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ABOUT PROTECTED AREAS
What is Protection?
Protection means setting aside areas from human developments and activities that are known to harm natural ecosystems.
Sustainable activities like well-managed tourism, hunting, fishing, grazing, gathering and trapping can carry on in protected areas. Many of these human activities have been part of natural ecosystems for thousands of years and do not harm the land.
Some protected areas, like those with certain endangered species, may best be set aside as nature reserves with minimal human use. Others may be protected mainly for their cultural or spiritual values.
Saskatchewan has many different ways to legally protect lands. At one time, the Parks Act was used almost exclusively. Today, other designations such as ecological reserves are more often used. These alternative designations seek to achieve protection consistent with both preservation of natural values and ongoing human uses with acceptable impacts.
Why Protect Areas?
The reasons for creating protected areas in Canada have evolved over time and are still changing. In the late 19th and 20th century people concentrated on preserving the 'wonders of nature' and providing opportunities for tourism and outdoor recreation. These goals continue to be valued by many people, but emphasis for protected areas has shifted in response to dwindling wildlands worldwide. Our focus today is on conserving biological diversity and maintaining the ecological integrity of land. Carefully chosen protected areas help to preserve these things. When we protect the integrity of the land, we also protect the spiritual, cultural, aesthetic and economic values that society deems important.
When we protect areas, we:
- Protect the variety of life - biological diversity
- Help maintain the ecological integrity of ecosystems
- Protect ecological services such as wetlands, intact watersheds, clean air, wild foods, medicines
- Protect sacred places with spiritual value
- Provide an opportunity for traditional knowledge to flourish through use and appreciation of protected areas
- Keep examples of nature as scientific benchmarks
- Provide for recreation and related health benefits
- Preserve our natural and cultural heritage and our ability to understand ourselves
- Recognize wilderness for its inherent value and raw materials for artists, writers and other foundations of culture
- Protect nature's great works of art - the beauty of the land
- Respect the intrinsic value that all life has a right to exist, by protecting wild species in protected areas
- Provide for research and education - with knowledge come understanding, with understanding comes appreciation, with appreciation comes conservation
- Create economic opportunities and jobs through management, research, tourism and other services
- Keep our future options open
In much of southern Saskatchewan, protected areas have become ecological islands disconnected from other areas of remaining natural habitat. Increasingly, natural lands are surrounded by urban development, agriculture, industrial forestry or other land uses that affect the viability of protected ecosystems. There is strong evidence that many wild species cannot survive in small, isolated protected areas. To maintain ecological integrity, networks of inter-connected protected lands need to be identified and managed within all of our ecosystems. This approach requires the cooperation and contribution of all governments, communities, adjacent landowners, non-government organizations and industry.
The land sustains us. We do not sustain the Land.
 Download fact sheet on protecting natural landscapes (pdf)
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