| Several environmental and landowner groups and MLA environmental critic David Swann are holding a rally on April 13 to push the province to immediately move to better protect water and Alberta landscapes from intensifying development.
The province has promised a new land-use framework and has held focus groups with municipalities, non-governmental groups, First Nations and industry. The province will consult with Albertans in late spring, but dates haven’t been announced yet. Alberta’s Sustainable Resource Development website states the government recognizes that "Alberta’s economic growth and increasing population are putting unprecedented pressure on our natural resources and environment" and the new framework will "develop an approach to balance the various demands on our land and natural resources."
However, environmental groups are concerned that Alberta’s water and pristine landscapes are in danger of being damaged before the land-use plan is in place.
Mac Blade, president of the Pekisko Group, an environmental organization formed by ranchers to protect the foothills landscape, says it could still be some time before the land-use plan is in place.
Blade says that with increased forestry and oil and gas development, more recreational use and increased residential development along the Eastern Slopes and foothills there is no time to waste in establishing further protection of the landscape. He says he’s especially concerned about protecting the headwaters of the Oldman and Highwood Rivers. "We need some places that still have pure water and to raise the bar a little on how industry operates," he says.
Blade also says the Eastern Slopes and foothills are one of the last remaining parts of Alberta that are largely pristine. "If we’re going to keep any semblance of what it was like at one time without too much happening on the landscape this is the only part of the province that isn’t heavily drilled," he says.
Nigel Douglas, conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, agrees that better land-use management is required immediately. "They’re basically still trying to allow everything on an increasingly fragmented landscape," he says.
Douglas says the AWA and other environmental and landowner groups are calling for a "time out" on new development along the Eastern Slopes and foothills until the plan is in place. "We’re beginning to acknowledge that we haven’t been doing things right. I think the situation is going to change on the landscape, and there’s the temptation for some companies to try and push ahead with things now while the going’s good with the suspicion that things will get reined in in the next few years," says Douglas.
He believes water has to be the number one priority in all land-use planning. "We need a reassessment of the priorities. Is it really more important that we have industrial forestry operations in Kananaskis Country, or is it more important that we have an area for supplying clean water?" |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.