Peace Park Plus About

Summary of the Peace Park Plus proposal

The southern Rocky Mountains of British Columbia are internationally renowned for their abundance and diversity of wildlife. Endangered or sensitive species such as grizzly bear, mountain goat, wolverine, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and Bull trout still thrive in the mountains, rivers and valleys of this beautiful landscape.

BC's southern Rocky Mountains are naturally connected to the large protected areas of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park and the U.S. Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Great Bear Wildernesses to the south, and the Canadian mountain national parks of Banff, Kootenay and Yoho to the north. Many species of wildlife, who spend part of their time in these protected areas, also live and travel in the intervening lands in southeastern BC.

At the very southeastern corner of BC, above the US border and adjacent to Waterton Lakes National Park, sits the valley of the Flathead River. It rises behind the mountains southeast of Fernie, BC and flows southward, draining the west slope of the continental divide, on its way to Montana. In the US, the west slope of the Flathead is protected in Glacier National Park. In British Columbia it is not.

Directly north and west of the Flathead Valley lie the Elk and Bull River valleys and the transboundary Wigwam River, which, along with the Flathead, have internationally significant wildlife populations, rich habitats, and intact roadless areas. These lands provide an integral link for wildlife movements between the Height of the Rockies Provincial Park (adjacent to the Banff-Kootenay-Yoho National Park complex) and the British Columbia/Montana border.

The Challenges

Southeastern BC is changing. Its economic base is a mix of traditional resource extraction, tourism and "new economy" jobs. More and more people are attracted to the region for its scenery and recreational opportunities. Residential development is taking up more land in critical valley bottoms that are homes for wildlife. Snowmobiling, off-road vehicle use, helicopter skiing and heli-hiking increasingly occur. Five large open pit coal mines are found within the region. Forestry remains a significant activity, mostly conducted by Tembec, Inc., which operates a mill in the small community of Elko. Tembec's future plans include logging in the Flathead Valley, adjacent to the border of Waterton Lakes National Park.

Housing development, coal mining activities, forestry operations, motorized recreation, and the increasing presence of people on the landscape mean that there is less space where wild animals can roam freely and find the foods and conditions that they need to survive. Wildlife and fisheries in the Elk Valley are being increasingly stressed with the cumulative impacts of resource extraction, development and motorized recreation. Highway 3, which runs the length of the Elk Valley from the Crowsnest Pass, is a major transportation corridor. Crossing it is a huge risk for wildlife, and some of them don't make it.

For these internationally important wildlife populations to remain healthy, they need to have some areas where they are relatively unlikely to encounter people, like parks and other roadless landscapes. Since populations of many large animals cannot be sustained by parks alone, they need to be able to live and travel between protected areas. This especially is true in southeastern British Columbia, where exceptionally high numbers of animals like grizzly bears, wolves, lynx and wolverine live in the Flathead, Wigwam, Bull and Elk drainages.

The Opportunity

Tembec, Inc. has recognized the remarkable value, richness and diversity of the lower Flathead Valley. It has offered to give up its rights to log there, if its business can be kept whole. This involves private and public funding to upgrade its mill at Elko, so that the loss of timber from the Flathead can be made up through more efficient operations. The environment will be protected, and the sawmill will be more modern and competitive while providing long-term job security.

Tembec's willingness to adjust its operations creates an unprecedented opportunity: 100,000 acres of relatively unallocated lands, including rare and fertile low elevation valley bottom, within Flathead Valley that can be added to Waterton Lakes National Park as a wilderness reserve.

"Making this part of the Flathead Valley into a park is a good idea. When I was riding and hunting in it, I used to think this area should be a park. It's a missing piece of Waterton Lakes and Glacier National Parks."

Andy Russell, Outdoorsman and Author

For almost a century, the Flathead Valley has been recognized as a missing piece of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. The Park's first Superintendent recommended in 1911 that Waterton should be "greatly enlarged" to preserve a breeding ground in conjunction with Glacier National Park. Efforts were made to add the area to Waterton Park in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1993, British Columbia's Commission on Resources and Environment recommended a large provincial park there, but it was not implemented due to resource industry conflicts. Now, the primary resource industry active in the area is prepared to accommodate protection of a significant part of this biologically critical region. This is an historic opportunity to resolve a problem almost 100 years old.

As important as it is to provide a sanctuary for wildlife and opportunities for backcountry recreation in the lower Flathead Valley, it is equally important to ensure that wildlife can use the lands in the rest of BC's Flathead and the adjacent Wigwam, Elk and Bull River valleys. A Wildlife Management Area would provide an opportunity to protect key habitats that were designated Special Management Zones in 1994 but were never legislated. It would ensure wildlife management is a priority, while allowing careful resource extraction, by controlling access in a corridor from the Flathead and Wigwam River valleys up through the mountains between the Bull and Elk Rivers. The stewardship of wildlife habitat would be ensured while allowing communities to achieve a sustainable future. Many advocates have proposed conservation management of these lands over the last century.

"I have strongly recommended to the Fernie Game Association that immediate steps be taken by the provincial Parliament to permanently set aside, as a game preserve, the country between the Elk and Bull Rivers. The reasons for such a step are too many to mention here, but let me say that there are practically no reasons against it. Whoever aids in preserving from extinction the grand game of British Columbia renders good service to two countries."

W.T. Hornaday, New York Zoological Society
in: Campfires in the Canadian Rockies, 1905