The Alberta government released a draft land-use plan Oct. 10 that intends to manage growth pressures and balance environmental needs in southern Alberta.
“Southern Alberta is diverse, vibrant and prosperous, but its rapid growth has increased pressure on sensitive lands and water resources,” said Sustainable Resources Development Minister Diana McQueen in a press release.
The draft South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP) is more than four years in the making.
It identifies new conservation areas, sets environmental limits, protects water supplies and identifies acceptable land uses for the area.
McQueen added in her statement that she thinks the SSRP will advance conservation efforts while respecting individual property rights.
The South Saskatchewan region encompasses more than 80,000 square kilometres from north of Calgary to the Canada-United States border, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Alberta-Saskachewan boundary.
It includes about 45 per cent of Albertans living in the cities of Calgary, Airdrie and Lethbridge, as well as many municipalities including Rocky View County (RVC).
The draft SSRP proposes 32 new and expanded conservation and recreation areas, including the Castle wilderness area in southwest Alberta and Wildland Provincial Parks.
A 10 per cent increase in the percentage of conservation areas in the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies to 33 per cent will add 134,666 hectares of legislatively protected land to the region.
The plan also sets frameworks to protect surface water and air quality, as well as give guidelines to industry and other land users about accessing and using public lands.
Conservation specialists with the Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) said these frameworks are important for the environmental health of Southern Alberta and that the plan is long overdue.
“Over-allocated rivers during drought years and lack of goals for wetland conservation remain unsolved,” stated AWA Conservation Specialist Carolyn Campbell.
“(Without a biodiversity management framework in the region), the region’s lands remain threatened by unsustainable levels of industrial, residential and recreation fragmentation,” she added.
However, AWA stated that the draft SSRP falls short on protecting legislated grassland.
“Important pieces (in the plan) such as grassland and wetland protection haven’t yet received enough priority to create a better balance between social, economic and healthy ecosystem demands,” stated AWA Conservation Specialist Brittany Verbeek.
She added that while the plan does propose a goal to maintain intact native grasslands and habitat on public lands, there needs to be more leadership in formally protecting grassland areas that will benefit at-risk species.
Wildrose Sustainable Resource Development Critic Pat Stier also criticized the draft SSRP.
He stated in a press release that, in his opinion, the plan is “too big and too vast to properly protect the complex business and landowner rights that exist in the region.” As a result, he said the plan will “strip away autonomy from the communities they impact.”
“The SSRP impacts a vast region with dramatically different needs in different areas. It will have complex impacts on businesses, landowners and municipalities,” said Stier.
The SSRP is the second of seven regional plans that are a result of the passage of Bill 36, the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, in 2009.
The bill divided the province into seven land-use regions and directed Cabinet to implement regional plans for each.
The first, the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, came in to effect in the fall of 2012 and focuses on Alberta’s oil sands region.
Albertans can give their feedback through an online workbook available at alberta.ca. Public information sessions will be held at 18 locations throughout southern Alberta between Nov. 5 and Nov. 28.
