Sept 22, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA Sept 22, 2000 |
 by Patty PittsPhotos of golf fairways with killer Rocky Mountain views and wapiti herds munching contentedly near the greens are a resort marketer’s dream — and Rick Searle’s nightmare. To the UVic geography instructor, these images represent the best and worst of Canada’s national parks system. “On one hand there’s the grandeur of the scenery. Then there’s a town like Banff, in a park, offering services equal to a city four times its size.” The result, says Searle, is a national parks system in deep trouble and in need of reassessing its role in Canadian society and its image in the minds of Canadians who are loving their parks to death. He lays out the conditions leading to the parks’ environmental decline in his book Phantom Parks: The Struggle to Save Canada’s National Parks, the result of a five-month, coast-to-coast odyssey Searle and his wife made to 23 national parks in 1997. He found a parks system torn between its prescribed mission to preserve wilderness and eco-systems and its original mission to cater to visitors’ wants and needs in a revenue-generating effort to combat funding cutbacks. “We are increasingly creating a legacy of phantom parks,” he writes, “places that still look beautiful, but where the essential quality of wildness is largely absent.” Searle says the changes needed to salvage the system go beyond a moratorium on development and good behaviour on park trails and lakes. “We need an attitudinal change so that nature is not viewed as only having value if we exploit it. If we don’t give that attitude up, we won’t deviate from an unsustainable course.” Much of Searle’s book describes the system’s ills: increasing development on the parks’ boundaries, the detrimental effect of pollution on ecosystems and wildlife, and the escalating expectations of increasing numbers of visitors whose idea of a wilderness experience involves a sports utility vehicle, Sea-doo, and satellite television. Yet, Searle ends the book on a hopeful note, offering suggestions to restore the parks and the flora and fauna that dwell there. He suggests “decommissioning” some park attractions — possibly including the highly popular, and lucrative, golf courses — to restore the parks’ natural habitats. Stewardship doesn’t end at the park boundaries. Searle advocates that individuals or organizations owning property that borders on parks enter into covenants to maintain the land in a way that complements the parks. “All landowners, be they farmers, cottage owners or corporations, should refrain from developing their property in a way that lures animals from the park or threatens park vegetation,” he stresses. Searle spent several years working in national and provincial parks before earning his master’s degree in geography at UVic. He next worked as an environmental consultant and became increasingly frustrated when he saw park practice clashing with park philosophy. When the federal government announced in 1996 that it intended to operate the country’s national parks on an “entrepreneurial model, it sent chills down my spine. I found the idea of treating a park like a commodity to be sacrilegious.” After taking a research trip to Kluane National Park, he realized that it would take a book to fully address all the issues. Searle says his book is “more journalistic than academic” and hopes it reaches “people who say they care, but are unaware of what’s happening in national parks.” Ultimately, he’s optimistic. “I don’t see that our parks are destined to become phantoms. There’s still a chance to turn things around. But we need to move fast and now.” Excerpts from Searle’s book are reprinted in Death by a thousand cuts. |