• Park Program
  • People and Places
  • Risks, Challenges & Opportunities
  • Benefits of Parks & Special Places
• Park Establishment
  • Feasibility
  • Planning
  • Establishment
  • Operations
• Park Projects
  • Coral Harbour
  • Kugaaruk
  • Clyde River
  • Hall Beach
  • Kekerten
  • Sylvia Grinnell
• Land Claims
  • Parks and the NLCA
  • Parks and the IIBA
• Publications
  • Nunavut Parks
  • Planning Studies
  • Technical Reports

Establishment

Once approved by the Minister, Department of Environment; the PSA for the proposed park must be completed to reflect management decisions made by the CJPMC through the planning and management process as described earlier.

To transfer the park lands to the GN, the Minister, Department of Environment must apply to Canada to formally withdraw the approved park lands from ‘Crown Lands’ which are managed by Canada, and transfer management responsibility for those lands to the ‘Commissioner’ on behalf of the Government of Nunavut to be managed under the Territorial Parks Act. Some park lands may already lie within ‘Commissioner’s Lands’ as part of municipal lands and may simply require a transfer between GN departments. Similarly, some identified park lands may include Inuit Owned Lands, which are jointly administered by NTI and the relevant Inuit Association. Though there are currently no formal procedures for park lands on IOL, the lands could be jointly managed in keeping with park management plans, they could be leased to the GN for park purposes, or other similar arrangements may be established.

Land transfers may also involve the preparation of a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Nunavut Impact Review Board to make sure that protection or management measures, development and operations requirements, visitor use, socio-cultural considerations, and resource management decisions respect the requirements of Nunavut’s Environmental Assessment Process and the NLCA. The park lands are also reviewed by the Nunavut Planning Commission to ensure the park conforms to the region’s Land Use Plan.

For Territorial Parks, these lands are surveyed (or ‘described’) and withdrawn under the Territorial Parks Act as one of several different types of territorial parks allowed for in the legislation, such as natural environment parks, outdoor recreation parks, or historic parks. Together with the Parks and Special Places program, the Territorial Parks Act describes the purposes for parks, sets out ‘rules’ for park operation and use; and clarifies the links between territorial parks, territorial conservation areas, and other ‘special places’ such as Heritage Rivers. The Act also requires that parks continue to be managed jointly with communities and that communities benefit from the establishment of the park.