Environmental+Assessment

 Environmental assessment

Environmental assessment is a procedure that ensures environmental implications are addressed before the decision is made to proceed with the project. The aim of environmental assessment is to minimize or completely avoid unwanted environmental effects prior to their occurrence. Environmental assessment creates ways to mitigate adverse environmental effects.

Banff National Park is a picturesque place that tries to maintain its ecological integrity, while supporting an intensive tourism industry. The amounts of adverse environmental effects of the park are significant. Activities which seriously threaten the integrity of the parks ecosystem will rarely to never permitted. Environmental assessment is used in order to assess which activities threaten the integrity of the park and which “maintain or enhance the ecological integrity.” The goal of environmental assessment in Banff National Park is to mitigate the incompatibilities between nature, ecosystems and intensive tourism. To eliminate those incompatibilities is not possible. The article in by Parks canada (http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/plan/plan9b_e.asp) titled "Banff National Park Directive 17, guidelines for development projects" Demonstrates all of the procedures and requirements that go into any kind of construction with in the park. A current Issue in Banff National Park that requires environmental assessment is Husky Oil Limited. Husky Oil is "proposing to decommission and remediate the site of the Husky Banff Service Station". Before constuction can begin for the Husky oil project, "the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (C.E.A.A.) will be applied to the required level to identify concerns and provide mitigating measures" for the project.

Photo of Hotel in Banff National Park __Sources: http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/plan/plan9b_e.asp,Parks Canada,__ 2009 __Monica E. Mulrennan. _A Casebook of Environmental Issues in Canada_. Department of Geography, Concordia University: John WIley & Sons,inc__ 