WEST GLACIER - A team of scientists from the United Nations is visiting Glacier National Park, assessing potential threats posed by mining plans in Canadian wildlands upstream of the park.

Glacier, in partnership with adjacent Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, was named a World Heritage Site in 1995; that UNESCO designation recognizes the area's spectacular natural resources, including its diversity of wildlife and its role as a "biological crossroads."

But several Canadian companies are interested in resources that lie just beyond the two park boundaries - namely coal, gold and coalbed methane. British Columbia's provincial government already has granted exploration permits in the Canadian Flathead River drainage, which flows south into Montana to form Glacier Park's western boundary.

The transboundary dispute has simmered for years, with downstream interests concerned that industrialization of the headwaters will impact fisheries as well as wildlife corridors on both sides of the border.

The debate was elevated to the global level earlier this year, when a dozen environmental groups - representing 400,000 people - petitioned UNESCO to declare the parks a World Heritage Site in danger. In response, the World Heritage Committee has sent a mission to the parks to assess the threats, consult with stakeholders and prepare recommendations.

"I think we've gotten a very good start today," said Paul Dingwall, a member of the scientific delegation.

The group met all day Monday with Glacier Park leadership, as well as scientists, researchers and local stakeholders. They'll spend coming days in the field, including a fact-finding mission to Canada.

"We need to see the issues on the ground," Dingwall said.

As signatories to the World Heritage Site charter, both the United States and Canada have pledged to protect these one-of-a-kind resources, affording them the "highest level and highest standard of protection," Dingwall said.

Mining and resource protection can, in some cases, coexist, Dingwall said, but he added "there is no question that on the face of it, mining and protection are two incompatible goals."

Mining, by its nature, often results in "irretrievable impact," he said, because it permanently removes entire geologic features from the landscape. One Canadian Flathead coal proposal, for instance, would remove a mountaintop to extract millions of tons of ore.

The UN mission, said Stephen Morris, extends far beyond the parks' borders, because development on the fringes can create impacts inside the parks. Water and wildlife, for instance, do not respect jurisdictional boundaries; nor do industrial pollutants.

Morris, from the National Park Service's office of international affairs, will accompany the scientists on their week-long survey.

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

Rao has worked on other World Heritage site reviews, and said member countries generally respond quickly to UNESCO recommendations. In other places, he said, major development projects - a Russian pipeline, for instance, and an African resort - have been dramatically altered in order to meet World Heritage Committee recommendations.

"In a sense," he said, "we are reporting back to the world community."

Will Hammerquist of the National Parks Conservation Association was among those who petitioned UNESCO for the review, and on Monday spoke to the delegation about British Columbia's land-use plan for the area. That plan, he said, opens nearly 90 percent of the disputed land base to mining.

The area - strategically important to Canada's extraction industries - forms the core of a

10 million-acre ecosystem, Hammerquist said, with a long legacy of protection south of the border (including the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex).

Of the lands protected in that ecosystem, he said, 94 percent are in Montana, 4 percent are in Alberta and 2 percent are in British Columbia.

Kishore, who first visited Glacier Park some 25 years ago, said he was hopeful for a resolution to the long-standing transboundary dispute, noting he was "very impressed by the level of effort that's gone into trying to study the various aspects of the ecosystem."

The group will travel by air and on the ground, and will visit the Canadian Flathead directly later in the week.

Draft recommendations will be ready in about two months, Rao said, and will be submitted to both countries for review. A formal report will then be delivered to the World Heritage Committee, at its annual meeting next July. The committee can then adopt or modify the recommendations as it sees fit, before issuing a final report next September.