Manitoba government asking your opinion on protecting Duck Mountain and Turtle Mountain Provincial Parks
UPDATE: In July 2020 the government protected all of Turtle Mountain Park, but only a tiny parcel of Duck Mountain Provincial Park. Read our news release.
However, the news is not as good for Duck Mountain Provincial Park. Fondly referred to as “The Ducks”, it is located in west central Manitoba, just north of Riding Mountain National Park. This is one of the most abused parks in our province. More than half of Duck Mountain Provincial Park, 61 per cent, is open for industrial clearcut logging. This is Manitoba’s shame, being one of the last two parks in Canada that allow commercial logging. More than 800 square kilometres of forest that should be protected for animals and nature are in the hands of logging companies.
The Manitoba government’s current proposal for Duck Mountain calls for an area around Line Lake in the northern part of the park to be protected. This is not even one square kilometre of newly protected land! This won’t do – we need to ask for better from our government.
The reality is we need more nature protection in the province and on our planet. This spring a comprehensive report on nature authored by 550 leading experts worldwide concluded that the destruction of nature is as dangerous to our society as climate change. The authors do point out, however, that we know what we need to do.
More than a third of each of Whiteshell, Nopiming, Duck Mountain, and Grass River Provincial Parks are unprotected. Protecting nature in all of Manitoba’s Parks from industrial activity is our only path forward.
For more information on the Manitoba government proposals, read this Duck Mountain backgrounder and this Turtle Mountain backgrounder.
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