A MIDA case study on the Bay of Fundy in Canada, known for the world's highest tides, where a Biosphere Reserve and a UNESCO Global Geopark overlap and community-led sustainable tourism has taken root.
Description
Designated in 2007, the Bay of Fundy Biosphere Reserve in New Brunswick protects one of North America's most remarkable coastlines, blending Acadian mixed wood forests, salt marshes, tidal mudflats and rugged cliffs. Steep river valleys carved with waterfalls, gorges and rapids open into broad, rolling salt marshes at the head of the bay, providing sanctuary to bald eagle, Canada lynx, eastern cougar, harlequin duck and peregrine falcon. The reserve encompasses Fundy National Park alongside the cultural landscapes of rural villages and coastal towns, where the Mi'kmaq people lived and fished for centuries before Europeans arrived and where francophone and anglophone communities now reflect a spirit of collaboration. The reserve became a MIDA in 2015 with the designation of Stonehammer UNESCO Global Geopark, which overlaps in the southwest, and where more than 60 fossil and rock sites, 12 of them open to the public, record colliding continents, volcanic upheavals, ice ages and shifting seas. Launched in 2010 after community consultations, the Amazing Places sustainable tourism initiative selects sites of geological, cultural and ecological significance, shares them through storytelling, and now inspires sustainable tourism across five Canadian biosphere reserves.
