By Canadian Press

More staff, artificial flooding among plans to save Wood Buffalo National Park

Feb 1, 2019 | 11:54 AM

OTTAWA — The federal government intends to save the international heritage status of Canada’s largest national park by increasing staffing, better monitoring the tailings from the oil sands, and artificially recreating spring flooding to rejuvenate the park’s waterways.

Today’s plan comes nearly two years after the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization warned Wood Buffalo National Park was at risk of being declared in danger as a world-heritage site because it wasn’t being properly managed.

That warning was the result of complaints made to the United Nations by the Mikisew Cree First Nation, which believes climate change, hydro dams and the oil sands are having catastrophic effects on the park’s ecosystem.

Mikisew spokeswoman Melody Lepine says the biggest question mark over the park’s future is whether the government will put the resources in to save it.

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Last year’s federal budget included a $1.3-billion, five-year investment in national parks, and in July, $27.5 million of that was earmarked for Wood Buffalo.

Wood Buffalo National Park covers 45,000 square kilometres of forests, wetlands and grasslands that straddles the border of Alberta and the Northwest Territories and is home to the largest free roaming wood-bison herd, the last breeding ground for whooping cranes and one of the largest inland river deltas in the world.

The Canadian Press