List of protected areas of British Columbia

British Columbia Parks and Protected Areas
Statistics
Type	Number	Area
		hectares	acres
Provincial Parks	640	10,514,446	25,981,760
Recreation Areas	2	5,929	14,650
Conservancies	156	2,998,507	7,409,470
Ecological Reserves	148	160,456	396,500
Protected Areas	81	383,892	948,620
Campgrounds	340	–
Campsites	11,075	–
Boat launch areas	119	–
Hiking trails	2,767 km (1,719 mi)

The following is a list of all provincial parks and protected areas within British Columbia. As of June 2015, there are a total of 1,029 protected areas in the British Columbia Parks and Protected Areas System, covering a total of 14,063,250 hectares (34,751,000 acres), or 14.4% of all lands in the province.^[1]

History

The popularity of the Glacier and Yoho National Park, both established by the federal government as national parks in 1886, and of municipal parks like Beacon Hill Park, established in 1882 and Stanley Park, established in 1888, led to the government of Richard McBride to adopt the Provincial Parks Act in 1908 which enabled provincial government to reserve public lands for future parks. After the federal government's interest in establishing national park on Vancouver Island became known, McBride placed a large park reserve over the middle of the island; with the adoption of the Strathcona Park Act on March 1, 1911, a portion of this area became BC's first provincial park, 214,451 ha in area at the time. Also, the Mount Robson Provincial Park was established with the Mount Robson Provincial Park Act in 1913 as a 207,976 ha park, and the Garibaldi Provincial Park was reserved in 1920^[2] and established as a 252,006 ha park with the Garibaldi Park Act in 1927. Also in 1911, the McBride government amended the Provincial Parks Act to allow the creation of provincial parks by an Order in Council, rather than an act of parliament. Following the creation of two more national parks, Mount Revelstoke in 1914 and Kootenay in 1920, the government of John Oliver created, by Order in Council, the John Dean Park from a private land donation, and two mountain-top parks, Kokanee Glacier and Mount Assiniboine, with the support of the Alpine Club of Canada. These early parks were established for recreational purposes and the larger ones were intended to be developed as major tourist destinations; their creation did not extinguish any existing forestry or mining rights. The government amended the Provincial Parks Act in 1924 to allow the reduction in area of established parks and also to acquire land for parks through land or timber exchanges. Another amended in 1927 allowed for the rising of water levels within parks.^[3][4]

In addition to several small, local use parks established throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the government of Duff Pattullo created four large parks. Both the Tweedsmuir and Hamber Provincial Parks were over one million hectares when created in 1938 and 1941, respectively, the Wells Gray Provincial Park was established in 1939 at over 470,000 hectares, and the E. C. Manning Provincial Park was created from a wildlife reserve in 1941. The Liard River Provincial Park was a short-lived 730,000 hectare protected area, established in 1944 and cancelled in 1949, though its central feature was included in the 1957, 1,082 hectare Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. The Social Credit government of W. A. C. Bennett (1952-1972) created hundreds of small parks but reduced the overall size of the park system from 3.6 to 2.9 million hectares to accommodate resource development. While these parks continued the recreational focus of the park system, including the first heritage park with the Barkerville Provincial Park and the first marine parks that have areas for moorage, the new 1965 Park Act inserted conservation as a park objective for the first time and the 1971 Ecological Reserves Act, the result of its participation in the International Biological Program, saw protected areas created solely for the purpose of scientific research and educational purposes.

As the New Democratic Party government of Dave Barrett (1972-1975) formed, awareness of environmental issues in the province had been rising for several years and the new government placed an emphasis on land management and preservation. It benefited from the Accelerated Park Development Fund, created in Bennett's last year in power, and a long list of potential parks of mostly mid to large sizes that were not approved by the previous government for various reasons. In its four years, the NDP government had brought the size of the park system up to 4.5 million hectares. The next Social Credit governments (1976-1991) returned its focus to small recreation-oriented parks and sought cost-savings through partnerships, though they continued creating ecological reserves and reconciled outstanding mineral and forestry tenures in existing parks. Private service delivery of park services began in the early-1980s, mostly notably in the area of ski hills as private developments within parks, such as Cypress and Seymour, or promoting private developments just outside of parks, like Blackcomb and Mount Washington. Likewise seeking a partnership saving costs, the government agreed to move parks and reserves on Moresby Island into the national park system to create the Gwaii Haanas National Park. Also, during this timeframe the first inland marine park was created with the Shuswap Lake Marine Park and numerous parks (such as Monkman, Sukunka Falls, Gwillim Lake and East Pine) were created to support the government priority of building Tumbler Ridge.

Park creation under the next New Democratic Party government (1991-2001) was guided by the federal government's acceptance of the Brundtland Commission's recommendation of preserving 12% of the country in its natural state. To achieve the 12% target, a provincial protected area strategy and regional land use planning was initiated to identify areas and means for resource extraction and for protection. With the addition of suitable areas identified through the resource planning process and numerous very large parks, such as Tatshenshini-Alsek, Ts'ilʔos, Northern Rocky Mountains and Cariboo Mountains, along with the adoption of the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act, the park system doubled in area to 10.9 million hectares (11.6% of the province) in just 10 years.

Park creation halted for the first few years of the Liberal Party government (2001-2017) as it down-sized government operations, though they followed through, in 2004, with recommendations of completed land use plans for creating parks in identified areas. The provincial-federal agreement to assemble the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve was continued and resulted in several new provincial parks in the Gulf Islands. The major accomplishment of this era was creation of conservancies in 2006 as protected areas that prioritize biological diversity and First Nations values, rather than recreational values. First Nations had previously been largely excluded from deliberations of park development until the 1997 Supreme Court decision of Delgamuukw v British Columbia after which the provincial government began recognizing Aboriginal title. Also in this era, land trusts became an effective tool to protect privately owned land in a way that did not require its outright purchase and management by the government.

Designations

The BC Parks and Protected Areas System consists of five different designations:^[1]

• Provincial Parks: Significant protected Crown lands, divided into three classes:
  • Class A Parks: Dedicated lands to preserve their natural environments. Development is generally restricted for recreational facilities only.
  • Class B Parks: Additional activities and uses are permitted, provided that they are not detrimental to recreational values.
  • Class C Parks: Managed by a local board, and are generally smaller, providing local recreational amenities.
• Recreation Areas: Land set aside for recreational use by the public. It is also land that is being evaluated by BC Parks from both a protected area value and an economic opportunity perspective to determine whether the area should be "upgraded" to full protected area status or returned to integrated resource management lands.
• Conservancies: Lands that are protected and maintained for biological diversity, natural environments, and recreational values. These lands are also explicitly recognized for social, ceremonial and cultural uses of First Nations.
• Protected Areas: A natural area that generally has existing or proposed activities that are normally restricted from a provincial park, such as an industrial road, pipeline, transmission line or communications site.
• Ecological Reserves: An area reserved for its ecological importance, and providing suitable scientific research and educational purposes, representative examples of natural ecosystems or ecological recovery from human activity, habitat for rare or endangered native plants and animals, and/or unique and rare examples of botanical, zoological or geological phenomena.

List of parks and protected areas

Please refer to the BC Parks website for lists of parks/protected areas and ecological reserves.

A complete list of provincial parks can be found in the list of British Columbia Provincial Parks.