Discovery Geopark, located on the upper half of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Bonavista Peninsula, has regained its full status as a Global Geopark under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The area’s rock formations and fossil finds first earned the park its international honour in 2020. But in June the area was at risk of losing its rare status, after UNESCO cautioned the park to make changes.
Every four years, independent evaluators travel to UNESCO Global Geoparks for a four- or five-day site visit to determine whether a park will maintain its status. The evaluators then issue the site a green, yellow or red card to indicate its active status.
Green cards indicate that a site’s status has been renewed, a yellow card signifies that it has two years to make changes or risk receiving the dreaded red card, which would result in the loss of its status.
The Discovery Geopark was at risk of losing its green card after UNESCO requested site operators secure stable funding and full-time staffing, develop a succession plan for staff, expand inland geo sites with signs, update logos, enhance access and visitor safety and coordinate tourism promotion with partners.
Discovery Geopark earned its certification in 2020 for its Ediacaran fossils — some of which can be accessed from the boardwalk in Port Union — estimated to be 560 million years old and some of the planet’s earliest multicellular organisms.
The park complied with the recommendations, which resulted in the restoration of its green card in Chile over the weekend.
It is one of five geoparks in Canada and one of 229 worldwide.
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