Ottawa to negotiate IIBA for High Arctic park in Nunavut

RANDY BOSWELL
CANWEST NEWS SERVICE

OTTAWA — “Very isolated.” “Incredibly harsh.” “One of the world’s most inclement, driest and unforgiving environments.”

The Canadian government has taken a major step to create a new national park in the High Arctic and simultaneously ensured almost no tourists will ever want to go there.

In announcing a breakthrough deal with nearby Inuit communities to eventually set aside a 5,700-square-kilometre conservation zone around the north end of uninhabited Bathurst Island, Parks Canada described the proposed park — among other uninviting ways — as “a rock-strewn, mostly barren, polar desert.”

It did add, unpersuasively, that “the area is beautiful.” And it noted — more convincingly — that Bathurst Island is an important habitat for polar bears, Arctic foxes and the endangered Peary caribou.

Ecological haven? Yes.

Tourism magnet? Not likely.

But the park’s formal creation, pending the outcome of an Inuit impact and benefit agreement to be negotiated with the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, would ensure “the conservation of the region’s special features” and “the provision of visitor opportunities,” the government promised.

The federal government and Inuit leaders “are once again working together toward the protection of precious lands in Canada’s North,” Environment Minister Jim Prentice said in a statement issued Tuesday.

“Since 2006, we have made conservation a priority, and this is another example.”

John Amagoalik, director of lands for the QIA, said in the release that the community of Resolute Bay on neighbouring Cornwallis Island is in favour of the establishment of the park and willing to pursue talks “to make a final determination as to how Inuit will benefit” from protecting Bathurst Island.

And Leona Aglukkaq, the federal health minister and Conservative MP for Nunavut, said the new park will “not only protect wildlife species, but it will also ensure economic benefits for the community and protect and present the rich cultural heritage of the Inuit.”

The key beneficiary could be the seriously threatened Peary caribou species, which is known to have its main calving ground within the boundaries of the proposed park.

Experts widely agree that Peary caribou have struggled in recent years from a lack of lichens, their primary food source, as warming temperatures increasingly leave the animal’s traditional, snow-covered feeding grounds encased in layers of ice.

Inuit leaders and federal officials have clashed in the past over Peary caribou conservation measures that could impinge on traditional hunting practices.

But the Bathurst Island park accord announced this week proposes to balance Inuit interests with the goal of protecting one of the few types of northern ecosystems — the “Western High Arctic Natural Region” — not yet represented in Canada’s national parks system.

The park proposal excludes some areas of “high mineral and hydrocarbon potential” to “ensure the possibility of future mineral development and therefore secure economic benefit to residents of Resolute Bay,” Parks Canada states in a background document detailing the proposed new wildlife reserve.

Nature lovers are reminded in the report that lemmings and Arctic hares are among Bathurst Island’s regular inhabitants, and that while birds abound in the region they are best viewed during the short summer months.