Presently, Canada has over 2800 protected areas, excluding private lands and cultural heritage sites. In addition, freshwater and marine ecosystems are a socal point for human establishment, making them vulnerable to human impact. There are a number of challenges to establishing such a protected areas network. Protected areas are established through many different means in Canada. There are independent federal, provincial and territorial systems with a mix of levels of protection and in various stages of completion.
Management is made difficult, in many cases, by insufficient information on the ecosystems involved.
As well, it is difficult to agree on what is considered as compatible land use in regions surrounding protected areas because land use decision-making bodies were not established with biodiversity conservation as a priority. As a result, it is very difficult to delineate buffer zones and linkages between protected areas. In the 1970's, Parks Canada devised a parks system whose fundamental principle was to protect a representative sample of each of Canada's landscapes. The goal of the System Plan is that by the year 2000 each natural region should be represented by a National Park. National parks are a special category of public lands administered by the federal government under the provisions of the National Parks Act.