Canada's Terrestrial Protected Areas, 2012

Global Forest Watch Canada (GFWC) has created a national protected areas dataset that includes both permanent protected lands and lands with interim protections.  Permanent protected lands are largely those areas legally designated by government authority and the designations are considered permanent; for example, National Parks, Provincial Parks, and National Wildlife Areas.  Private protected lands are also included although they account for a small percentage of land area compared to government.  

The interim lands are those areas that are legally protected, but only for a limited time period – usually until land use planning issues, especially with Canada's Aboriginal peoples, are finalized.  This is the first Canada-wide, up-to-date protected areas geospatial dataset that is publicly available containing interim protected areas.

These data represent 1,269,094 km 2 of protected lands across 10 province (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) and 3 territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon).

This final updated layer was published December 31, 2012.  If you have constructive comments to offer after reviewing the datasets, please go directly to (GFWC -- info@globalforestwatch.ca) where they will welcome your review comments.