The current version of the National Parks Act provides the most robust language to date, stating that “maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity, through the protection of natural resources and natural processes, shall be the first priority . . . when considering all aspects of the management of parks.”
These National Parks and Reserves are about preserving our regional ecosystems. Most of these parks are not easily accessible, and many are difficult to access. PKOLS – Mount Douglas, a much more accessible park, is an excellent example of beginning to apply these principles. Saanich has the opportunity to preserve a park with a more diverse ecologically threatened system than the National Reserve on Sydney Island.
One of the concepts was to look at the country’s ecological diversity and ensure that each ecosystem had an area of national parks that preserved its uniqueness for future generations.
The map below shows the 39 distinct natural regions of the country and the parks that have now been set aside in these areas. We are in Natural Region 2, “Strait of Georgia Lowlands” in which PKOLS-Mount Douglas is found. PKOLS-Mount Douglas is likely to better represent the unique ecosystems of this region.
