Greenprint: Our Plan for Nopiming Park
October 29, 2014
When I tell people about Manitoba, of the wondrous nature that I know and cherish, I speak about my time in the wilderness of Nopiming Provincial Park. My stories all feature a quiet, out-of-the-way lake or rocky ridge, where I find wild solitude and immerse myself in a web of boreal trees and shrubs, flowers and moss and lichen. Occasionally a moose feeding in the river or a lynx prowling through the forest make exciting additions to my accounts. The peace and solace offered by nature is readily available in Nopiming Provincial Park.
The Manitoba government has begun a process to produce a management plan for Nopiming Provincial Park. Since the park was designated in 1976, Nopiming has never had a comprehensive public plan – but it is definitely needed.
For details on the public consultation process, click here.
When the Wilderness Committee opened our Manitoba office in 1999, the first campaign we worked on was ending logging in parks, including Nopiming Provincial Park. Since then we've won the park logging battle, but many more activities are leaving long-term impacts in Nopiming. We've spoken to outfitters and business owners, cottagers and park visitors, and we’ve witnessed some of the detrimental activities first hand. Our work in Nopiming has given us great insight into maintaining nature and wilderness in the park.
As a guideline for the government while they assemble a draft park management plan, the Wilderness Committee has assembled A Greenprint for Nopiming. It highlights new regulations needed to ensure Nopiming remains a wild and natural park. Greenprint calls for a ban to mining in Nopiming, a restriction on all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use, an end to military exercises inside the park, motor boat restrictions on certain lakes, and the expansion of the park to include woodland caribou habitat to the west, and the lower Bird River in the south. It is a big list of regulations, but Nopiming is a big park and we want to keep this wilderness for years to come.
Click here to view A Greenprint for Nopiming.
After reviewing Greenprint, please go to our letter-writing tool and let the government know your opinion of how to manage Nopiming, and keep it wild.
- Eric
