Plan:
The plan to identify ecological corridors for Gatineau Park has begun and has raised a lot of interest. An external expert committee was formed and a specialized firm hired. Meetings were held with the two Regional County Municipalities (RCM), seven municipalities and environmental groups to discuss the project and the results obtained to date. The 12 potential corridors identified will be studied in detail along with our partners before the final list is submitted. Protection options, type of use and opportunities for recreation in these corridors have been integrated into the project. This project will be completed in the fall of 2011.
So some weeks ago the Ecosystem Conservation Plan came out. It got press because Continue reading
Because most of the reaction to the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan has been focused on rock climbing it might come as a surprise that rock climbers are not seen to be the greatest threat to Gatineau Park.
Stranger still, the single biggest threat to the Park stimulates pretty minimal recommended actions in the Ecosystem Conservation Plan.
Maybe it isn’t so strange after all because Continue reading
This week the Gatineau Park Ecosystem Conservation Plan was released.
Most of the news coverage related to the release has focused on rock climbing. The debate between the NCC and rock climbers is important but the Plan is bigger than that.
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.