We should all be celebrating this fact, but unfortunately our provincial parks are in serious trouble after a decade of funding and staffing cuts.

We have just 10 full-time permanent park rangers, no government-funded interpretive programs and an operational budget that is 25% less than it was in 2001 to look after over 13 million hectares of our parkland. Last fall the BC Auditor General released a critical report that said that the provincial government wasn’t doing enough to protect the ecological integrity of our protected area system. In fact, they aren’t even doing the bare minimum.

The Wilderness Committee has been raising the alarm about the fragile state of our parks. We ran full-page ads in the Vancouver Province and Victoria Times Colonist on Sunday and Monday to let people know about the threats to our parks. We wrote an Op-Ed in the Times Colonist and were excited to see a great story by the Vancouver Sun outlining the threats to BC Parks which ran just this past Saturday.

Our provincial parks are hurting and they need help. Please take a second to write the Minister of Environment, Murray Coell and let him know how you feel about park underfunding.

By working together we can ensure that our parks and protected areas, built by five generations of British Columbians, continue to be the same source of pride for our children and grandchildren as they are for us.

Thanks for standing up for BC’s Parks!

Gwen Barlee | Policy Director
Wilderness Committee