National parks legislation and the protection of Canadian biodiversity

This thesis will demonstrate how Canada's national parks help to fulfill international obligations to conserve biodiversity by: describing the international commitments required by the Biodiversity Convention; examining Canadian national parks' changing objectives since their creation; demonstrating the ecological problems confronting today's national parks, and finally, exploring feasible legal ways trying to balance conflicts between human use and park resources protection in order to maintain parks' ecological integrity as well as conserve biodiversity.;This thesis will, in particular, examine national parks legislation to demonstrate that Canada's efforts at conserving its biodiversity are partly successful because of its protection of national parks. Also, this study briefly reviews other initiatives contributing to biodiversity conservation in the whole of Canada, such as the protection of marine conservation areas and species at risk. Via this analysis, it concludes that Canada's mechanisms for conserving its biodiversity will be much stronger not only by improving its exiting laws, but by passing the proposed laws specifically designed to protect wildlife species and their marine habitat, and by increasing cooperation with provinces.