Whether the health of Glacier National Park and its Canadian neighbor, Waterton Lakes National Park, is at risk from proposed mining operations in British Columbia is a question being probed this week by a team of international experts.

At the invitation of the United States and Canada, the World Heritage Committee has sent experts from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre to visit Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park this week to evaluate the status of the joint U.S. – Canadian Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park World Heritage Site and provide recommendations regarding requirements for the long-term protection of Waterton-Glacier, in particular from potential external threats in the Flathead River Valley.

This is not a new question, but one that's been simmering for quite some time.

The visit was called for back in June by the World Heritage Committee, an arm of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, after the group was petitioned by a dozen groups from the United States and Canada, including the National Parks Conservation Association. At issue is a proposal by the Cline Mining Corp. to develop an open-pit coal mine in the landscape surrounding the headwaters of the Flathead River that flows south past Glacier National Park.

Tucked into British Columbia's southeastern corner, just about 25 miles north of Glacier and due west of Waterton Lakes, the Canadian Flathead Valley is a 40-mile swath of sawtooth-tipped mountains and alluvial plains that cradle the headwaters of the Flathead River. That ruggedness, with its resident grizzly bears, wolves, elk, lynx, mountain goat, wolverine and pristine fisheries of bull trout and Westslope cutthroat trout, has prompted one biologist to tag the area as "the single most important basin for carnivores in the Rocky Mountains."

The ecological value of the area wasn't overlooked -- but seemingly was ignored -- back in 1995 when the Waterton Lakes-Glacier was designated a World Heritage Site. Indeed, in its summary of the landscape the International Union for Conservation of Nature stated that, "the essential point is that the (Waterton-Glacier) unit is less complete in its coverage of the ecosystem than existing World Heritage Sites in the region. This could make the unit more prone to loss of species in the long run unless extra effort is made to manage cooperatively the public and private lands that adjoin the parks."

Taking a larger look at the landscape, the transboundary Crown of the Continent region, including the Flathead Valley, is one of the most intact, diverse and connected ecosystems in the temperate zones of the world. Characterized by remoteness and farsighted conservation practices, the core of the Crown of the Continent consists of transboundary land encompassing Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, and Bob Marshall, Great Bear, and Lincoln Scapegoat Wilderness areas.

Against such a backdrop, the proposal by Cline Mining Corp. to sink an open-pit coal mine into the area could have devastating impacts on the Canadian Flathead Valley and those areas downstream in the United States, according to those who have looked into the matter.

The two parks feature spectacular scenery, geology, biological diversity and abundant wildlife, including grizzly bears, gray wolves, wolverine, lynx and other top predators. The parks protect an important biological crossroads at the point where the Rocky Mountains reach their narrowest width. The Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park also serves as a celebration of the longest undefended contiguous border between two nations and a reminder that many natural resources have no boundaries.

The team of experts arrived at the parks Monday and will stay until Sunday, the 27th. They are scheduled to visit both parks as well as several sites in the Flathead Valley and elsewhere in the greater “Crown of the Continent” ecosystem.

"This is a very, very high priority for the World Heritage Committee," team member Kishore Rao told the Missoulian. "The world," he added, "has a stake in what happens here at Waterton-Glacier."