2015 - $20 - 1 oz. Fine Silver UNESCO Wood Buffalo National Park and Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—UNESCO—was founded in 1945 and created its World Heritage Convention in 1972. This Convention designates sites around the world that hold outstanding natural or cultural value for humanity. Since Canada accepted the Convention in 1976, 17 Canadian properties have been designated World Heritage Sites. This exciting new coin series by the Royal Canadian Mint pairs some of Canada's most stunning World Heritage properties with other sites around the world to illustrate how two sites of global importance can share important similarities while still remaining richly diverse.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites are nominated by their country of origin and legally protected under a number of agreements, including the Geneva Convention. Identified for their outstanding value to humanity, these sites are guarded not only by their home countries but by all 187 Convention member countries. Thus, in addition to protecting its own World Heritage Sites, Canada is also committed to ensuring the protection of global properties of value to all people.

Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park and China's Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries are UNESCO sites that, while hosting distinct flora and fauna, bear similarities in their importance to natural heritage and to the flagship species that call them home.

Wood Buffalo National Park in northeastern Alberta was designated a World Heritage Site in 1983. Covering 44,807 square kilometres, it is Canada's largest national park and the second-largest national park on Earth. In addition to hosting the world's largest inland delta at the mouth of the Peace and Athabasca rivers, unique salt plains and gypsum karst, some of the most iconic boreal forest flora, vast muskeg, the continent's largest untouched sedge and grasslands, more than 46 mammal species, and 227 bird species, it is the home to the world's largest population of wild bison.

Bison bison, known commonly as the North American bison, is the continent's heaviest land animal. For millennia, it dominated much of central North America, wandering in the tens of millions along ancient feeding routes so well worn that they are still visible from the air today. By the end of the nineteenth century, though, over-hunting and large-scale exterminations by European settlers had reduced bison numbers from many million to only a few hundred. Concerted conservation efforts throughout the twentieth century helped to increase the numbers of wild bison. Wood Buffalo National Park is a crucial part of this conservation effort.

Specifications
No.146686
Mintage 7500
Composition 99.99% pure silver
Finish proof
Weight (g) 31.39
Diameter (mm) 38
Edge serrated
Certificate serialized
Face value 20 dollars
Artist Lauren Cramshaw (reverse), Susanna Blunt (obverse)