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[milomilo]

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

Whistler's not in a national or provincial park. Do you honestly not understand the premise of national parks? Or do you not understand the difference between an alpine forest and a ski resort? Or are you trolling?

Originally Posted by Riise

You are looking at this through an almost purely anthropocentric lens. However, even anthropocentric environmental sustainability recognizes that the market will not protect the environment and user-demand should not dictate environmental policy.

I'm honestly not trolling. What determines the placement of national parks? Why is the area around Banff not allowed to have any development, but the areas of equal natural beauty/significance (to my eyes) around Golden or Whistler are allowed to be developed? Please don't tell me 'because it is in a park'.

Originally Posted by artvandelay

I agree that Parks Canada's number one mandate should be protecting the unspoiled landscapes in our national parks. Having said that, there's absolutely nothing wrong with improving upon areas that are already home to development. The lengths that some of these bureaucrats go to in order to obstruct and impede any change within park boundaries are ridiculous and not a productive use of public funds.

Park attendance is only going to increase and we need to continuously improve our infrastructure to accommodate this.

This is close to what I mean. The highway 1 corridor is not true wilderness. The places that are true wilderness are far away from that road and the surrounding towns, and we are lucky to have huge amounts of this land that are unspoiled and will remain that way.

[McMurph]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The highway 1 corridor is not true wilderness.

Exactly. The Bow valley corridor is a hugely important ecosystem for a large number of species (incl. human, if you want to think of the watershed). The marginal "protection" of it outside of the gates has been a continuous and often unsuccessful battle. Inside the gates, while not ideal, it has been much more successful. The difference is the protection and planning of the park.

I'm not quite sure where to find this Shangri-La of equally protected wilderness you keep speaking of. The four contiguous mountain parks, and the scattering of provincial parks and wilderness areas that surround it, are unique. Outside of it in every direction are mines, towns, clear cuts, dams, ski-hills...

It may seem huge from the perspective of a human looking for a day hike or a nice view, but from a wilderness and species protection perspective it's still vulnerable. We're lucky to have it and can easily find ways to use it and enjoy it without sacrificing what we've got.