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State of Protected Heritage Areas for the period ending March 31, 2005

State of Protected Heritage Areas for the period ending March 31, 2005

State of National Systems and Programs

(Details of performance in each program area can be found in Parks Canada's 2004-2005 Performance Report).

National Parks and National Marine Conservation Areas
Program	Establish		Conserve	Promote Public Appre- ciation and Under- standing	Enhanced Visitor Expe- riences
Planned Results	Create national parks and national marine conservation areas in unrepresented regions.	Complete or expand some existing parks.	Maintain or improve ecological integrity of national parks and the sustainability of national marine conservation areas.	Canadians, visitors and stakeholders appreciate and understand the significance of National Parks and National Marine Conservation Areas and support their protection.	Visitors are welcomed, have safe visits, and are satisfied with service quality.
Performance Expectations	34 of 39 terrestrial regions and eight regions are represented by March 2008	Expand three national parks by March 2008 and increase the percentage of land holdings in three unfinished national parks.	National park management plans are up to date and consistent with latest management plan guidelines by March 2010. All National Parks have fully functioning EI monitoring and reporting systems by March 2008. Improve aspects of the state of EI in each of Canada's 41 National Parks by March 2014. Minimize environmental impacts of Parks Canada's operations.	50% of national park visitors participate in a learning experience related to natural and/or cultural heritage. 85% of visitors are satisfied, 50% are very satisfied with onsite heritage presentations programming. 75% of visitors understand the significance of the NP or NMCA Canadians, visitors and stakeholders actively support the integrity of NPs and NMCAs	85% of visitors are satisfied and 50% are very satisfied with their visit. Minimize public safety incidents.
Status	Reasonable Progress: Agreements were signed that will lead to the representation of a terrestrial region in Labrador. An agreement-in-principle is ready to be signed for a proposed national marine conservation area. Feasibility studies were formally launched for two national parks and two national marine conservation areas. Funding to complete the planned expansion of the systems remains a concern. See appendix 1 and 2 for details on progress to establish new parks and NMCAs	Reasonable Progress: Negotiations to expand one national park were significantly advanced. Land was added to three existing national parks.	Reasonable Progress: As of March 2005, there were 33 approved management plans, of which 25 were overdue for revision. Parks Canada expects that all currently overdue plans will be completed by March 2009. The number of national parks meeting Parks Canada's criteria for well functioning EI monitoring programs (between 8 and 16 depending on the criteria) increased in 2004-2005 for four criteria, was stable for one criteria and decreased for one criteria due to technical adjustments in measurement. Parks Canada is making reasonable progress on three environmental management system priorities but have not met targets for two others (i.e., halocarbons and PCBs). A limited sample of measures suggests that most national parks have a medium to high level of ecological integrity. In the absence of a comprehensive ecological integrity-monitoring program there is insufficient information to determine whether or not aspects of the state of ecological integrity of national parks are improving. Appendix 3 for details on State of National Parks	Caution: Parks Canada is meeting its target for overall on-site satisfaction with heritage presentation programming, and showing reasonable progress in developing better measures of participation in learning experiences and visitors' support for the integrity of heritage places. However, less than 10% of surveyed national parks over the last four years have met targets for visitor understanding of reasons for creation of the national park.	On Target: Of the 12 national parks surveyed in the last four years 100% have meet the 85% visitor satisfaction target and 83% the 50% visitor satisfaction target. The number of estimated public safety incidents is reasonably low (i.e., on average one incident for every 274,000 visits per year over five years).