The essence of the National Park Reserve question seems to be, to protect the Kilpoolah area or to exploit it?
The bulk of the land around the Kilpoolah Grasslands is already owned by B.C. Parks, The Nature Conservancy of Canada, The Nature Trust and the small remainder by local ranchers. The mission of the NCC, which owns 3440 acres of the southern portions of the grasslands, is the preservation of land and wildlife. According to the NCC, 52 species on their lands are at risk. The B.C. Parks website refers to the area as one of the four most endangered ecosystems in Canada. The federal government of Canada is at the top of the list of donors for the NCC property, eighteen academic institutions from around B.C. are research partners and there are no rod and gun clubs on the donor list.
At present, perhaps a few thousand people visit the area annually. The NCC and B.C. Parks kindly allow foot traffic onto their properties from spring to autumn, so most of it is already in controlled-access mode. Making these amazing properties part of an NPR means attracting upwards of 77,000 people (Parks Canada projected numbers) a year at the gates of an area that needs our help. Not our exploitation.
The Nature Trust of Canada has properties all over the South Okanagan, which, similarly to the NCC are being used to preserve natural habitats and wildlife. On many of these, public access for foot traffic has been given, on others such as above Vaseux Lake and at the White Lake Biodiversity Ranch, signs are posted asking public to stay off the property due to sensitive habitat or endangered species in the area. In short, for the safety and survival of the things living here, humans stay out. Period.
Quite the irony isn’t it? An NPR offers to protect an already protected land for you but has no clear message other than “all those details will be worked out once we get going” for road upgrades, trails and parking lots. Cap it all off with 77,000 people a year trouping into the Kilpoolah Grasslands. How, one asks, is that somehow beneficial to protecting such a sensitive area?
Lyle Smuin
Penticton
