Gillian Chow-Fraser

A United Nations body that monitors some of the world's greatest natural glories is in Canada again to assess government responses to ongoing threats to the country's largest national park, including plans to release treated oilsands tailings into its watershed.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Alberta Wilderness Association said Thursday that government maps show West Fraser Timber has been directed to clear-cut blocks that contain century-old trees next to a park in northwest Alberta. 

Environmentalists and scientists are calling on Parks Canada to further restrict access to Rocky Mountain backcountry in an effort to help save the last large caribou herd in the national parks.

A dozen conservation and Indigenous groups have written federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson asking him to force the Alberta government to reinstate environmental monitoring in the province's oilpatch.

A United Nations body has given Canada a new deadline to repair the country's largest national park and the government is promising greater efforts to stop its deterioration.