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The Peace–Athabasca Delta, located in northeast Alberta, is the largest freshwater inland river delta in North America.〔 It is located partially within the southeast corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada's largest national park, and also spreads into the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, west and south of the historical community of Fort Chipewyan. The delta encompasses approximately , formed where the Peace and Athabasca rivers converge on the Slave River and Lake Athabasca. The delta region is designated a wetland of international importance and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The region is large enough that it is considered one of twenty distinct natural subregions of Alberta by the provincial government's Natural Regions Committee〔Natural Regions Committee 2006. Natural Regions and Subregions of Alberta. Compiled by D.J. Downing and W.W. Pettapiece. Government of Alberta. Pub. No. T/852., http://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/preserving/parks/anhic/Natural_region_report.asp〕 ==History== Land use and occupation by the first indigenous people in the area can be traced to the retreat of the glaciers. 〔 The descendants of the Cree and Chipewyan First Nations continue to carry on traditional fishing, hunting and trapping activities. It is "the longest standing tradition of native subsistence use. 〔 Based on excavations in the 1980s at the Peace Point and Lake One Dune (IgPc-9) sites, archaeologist Marc Stevenson argued that the area around Peace Point has been occupied by boreal forest-related and plains-related northern hunter-gatherer groups of people "at intervals over the last 7000-8000 years." In 1922, Wood Buffalo National Park was established to protect the remnant population of bison that escaped the slaughter in the late 19th century. It became the world's largest herd of free roaming wood bison, currently estimated at more than 5,000. It is one of two known nesting sites of whooping cranes. In the late 1960s, the W.A.C. Bennett Dam was constructed on the Peace River in northern British Columbia by BC Hydro, a major hydropower utility. Between 1968 and 1971, "after the construction and initial filling of the W.A.C. Bennett hydroelectric dam at the headwaters of the Peace River", the Peace–Athabasca delta experienced a "prolonged dry period" that turned some basins from aquatic into terrestrial ecosystems. In 1974, a major flood occurred in the region and, when the spring water receded, the delta experienced a second prolonged dry period.〔 On 24 May 1982, the Peace–Athabasca Delta region was designated by the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international importance. The Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ramsar Convention )〕 was created to "stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands now and in the future". They recognize the "fundamental ecological functions of wetlands" that support a "characteristic flora and fauna, particularly waterfowl"〔 and the economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value of wetlands.〔 The reasons for this designation as internationally significant are, In 1983, Peace–Athabasca Delta was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the world's largest freshwater deltas, for its biological diversity and for the population of wild bison. In 1986, Ducks Unlimited (Canada) and Alberta Energy and Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division proposed "the portion of the delta lying outside Wood Buffalo National Park, with the exception of the Chipewyan Indian Reserves, as a Wildlife Habitat Management Area. By the 1990s, the National Water Research Institute was involved in a provincial-territorial-federal initiative, the Northern River Basins Study, and was conducting research on the hydro-climatology and ecology of the Peace–Athabasca Delta. They investigated potential impact on the delta's productivity and biodiversity if the climate were to change. 〔 In the spring of 2006, BC Hydro dam managers released an agreed upon timed flow into the delta under appropriate hydrological and climatic conditions thereby increasing the magnitude of an ice-jam flood, producing the first major flood since c. 1986 and bringing restorative water to areas that had been dry since c.1986.〔 In June 2009, the Peace–Athabasca Delta Environmental Monitoring Program (PADEMP) held their first official meeting in Fort Smith with 17 groups participating, including federal, provincial and territorial governments and ten First Nations directly affected by the Peace–Athabasca Delta. PADEMP chair, Stuart Macmillan representing Parks Canada, observed that, "I think everybody realizes if we don’t do this now, we’re in danger of losing something very special in the delta. The rate of change is increasing so rapidly that we’ve got to get a handle on what’s going on." According to Chris Heron, the NWT Metis Nation representative of the PADEMP, the use of traditional knowledge to determine the ecological health of the Peace–Athabasca Delta and their findings will be investigated using western science. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peace–Athabasca Delta」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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