Crown Land: Indicators and Statistics - Ministry of Forests

Discussion
Figure 17 Percentage of BEC Zone in Protected Areas
Source: GeoBC Geographic Warehouse
The term “protected area” can indicate varying
levels of protection: from complete restriction of
human access to identifying allowable resource use
activities that are compatible with conservation and
recreation objectives.
The primary drivers for the creation and expansion
of parks and other protected areas have changed
over the years in BC. In the late 1930s and 1940s
park expansion was used to encourage tourism. In
the 1970s and 1980s park creation was motivated
by the desire to protect unique natural environments
and cultural features. In the 1990s, the objective was
for parks to represent BC’s biological and cultural
diversity, provide recreational resources, and to
protect habitat.
During the 1990s, the creation of new protected
areas became a focal point of the land use planning
processes. SLRPs were the primary mechanism for
delivering on the Protected Areas Strategy target of
increasing the amount of provincial land base in
protected areas from 6.3% to 12% by 2000. This
target was achieved and exceeded.
Since 2000, an additional 2.2% of BC’s land base has
been set aside in protected areas. Recent additions
to the protected areas system include the May
2008 designation of 70 new conservancies and 11
new Class A parks, along with the expansion of 5
existing parks and 2 existing conservancies. The
new conservancies and parks placed more than 1.4
million additional hectares under protected areas
status, and were largely a result of the North Coast,
Central Coast, Morice, Sea-to-Sky, Haida Gwaii and
Okanagan-Shuswap land use planning processes.
Ministry of
Forests, Lands and
Natural Resource Operations
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