ROUGE NATIONAL URBAN PARK

Backgrounder

Located within Canada’s most populated and culturally diverse metropolitan area – the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) – Rouge National Urban Park is Canada’s first ever national urban park.

The “national urban park” protected area model adds a new category to Parks Canada’s family of federal protected areas, alongside national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas. Rouge National Urban Park positions Canada as an international urban conservation leader by creating the world’s strongest dedicated legislation for an urban protected area.

Totaling 79.1 km2 once fully complete, Rouge National Urban Park is the largest urban park of its kind in North America – 19 times larger than Stanley Park in Vancouver, 23 times larger than Central Park in New York, and close to 50 times larger than Toronto's High Park.

Rouge National Urban Park celebrates the diversity of the Rouge’s natural and cultural landscapes, its unique urban setting, the presence of working farms in the park, and the opportunities for connection, stewardship, community engagement and volunteerism.

Rouge National Urban Park has a rich diversity of resources, landscapes and heritage, including:

  • more than 1,700 species of plants, birds, fish, mammals, insects, reptiles and amphibians;
  • rare Carolinian forests and 27 species-at-risk; 
  • large tracts of rare Class-1 farmland – the richest, rarest and most fertile in Canada;
  • and human history dating back more than 10,000 years, including some of Canada’s oldest known Indigenous sites and travel routes.

In collaboration with park farmers, conservation groups, Indigenous partners and community associations, Parks Canada is using leading-edge science in Rouge National Urban Park to:

  • restore native forests, wetlands and meadows;
  • enhance the health and productivity of park farmland;
  • inventory and conserve the Rouge’s archaeological and cultural heritage sites;
  • control invasive species;
  • and protect and recover endangered species.

In collaboration with various partners throughout the GTA, Parks Canada now offers year-round programming in Rouge National Urban Park, including Learn-to Camp, weekly guided walks, Frog Watch, Taste of the Trail, and the Fall Walks Festival, to name a few.

Parks Canada welcome areas in the Rouge are now located in Toronto near the Toronto Zoo and in the northern area of the park in the City of Markham. These areas host special events and educational programming, and staff are available to help visitors plan their trip to the Rouge and other Parks Canada sites across the country.

The creation of Rouge National Urban Park is the culmination of more than 30 years of hard work and efforts by community leaders and organizations to protect this land in perpetuity. Over the next several years, Parks Canada will enhance Rouge National Urban Park facilities to include: flagship visitor and education centres; trailhead orientation kiosks; welcome and wayfinding signage; interpretive programming and exhibits; and an expanded and comprehensive trail system in the park and connecting park areas to surrounding communities in Toronto, Markham, Pickering and Uxbridge.

For more info: www.parkscanada.ca/rouge

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