The long-awaited South Saskatchewan Regional Land Use Plan was unveiled for public comment last week and was immediately met with criticism from conservation groups.
Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Minister Diana McQueen lauded the 164-page document as meeting the needs of all Albertans who want to have it all.
“We are so lucky in this province we can have it all, but that doesn’t mean you can have it all everywhere, every time and that is why I am proud of the land use plan we are taking. Because we do need to make sure we have a strong economy in this province in all sectors, we do need to make sure we have growth for municipalities to grow, we need places for recreation, we need to make sure we are setting aside land for conservation of important species for biodiversity and we need to make sure that as private land owners and Albertans that all those rights are still protected,” McQueen said last Thursday (Oct. 10).
The plan recommends increasing the legally protected areas in the Eastern Slopes, and in particular the Castle region, from 22 to 33 per cent, which would add 134,000 hectares.
But conservation groups noted the protection proposed in the Castle only includes the upper valley, or higher elevations, which were already protected in policy documents.
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Southern Alberta (CPAWS) chapter spokesperson Katie Morrison said new protected areas should be in the most ecologically important places and include protection of headwaters and wildlife habitat, particularly for species at risk like grizzly bears and mountain trout.
The draft plan, she said, does not meet the needs of either or expectations of conservation groups like CPAWS.
“This was a real chance for the provincial government to have a good news environmental story in Alberta and they really didn’t fulfill on the promises of the plan itself,” Morrison said. “When designing protected areas, you want to look at not just the designation of protected areas, but how animals are going to move between protected areas safely and meeting all their life requirements.”
In particular, she said, the plan fails to provide connectivity for wildlife in the Eastern Slopes or address land use conflicts, also noted by Yellowstone to Yukon program director Wendy Francis.
“This plan promised to reduce land use conflict, but it doesn’t do that in any way,” said Francis. “There is nothing new for conservation in this draft plan. The only thing the plan accomplishes from a conservation point of view is that areas previously protected by policy are now going to be protected by legislation. This is pretty much a slap in the face for conservation.”
Over 100,000 Albertans sent messages to the premier requesting protection of the Castle, and provincial officials noted the plan takes what is already policy in the 1985 Castle Integrated Resource Plan and makes it legislation.
McQueen said a public land use zone for conservation purposes is proposed under the Public Lands Act in the adjacent lower valley of the Castle and forestry practices that support the management intent of maintaining biodiversity and headwaters protection will be allowed in that area.
“We heard a lot during the consultation from many people about many aspects,” she said. “Making sure we are protecting the Castle is certainly a very unique and special area of this province, but we have also heard from other stakeholders of other opportunities they want to have in this region as well.
“So for us, protection of headwaters and biodiversity is important and we think what we have done with the upper half in terms of protection protects that and in the bottom we can have other activities happening. But they must support the headwaters protection and they must support biodiversity.”
Conservation groups say without prescriptive measures or defined thresholds of human development like road densities or water quality, the plan cannot accomplish what it sets out to do -– balance environmental, economic and cultural needs.
“During consultations on the land use planning process, 80 per cent of participants wanted to see limits on growth and resource development in order to protect water quality, biodiversity and wildlife habitat,” said Sean Nichols of the Alberta Wilderness Association. “Instead, the government has opted out of addressing the imbalance between resource development and conservation.”
The draft plan is available for public comment until Jan. 15, 2014. The province is also hosting public consultation sessions throughout the province and will be at the Radisson Hotel in Canmore on Nov. 7 from 4:30-7:30 p.m.
