By Olivia McDonald

Wilderness Areas Are Rapidly Disappearing

Nov 5, 2018 | 2:28 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – A new UNBC study paints an alarming picture regarding the future of the Earth’s wilderness. 

According to Dr. Oscar Venter, our wilderness is disappearing – only 23 percent of land areas meet the definition of wilderness and only 13 percent of the marine areas are considered wild.

“So we’ve mapped wilderness on land from 1993 to 2009 what we saw over that period was about 3.3 million hectares of wilderness disappear, basically succumb to human encroachments,” says Dr. Venter. “So that’s an area the size of India of wilderness being lost over that period. And if we don’t start to think more strategically about development and conservation we are going to continue to see that sort of erosion of wilderness.”

70 percent of the world’s wilderness is located in Russia, Australia, Brazil, Canada and the U.S.  In fact, Canada ranks second on that list. Moving forward, Dr Venter says wilderness management will be key.

“So thinking strategically about how we develop or do we want to keep spreading out into these last wild places, punch new highways or new infrastructure projects into these pristine locations. Or do we want to instead expand our economies, our societies in a more constrained way where we better use the land that we’ve already modified.” 

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Dr. Venter says this a really important issue for Northern BC because it is surrounded by wilderness areas that could be impacted.