The Government of British Columbia has announced that more than 190 hectares of ecologically sensitive land throughout B.C. has been acquired as new parks, or as additions to existing provincial parks.
“Parks benefit our environment, our economy, and make life better for people in B.C. every day,” said Premier John Horgan. “By protecting these lands today, we’re expanding the beautiful parks B.C. is known for around the world, and making sure this land will be here for future generations.”
Myra-Bellevue Provincial Park will benefit with 16.4 new hectares of land being added just south of the City of Kelowna. “There’s a small portion of land that was privately held. It was surrounded on three sides by the park,” said BC Parks Regional Planner, Keith Baric. Though the Park staff never encouraged use of the private area, the way it was surrounded led to trails being established by park users. “There were liability and risks involved with that. So with the acquisition it really helps us in having consistent management across the landscape there.”
Baric says the Myra-Bellevue addition was purchased for $947,000. “It was a key inholding to secure and we had been targeting it for over 10 years.” He adds that nothing is imminent but the Province continually looks to secure more park space, “We’ve got a working list for Myra-Bellevue and other parks in that area, like Okanagan Mountain Park as well.”
The six parcels of land were acquired through purchase, donation or subdivision dedication, and are valued at approximately $10 million.
The most significant acquisition this week includes 144 hectares of land known as Eagle Heights, near Koksilah River on southern Vancouver Island.
One of the largest park systems in the world, British Columbia has 1,033 provincial parks, recreation areas, conservancies, ecological reserves and protected areas. They cover more than 14 million hectares, or approximately 14.4% of the provincial land base.