Regional director for the South Coast of BC Parks recently wrote to Backcountry BC to clarify some points on the day pass system.

To recap, on July 22nd this summer, the minister of environment, George Heyman issued a press release. He said frequent park users have an important role in protecting parks that's why he introduced the day-use pass pilot program. He said it will help keep people active and safe, presumably by keeping large numbers of people out of the park system. [Sorry, detecting cognitive dissonance here.]

The regional director today wrote the pilot will be reviewed in fall and called it an interim approach. Thanks for clearing that up, day pass is not about COVID-19. It's here to stay for the long term.

To further enunciate this understanding, a link was given to the BC Parks' blog from last September that discusses carrying capacity. It explains,

"Carrying capacity can be used as a broad term to refer to ecological carrying capacity, facility capacity, or visitor capacity. In BC Parks, we look at all three components to determine if our parks are within their capacity, or if management strategies need to be implemented to ensure the park is well managed and cared for."

Two examples, Golden Ears and Stawamus, were provided on how the interim carrying capacity was determined, neither of which was Garibaldi Park, probably of intense interest to this group. More later on those examples.

Reference Carrying Capacity and BC Parks - https://engage.gov.bc.ca/bcparksblog/2019/09/19/carrying-capacity-and-bc-parks/?fbclid=IwAR1q8QEpmZiE_E_VhgcKJMSDdNuCgk7dqsFQfzLWfR4R1ABvzodUaKIZAL8