NATURE VANCOUVER SPECIAL EVENT 7:30 PM Thursday, March 29, 2007 – admission is free at the Parish Hall of St. Mary’s Kerrisdale, 2490 West 37th Avenue (at Larch) BC’s PROVINCIAL PARKS: CAN THE IMAGE BE RESTORED? On March 29, the Conservation Section of Nature Vancouver will host a forum on the current state of BC’s provincial parks entitled “BC’S PROVINCIAL PARKS: CAN THE IMAGE BE RESTORED?†Guest speakers will be Derek Thompson, a former Deputy Minister for Ministry of Environment and a member of the Parks Elders Council; Scott Benton, Executive Director for Parks & Protected Areas, Ministry of Environment; and Ben West, a former Green Party candidate and the organizer of the 2006 BC Park Lovers Tour. Our provincial parks are very important to members of Nature Vancouver and we plan to cover a range of issues related to the re-establishment of the BC Parks reputation. Topics include objectives of the parks and protected areas system and linking parks to people through recreation, stewardship, staffing and communication. After opening statements by the panel members they will respond to questions from the audience. The Forum will be held in the Parish Hall of St. Mary’s Kerrisdale, 2490 West 37th Avenue (at Larch), Vancouver (the regular meeting place of the Birding Section). We are pleased that these three knowledgeable speakers have agreed to give their views, answer questions and debate the future direction for BC Parks. For more information, contact: tim.blair@shaw.ca http://www.naturalhistory.bc.ca/VNHS/ ________________________
Good topic. We are in Oregon, and I've always noticed in Portland's older parks, how many resources, and how much time must have been invested in the parks at one point in time. The attention to care deteriorated quite a bit. The parks still look good, but its evident, that the parks were not a priority for "investing" funds and resources. The old-time paths, walls and facitlities look like invested project work, whereas the recent work, looks a bit closer to maintenance and patch-work.
As elsewhere administration may tend to look out for itself better than it looks out for the mission of the organization, the cumulative effect being large salaries etc. at the top while parks go to seed or are even given up entirely due to 'lack of funding'. Some career bureaucrats move rapidly through multiple organizations, in pursuit of higher pay or other personal objectives. Even in the performance-for-profit oriented private sector there is the phenomenon of CEOs who work for a year and then retire on 'golden parachutes'. It seems Looking Out For Number One is the mission, instead of the mission of the organization.
Also, though, it is tougher to keep enthused over maintenance. One reasons to keep coming up with new projects is that it's easier to get people excited about building it. And maintenance can get trimmed one year, deferred until it snowballs. This I say in general of projects. It will be interesting to hear what ideas are being floated to restore the parks (though I sort of prefer a few crumbling walls in my getaway from urban cares).
Not sure about the issues specific to BC's parks, but I think the common thread with respect to parks all over is that although used heavily by the public, when it comes to funding for even the most basic maintenance issues, they are lowest on the totem pole. Often in times of tight fiscal restraints, park budgets are the first to be cut. Locally, we need only look at some of the magnificent works done by the CCC during the 1930's, that are now showing serious signs of disrepair.
