The proposed Joffre Lakes Visitor Use Management strategy is available for feedback from now until April 4.
Developed by B.C.'s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, in conjunction with the Lil’wat and N’Quatqua Nations, the strategy aims to manage the growing number of visitors to the park and protect its natural and cultural features.
It includes:
- Free day-use passes to manage numbers.
- Continuing the First Nations Park Stewards Program, first introduced in 2019.
- Protecting important habitat for plants and wildlife through strategies like continuing the dog ban, increasing bear caches, and rehabilitating illicit trails.
- Addressing safety concerns with tactics like keeping campsites closed during the winter, enforcing no parking zones, and creating an emergency response plan.
- Ensuring sustainable use at the park by maintaining some winter parking and possibly developing facilities and trails to disperse visitor use.
- Managing visitation by establishing a park capacity, exploring day-use permits for commercial and non-commercial visitors, and enforcing camping reservations for the backcountry campground.
- Fostering appreciation for and knowledge of the park with messaging.
- Understanding visitor trends.
- Managing the park in a financially sustainable way.
Facing a 222-per-cent increase in visitation since 2010, BC Parks implemented several short-term measures such as increasing parking capacity from 250 to 350; adding washroom facilities; managing 26 backcountry tent pads through a reservation system; partnering with the RCMP, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, and the B.C. Conservation Officer Service to address illegal and dangerous parking on Highway 99; and adding a satellite phone at the trailhead for emergency response.
In the meantime, the park remains closed due to COVID-19.
