UNESCO team to judge if Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park should go on endangered list

A United Nations body that monitors some of the world's greatest natural glories is in Alberta to assess government responses to ongoing threats to Wood Buffalo National Park.

A United Nations body that monitors some of the world’s greatest natural glories is in Canada again to assess government responses to ongoing threats to the country’s largest national park, including plans to release treated oilsands tailings into its watershed.

In a series of meetings beginning Thursday, UNESCO investigators are to determine whether Wood Buffalo National Park should be on the list of World Heritage Sites In Danger — a move the agency has already deemed “likely.”

“Canada is not delivering,” said Melody Lepine of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, which first brought concerns about the northern Alberta park to UNESCO’s attention.

Bigger than Switzerland, Wood Buffalo is one of the world’s largest freshwater deltas and is rich in biodiversity, including nesting sites for endangered whooping cranes. Its maze of wetlands, rivers, lakes and prairie is the largest and most intact ecosystem of its type in North America.

But the park, which straddles Alberta and the Northwest Territories, is slowly drying up through a combination of climate change and upstream developments such as British Columbia’s Site C dam. As well, research has found increasing evidence of seepage from oilsands tailings ponds into upstream ground and surface water.

In 2017, UNESCO found 15 of 17 ecological benchmarks in the park were deteriorating and gave Canada a list of improvements required for the park to retain its status. This week’s meetings are to assess federal and provincial responses.

A report prepared for Mikisew by scientific consultant Carla Davidson credits the province for establishing buffer areas around the park and Ottawa for water management plans within it. But the document finds little else has been done.

A risk assessment for oilsands tailings ponds hasn’t begun, the report says. Sites in the oilsands region used by whooping cranes haven’t been identified.