Helping Complete Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park

Southeastern Bc is changing. Residential development, forestry, mining, and motorized recreation are taking up more land in valley bottoms that are critical wildlife habitats. These activities and the increasing presence of people mean there is less space where wild animals can roam freely and find the resources they need to survive and thrive.

The valley of the Flathead River has been described as one of the most important basins for grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, marten and wolverine in the Rocky Mountains. In Montana, the east half of the Flathead is protected in Glacier National Park, the American side of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. In British Columbia, the Flathead Valley bottom is the missing piece of Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park.

Once in a long while, an opportunity comes along in southern Canada to create a better future for wildlife and wild places. We now have such an opportunity in the Rocky Mountains of Southern British Columbia.

If it succeeds:

• 100,000 acres of the Flathead Valley will be added to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park;

• a Wildlife Management Area will be legislated that connects the peace park to Banff National Park;

• long-term resource based jobs in the region will be preserved.

Expansion of the park would be a "win-win" solution - protecting important wildlife habitat while contributing to the economies of local communities in B.C.'s Elk Valley.