Conservation and restoration

Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site

Kejimkujik's ecosystems consist of forests, wetlands, freshwater, and coastal environments. Conserving and restoring ecological integrity is the priority of park management. Ecosystem management is the process used to achieve ecological integrity.

Two-Eyed Seeing

Ecological integrity should be assessed using Etuaptmumk, a Two-Eyed Seeing approach, to ensure western science is accompanied and supported by local Indigenous knowledges. The use of this approach allows for deeper understanding that is connected to nations who have lived and worked from the regions since time immemorial.

The Two-Eyed Seeing principle encourages us to look at Indigenous ways of knowing with one eye and western knowledge with the other, which in turn helps us to see and act in new ways that benefit everyone.
Drawn from the teachings of Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall, Minister’s Round Table

Conserving ecological integrity

Ecosystems have integrity when their native components and processes are intact, including:

Abiotic components: the physical elements (for example: water and rocks)

Biodiversity: the composition and abundance of species and communities in an ecosystem (for example: tundra, rainforest and grasslands represent landscape diversity; black bears, brook trout, and black spruce represent species diversity)

Ecosystem processes: the engines that makes ecosystem work (for example: fire, flooding, and predation)

Restoring ecological integrity

Protected areas rarely contain complete, unaltered ecosystems, particularly in densely populated southern regions.

The ecological integrity of protected areas, and thus their ability to conserve biodiversity and natural capital, faces a number of challenges including:

invasive species
habitat fragmentation
downstream effects of air and water pollution
global climate change

All of these challenges contribute to the degradation of protected area ecosystems.

Ecological restoration provides a way of slowing, halting or reversing ecosystem degradation.

Projects at Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site

Green, oval-shaped leaves on a beech tree Ensuring a future for American beech trees

Parks Canada is cultivating a seed orchard of disease-resistant American beech trees.

Parks Canada staff with a chainsaw Fire protection and restoration projects

Wildfire risk reduction projects, prescribed fires, and how you can help.

Parks Canada staff walk through a forest Protecting Eastern hemlock

Slow the Spread was a five-year project (2019-2024) that focused on protecting priority Eastern hemlock stands.

Bat Making life better for bats and people in Canada

Parks Canada is committed to doing its best to slow the spread of white-nose syndrome.

Freshwater ecosystem conservation

Kejimkujik's freshwater ecosystem is no stranger to environmental threats, including acid rain and invasive fish species.

Projects at Kejimkujik National Park Seaside

Green crab on eel grasss Coastal estuary restoration

Kejimkujik National Park Seaside protects a unique diversity of coastal habitats and communities in close proximity to each other.

Piping Plover chick. Protecting species

The recovery programs of some of the species at risk at Kejimkujik and Kejimkujik Seaside.

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