“The root problem is that we don’t have an overarching and encompassing approach to land management in Alberta,” says Dr. Richard Schneider, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Northern Alberta chapter. “The biggest threat to Alberta’s species is the loss or degradation of their habitat, which is currently being fractured into pieces by industries cutting old-growth forests and building roads, pipelines and well sites, to name a few,” says Schneider.
Schneider is a member of one of the working groups developing the province’s new Land-use Framework for Alberta and recalls going through a similar process a decade ago, “but the results of our work then was just shelved,” he says. Regardless of the defeating exercise 10 years ago, he’s hopeful that this round will be different. “I sense a groundswell of discontent among Albertans. They know that there is something wrong with the way our government is focused on rapid economic growth — at all cost,” says Schneider.
The protection of Alberta’s wild spaces and species is under the provincial government’s jurisdiction. The government’s mechanism for protecting endangered species (which falls under Alberta’s Wildlife Act) is led by the Endangered Species Conservation Committee (ESCC), which relies on unbiased information provided by the scientific subcommittee responsible for assessing the status of species. The ESCC then advises government officials about which species should be listed as endangered.
“But there seems to be a breakdown in application. Two species that are really seeing this right now are the caribou and the grizzly bear,” says David Poulton, executive director of the CPAWS Calgary/Banff chapter. “The government has indicated an extreme reluctance to implement the most important recommendations coming from the caribou recovery team. We are now seeing the same syndrome with the grizzly bear.”
A survey released in June 2007 on the grizzly population estimates that there are less than 500 grizzly bears roaming Alberta’s wilderness, which suggests that the grizzly bear is more threatened than previously thought. In 2002, when the ESCC believed the population was 1,000 strong, it recommended that the grizzly bear be officially listed as a threatened species. Five years later, the government of Alberta still hasn’t listed the grizzly bear as threatened, but in the spring of 2006, it did announce a three-year suspension on hunting the animal.
“We still haven’t completed our surveys on the status of grizzly bears in Alberta,” says Darcy Whiteside, communications spokesperson for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. “We’ve just completed two of the four areas that are being surveyed along the foothills and Northern Alberta. We need a complete picture before we start making decisions on how to best manage the grizzly bears,” he says. And while the government is evaluating the status of the grizzly bear, Whiteside says that it is still managing the animals. “Further to ceasing the hunts, we have initiated, in Canmore, the cutting of buffalo berries to reduce negative human bear interactions in that area.”
Alberta’s diverse landscape is divided into six natural regions — Rocky Mountain, foothills, grassland, aspen parkland, boreal forest and Canadian Shield. Each is home to a distinct ecosystem. The province currently has a network of 504 protected sites, “but most of the protected areas are within the Rocky Mountains,” says Rebecca Reeves, Parkswatch program co-ordinator of CPAWS Northern Alberta. “The other regions are seriously underrepresented,” says Reeves. For instance, the foothills, which contains the woodland caribou (on the list of threatened species) and the grizzly bear, allows logging as well as oil and gas mining on 98.6 per cent of its land base. According to CPAWS, only 1.4 per cent of Alberta’s foothills are currently protected.
The total surface area under protection by Parks Canada and Alberta Parks amounts to 12.5 per cent of the province, but only 4.2 per cent of the total falls under provincial jurisdiction, the balance (8.3 per cent) falls under the five national parks. Environmental organizations are attempting to gain protection for new areas, “but there is no due process or mechanism for citizens to apply for such designations,” says Poulton. “Advocacy groups are left with developing campaigns, building cases and creating public awareness to hopefully get their message heard by government officials,” he says. For instance, the CPAWS Calgary/Banff Chapter relentlessly works with stakeholders to convince the government to protect the Castle Wilderness, which has been under a consultative notation since 1974, but this agreement holds no legislative power to protect the area’s cultural or natural environment.
“Alberta has the weakest parks legislation in Canada,” says Reeves. “With the exception of ecological reserves, current legislation permits the Alberta government to eliminate or reduce the size of any park, without public notice.” The Government of Alberta has placed a priority on developing the Land-use Framework to better manage diverse land-utilization needs across the province. With industry, outdoor enthusiasts and wildlife often competing for the same space, there is a desperate need to establish some ground rules. “We can’t stop industry or environmentalists from doing what they do, but what we hope to do is find a balance, which we know is a challenging task,” says Whiteside. “In fact, there are many groups with totally opposite mindsets on how the landscape should be managed, and in some aspects all of them are correct,” he adds.
Biodiversity is essential to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. In fact, the more diversity within a system, the more likely it will be resistant to change. Experts estimate that Alberta is home to 40,000 to 60,000 species (not counting bacteria and viruses). The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI), initiated in 1997, is designed to provide timely and relevant scientific information on the state of the province’s biodiversity. Created by leaders in government, industry and the non-governmental community, the much-needed program will help support natural resource management in Alberta and provide reliable information to the public and interested stakeholders. “From what we know, we are the only program of this kind in the world,” says Dr. Jim Scheick, co-director of the ABMI’s Science Centre. “We’ve had organizations from around the world look at our model to see how they can do the same thing.”
The institute will assess and document the rate of change in Alberta’s biodiversity over time and correlate it with different land-use strategies and policies. “The consequences of our actions are not yet well understood,” says Dr. Erin Bayne, ABMI’s Science Centre co-director. “There is a huge data deficit and it’s hard to create strategies and implement plans that fulfil federal and provincial legislation when you don’t have a clear picture of what is going on.”
This summer marks the beginning of data collection for the institute, after 10 years of planning and creating a robust model to assess the status of Alberta’s biodiversity. There are 1,656 sites across the province spaced 20 kilometres apart and it will take up to six years to survey all sites (five years thereafter) and to produce the first comprehensive report. The institute will monitor 2,000 species — from birds to fish to mosses, as well as invertebrates and mammals. “We are attempting to not focus on specific species, but rather take a holistic approach with a focus on systems,” says Bayne.
Many citizens, environmentalists and scientists fear the worst for Alberta’s wilderness and biodiversity, and feel that there has been a lack of leadership from politicians in safeguarding Alberta’s natural heritage. “For instance, within the Forestry Act, the policy says you will sustain the yield of the harvest (plant a tree for every one you cut) — that’s great, but there is nothing at all to hold the government accountable to anything, be it either old-growth forests or species. Everything is up to the minister’s discretion,” says Schneider. According to Whiteside, much has changed in the lumber industry since the ’80s. “Forest companies are trying to mimic natural disturbances in their operations and have teams of biologists evaluating the landscape to help protect the watersheds in the process,” explains Whiteside. “As for protecting Alberta’s older trees, many of them pose a threat to our forests as they are more prone to disease and pests, such as the mountain pine beetle. And the older trees also create a greater risk for wild fires, which are a threat to many communities.”
As for implementing change within the government, Whiteside admits that it’s a lengthy process. “We don’t want to rush things, we want to do this properly, which means consulting with the public and then verifying that this information is accurate,” he says. “We know that there has been a shift in public opinion, and that there is a large emphasis on environmental concerns. That’s why we’ve made the Land-use Framework a top priority.”
According to Schneider, two important pieces have to come together if we are to protect our environment. “We need a legal framework that defines how we are going to plan and manage, and then we need some way to measure or guage how we are doing, and that’s where ABMI’s work in monitoring biodiversity will be key.”
One can only hope that the growing discomfort felt by a large number of Albertans will provide a strong incentive and the momentum to push the government from environmental assessments into environmental action. “We have to decide what is important to us as Albertans and then put in place a system of decision-making and laws that are going to make sure that these things happen,” says Schneider. “It means that we’ll have to face some tradeoffs, that’s true, but then there will be hope for the species that are threatened, and the right actions will also mean having clean air and clean water — and everything else that people associate with a good quality of life.”
