The creation of a National Park Reserve is underway in Newfoundland and Labrador. Plan aims to protect important boreal forest landscape in the Mealy Mountain region.

Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador—The announcement for the establishment of a new National Park Reserve came earlier this month as the Honourable Jim Prentice, Canada’s Environment Minister and Minister Responsible for Parks Canada and the Honourable Charlene Johnson, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minister of Environment and Conservation, announced that they have agreed to take the necessary steps to establish a new national park reserve in the Mealy Mountains area of Labrador along with a waterway provincial park to protect the Eagle River, adjacent to the proposed national park reserve.

The park reserve will protect roughly 10,700 sq km, which will make it the largest national park in eastern Canada and with the adjacent waterway provincial park to protect the Eagle River, these areas will protect an area of over 13,000 sq km.

“As we enter into the International Year of Biodiversity, it is fitting that we are working to establish a national park reserve to protect this spectacular boreal landscape for all time, for all Canadians,” said Minister Prentice. “This part of Labrador is not only of ecological significance, it is also of great cultural importance and we are committed to moving forward in a way that recognizes and respects the traditional connections people have with the land.”

Together, these parks in the Mealy Mountains, when established, will protect a stunning array of boreal ecosystems and wildlife, along with landscapes of great cultural significance. “This area, which has long been treasured by Aboriginal people, shelters spectacular wilderness, along with a threatened woodland caribou herd, moose, black bear, osprey, bald eagles and a species of special concern, the eastern population of the harlequin ducks,” says the Canadian Parks and Wildlife Society. 

Consultations with Aboriginal groups will continue throughout the national park reserve establishment process. Traditional land use activities by Labradorians will be permitted to continue within the national park reserve, managed to emphasize ecological integrity and conservation measures.

Source: Parks Canada and CPAWS