Nahanni

The Nahanni National Park Reserve (NNPR) in the Northwest Territories was created in 1972 to protect the renowned falls and canyons of the South Nahanni River.  The park, however, is too small and too narrow to meet its mandate of protecting ecological integrity, particularly for wide-ranging animals such as grizzly bears.  Increasing pressure for mining and oil-and-gas exploration along park boundaries also threatens the integrity of the park.

The Nahanni lies within the traditional territories of the Deh Cho and Sahtu First Nations.  The Deh Cho First Nations are interested in seeing more of the watershed protected to conserve grizzly bears and the integrity of the ecosystem.  To help meet this objective, the Nah Deh Consensus Team (made up of members of Parks Canada and Deh Cho First Nations) was created as part of a commitment by the federal government toward a significant expansion of Nahanni and more involvement of First Nations in its management.

With the recognition of a need for scientific information to help direct these efforts, WCS Canada is coordinating research on three focal species — Grizzly bear, Caribou and Dall’s sheep — on behalf of Parks Canada. This follows several years of WCS-led baseline surveys involving non-invasive hair sampling and DNA analysis that have been conducted to assess the abundance and distribution of grizzly bear in the watershed.  The results of this multi-year effort are providing the Nah Deh Consensus Team with needed information to help them to move towards their conservation goals, which may include the additional protection of up to 35,000 km2 of intact wild lands.