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Les Canadiens veulent travailler et tirer avantage de la croissance économique, mais ils doivent aussi avoir la possibilité de prendre contact avec la nature, de constater la beauté et la diversité du paysage canadien, et d’apprécier le patrimoine historique et culturel du pays, d’où l’importance des objectifs sociaux. Comme nous l’avons déjà signalé, l’accès au territoire et les zones protégées ont été identifiés comme étant des questions cruciales pour l’industrie minière lors des discussions entourant l’IMW.
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Municipal parks, such as Mont Royal in Montréal, Quebec, created in 1872; the first national park, Banff, Alberta, created in 1885; North America’s first migratory bird sanctuary, created at Last Mountain Lake in 1887; and the first provincial park, Algonquin in Ontario, created in 1893, were among the earliest protected areas in Canada (Environment Canada, 1991). In the late 1880s, the main reasons for creating such areas were to increase the public’s access to outstanding natural areas for recreation and tourism, to protect the wildlife habitat of game species for hunting purposes, or to protect forests for logging interests. Protecting areas from land speculators, and ensuring that certain areas were preserved for the benefit of all Canadians, were the officially stated objectives for creating these early parks. The rationale for creating protected areas in Canada has followed the thinking of the times. First came protection, from speculators, of beautiful areas with recreational opportunities. Then came the idea of protecting game species and, more recently, endangered or dwindling species. Preserving natural features, such as the “flowerpots” of Fundy National Park, was also seen as an important objective. Thus, national and provincial parks were created in a non-systematic way, with parks being added when a feature or species needed protection or, in some cases, to provide regional recreation sites, to create sanctuaries for wildlife, or to stimulate flagging economies in areas of chronic under-employment.
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