According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are more than 102,102 protected areas covering 12.6% of the world's land area. Protected areas total over 18.8 million square kilometres - that's larger than the combined area of China and India!
Alberta has strong ties to the global network of protected areas. We have internationally significant sites recognized through designations like
Alberta's parks system is part of the family of parks in Canada.
Different names, designations and rules sometimes make it unclear how parks around the world fit. The International Union for Conservation of Nature system enables comparisons to be made by categorizing protected areas with similar purposes, objectives and uses globally regardless of the legislated classification system.
|IUCN Category||IUCN Protected Area Managed for:||# Protected Areas||Total Area Protected (km2)|
|Global||Canada||Alberta Federal||Alberta Provincial||Global||Canada||Alberta Federal||Alberta Provincial|
|Ia||Science or wilderness protection||4,731||570||2||13||1,033,888||15,552||1.6||237|
|II||Ecosystem protection and recreation||3,881||1,192||5||181||4,413,142||404,548||53,925||3,920|
|III||Conservation of specific natural features||19,833||795||1||14||275,432||30,336||11||49|
|IV||Conservation through management intervention||27,641||1,724||2||14||3,022,515||9,980||460||1,038|
|V||Landscape/seascape conservation or recreation||6,555||171||0||1||1,056,008||2,181||0||97|
|VI||Sustainable use of natural resources||4,123||2,483||3||0||4,377,091||37,856||413||0|
|Unclassified / Other||.||34,036||437||2||225||3,569,820||39,975||17||226|
Help us improve Alberta Parks for all AlbertansStart the Survey Now