‘Loved to death’: Balancing recreation and conservation in Alberta’s mountain parks

Using personal vehicles to access Banff National Park is not sustainable and using transit should be encouraged, according to a panel on sustainable transportation.

The number of annual visitors to Alberta’s parks has been steadily rising, sparking a question of how to balance the desire for recreation with environmental concerns.

“Places like Banff National Park and Waterton are being loved to death,” said Jody Hilty, president of Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

The number of visitors to both Banff and Jasper national parks increased by around 25 per cent from 2011 to 2020.

The Alberta government said the number of visitors to provincial parks, meanwhile, has increased by more than 33 per cent over the last five years.

Hilty was a lead scientist on a recent study that found that about a quarter of trails in the mountains of Alberta and southern B.C. are unmanaged, which can lead to concerns around sensitive wildlife, she said.

“If trails are going through creeks and rivers that have endangered bull trout or other species, it can actually impact the water quality and impact their ability to reproduce,” she said, adding human activity may also cause animals to abandon their dens.

She wonders if the unmanaged trails were created by hikers looking to get away from packed attractions.

“Is it because people just kind of want to toot off on their own and kind of get away from the crowds? We don’t know,” she said.