It Sure Doesn’t Smell Like Roses: Overtourism and Human Waste at Flowerpot Island

In 2021, Parks Canada released a report titled 2021 – 2026 Visitor Use Management – Flowerpot Island. You can access the full report here. The following are excerpts:

Between 2010 and 2017, the number of annual visitors increased from 24,432 to 123,849, a +407% increase in just seven years. One-third of visitors report feeling crowded or very crowded.

• Concerns about real and potential ecological, cultural and social impacts have emerged over the past decade, including:
• increased risk to public health and safety;
• diminished quality of visitor experiences from crowding, congestion, user conflicts and impacts to aesthetic values;
• impacts to natural and cultural resources including emergence of social trails, vegetation trampling, picking of orchids;
• increased pressure on the physical and human infrastructure (i.e., human waste, litter); and,
• impacts to adjacent communities including traffic and visitor congestion, loss of enjoyment by local residents, and public health and safety concerns.

Select visitor comments from the most recent Visitor Information Program (Parks Canada, 2014) indicate people “Yelling on trail, people not moving over to let you pass” and “Lots of bodies trying to see / photograph the (flower) Pots”.

Further forms of conflict may arise from visitors demonstrating disrespectful behaviours, such as travelling off-trail, creating excessive noise, littering and vandalism (i.e. graffiti on the flowerpots).

There is significant evidence of vegetation trampling on Flowerpot Island, and in some in stances it is the cause of localized harm to native and sensitive plant species and habitats (i.e. Marr Lake Trail and Marr Lake area). In other areas, such as the main Flowerpot Trail, there is evidence of trail widening caused by crowding; too many people on the trail simultaneously causes visitors to step outside the trail, trampling the vegetation, and therefore making the trail wider. Further, some visitors will purposefully leave a trail and create a ‘short cut’ through vegetation to wards their destination. This often results in the development of a social trail, perpetuating the cycle and contributing to other undesirable conditions.

As visitation to Flowerpot Island approached or exceeded important thresholds or tipping points, a number of concerning trends began to emerge:

• Trail braiding or widening occurs as visitors attempt to move past one another on congested trails.
• Unofficial or ‘social’ trails are developed and trampling of sensitive vegetation occurs.
• Visitors report being crowded during their experience on Flowerpot Island.
• Litter and waste increases.
• Composting toilets are unable to keep up with demand.
• Human waste is found along trails and near popular destinations.
• Damage and graffiti, including at sensitive caves and cultural sites, increases.

The report concludes very pessimistically:

These two parks protect the last large contiguous tract of undeveloped lands in southern Ontario. They are both precious… and imperilled. In the face of this relentless demand, allowing continuous small incursions or increases to the existing footprint would eventually lead to death by a thousand cuts.