The Peak District and Banff National Parks

Study Aims

	Compare and contrast the nature of the parks with respect to social, environmental and economic conditions
	Compare and contrast the management strategies and policies with relation to the 13 Management Principles

Study Areas

Location of the Peak District National Park

Figure I; Location of the Peak Distrcit National Park

Location of Banff National Park

Figure II; Location of Banff National Park

	Peak District National Park	Banff National Park
Location	Midlands, England	Alberta, Canada
Main Towns	Buxton	Banff
Date given NP status	April 17^th, 1951	1885
Area	1,404 km²	6,641 km²
Total Length of footpaths	8,000 km	1,600 km
Number of visitor centres	8	2
Number of visitor days per year	22 million	4.678 million
Visitors per day per km²	43	2
Funding per year	£2.6 million	$8.8 million *
Population living in Park	40,000	7,716

*Figure taken from Parks Canada Budget 1999-00 of $347 million for 39 national parks

Development of Banff was hastened by the construction of the CPR

In the following section the thirteen principles of wilderness management are discussed with respect to the two National Parks in question, the Peak District and Banff.

It is recognised that the Principles are intended to be applied purely to those areas legally designated as wilderness. Although definitions of wilderness vary between, and even within nations, the Peak District could never be construed as being a wilderness area in the sense envisaged by the US Wilderness Act of 1964, (and corresponding Acts elsewhere), due to its long history of settlement. Banff National Park, on the other hand, within its system of land zonation, does distinctly identify wilderness areas, and therefore has specific directives for this portion of the park.

In essence the Principles are merely used as a yardstick for comparison. The Principles do an excellent job of highlighting the considerable differences between the two parks and thus the challenges the respective Park Authorities face.

For the purpose of the following analysis, with regard to the titling of the various Principles, ‘wilderness’ should be considered synonymous with ‘park’.

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