The Trudeau government committed an unprecedented $1.3 billion in Tuesday’s Budget 2018 to protect land and water in Canada over the next five years. The funds will help Canada meet its target to protect 17 per cent of land and 10 per cent of oceans by 2020 under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

“This is a very good news day for conservation in Canada,” Alison Woodley, national conservation director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), told DeSmog Canada.

In addition to significant financial investments, the budget also outlines a new model for collaborative conservation efforts bringing Indigenous, provincial and territorial governments together.

“For the first time the government is not only investing in federal action but also recognizing the importance of partnerships, recognizing Indigenous, provincial and territorial government’s work to protect land and water,” Woodley said.

Over the next five years the federal government will invest $500 million in conservation partnerships and $800 million to support the creation of new protected areas, increased park management, protection of species at risk and to establish a coordinated network of conservation areas with other governmental partners.

“I think the great thing about this is we’re not starting from scratch,” Woodley said. “There are places across this country where Indigenous and other government have proposals underway to protect large landscapes.”

Protecting the celebrated Peel Watershed in the Yukon would be an easy win when it comes to protecting undisturbed wilderness, Woodley said.

Proposals for the South Okanagan Similkameen national park to protect rare and diminishing desert in British Columbia, plans to protect undeveloped land in the Rockies and the Indigenous-led Thaidene Nene conservation project in the traditional territory of the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation could also represent big conservation wins, she added.

“This is a very good news day for conservation in Canada.” https://t.co/8KMcf1cyeb

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 28, 2018

Indigenous-led conservation a priority

“We are particularly pleased to see the budget acknowledge the leadership of Indigenous peoples in protecting Canada’s land and waters,” Éric Hébert-Daly, CPAWS national executive director said in a statement.

“This funding will support Indigenous governments in their conservation efforts, which will make an important contribution to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.”

Indigenous-led conservation efforts have resulted in some of Canada’s most iconic land use agreements, including the creation of the Great Bear Rainforest and the Gwaii Haanas national park.

And the creation of tribal parks in unceded First Nations traditional territory in British Columbia — like the Dasiquox Tribal Park — has helped redefinine conservation strategies to more thoughtfully prioritize indigenous land use and cultural practices.

Steve Ganey, director of the land and ocean program for the Pew Charitable Trusts, applauded the federal government for its renewed commitment to conservation but said more can and should be done to emphasize reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in all land protection efforts.

“National and provincial governments should work to support new forms of Indigenous-led conservation in their efforts to meet the biological diversity targets,” Ganey wrote in a response to Budget 2018. “This is particularly important in northern Canada, where most of the country’s intact natural areas — and many of its Indigenous communities — are located.”

Ganey added Canada should consider creating protected Indigenous lands that are managed under a self-governance structure that highlights traditional knowledge — similar to Australia.

“This is the best and perhaps only way to rapidly expand conservation efforts while honouring Indigenous rights.”

Woodley said many of Canada’s Indigenous communities are already leading the way when it comes to protecting their lands and cultural practices.

“Indigenous-led conservation initiatives can be a great tool to advance reconciliation,” she said.

Continued investment needed to protect at-risk species

Conservation efforts are key to recovering Canada’s species at risk, such as caribou and orca that have suffered critical habitat loss and degradation over the last several decades.

“The number one reason that species across Canada and globally are in danger is because they’re losing habitat,” Woodley said.

“Protected areas are a key tool, whether on land or in the ocean, for addressing species at risk.”

Canada has been harshly criticized for failing to adequately protect its endangered species, especially through the creation of strict no-go zones that would protect critical habitat from industrial development and human activity.

Aerin Jacob, conservation scientist with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), said today’s investment in protected areas signals a change in tide.

“This type of vision shows the government is serious about protecting nature on the scale it needs to thrive,” Jacob said.

“Now the hard work lies ahead since we need different conservation approaches in different parts of Canada. This includes carefully planning where the new protected areas should be, based on intact wilderness, connectivity, species at risk and more.”

Woodley said conservation creates cascading positive effects where protected areas benefit wildlife, nature-based tourism and allow people to enjoy the lifestyles that come with landscapes that aren’t industrialized.

“This funding can deliver a whole suite of benefits to Canadians from nature conservation, economic, social and health perspectives.”

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For decades, the ‘battle of Alberta’ has alluded to the intense rivalry between Calgary and Edmonton, especially on the ice or the football field.

“The worst way to engage Edmontonians is to tell them how things are done in Calgary,” wrote Harvey Locke in a piece titled “The Two Albertas” for the Literary Review of Canada.

But as demographics shift, there’s a different kind of battle of Alberta brewing, one that doesn’t divide people along municipal boundaries. And that battle has elicited boycotts, harassment campaigns and even death threats.

“I think there are multiple Albertas and multiple identities … at play in terms of the political future of the province,” said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data.

There’s long been an urban vs. rural divide in Alberta and that gap is widening, Coletto says. But there’s also been an influx of young people into the province, particularly to Edmonton and Calgary.

“There’s a generational divide that’s growing,” Coletto said.

Yet despite deep divisions within Alberta, Albertans are often viewed monolithically by the rest of Canada.

“Albertans will unite to defend their economic freedom and autonomy,” Locke wrote. “They will put aside any difference to avoid being told what to do by Central Canada.”

One need look no further than the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline dispute with B.C. to see evidence of that. But, although Albertans may appear to rally together from time to time, they are far from a singular entity when it comes to the environment.

Environmental campaigns draw violent threats

The latest skirmish in the new battle of Alberta broke out in late January over an event called Hops and Headwaters hosted at a brewery in Edmonton. The event was in support of a campaign to protect the Bighorn Backcountry, a region in the province’s foothills home to the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River, which provides drinking water to the citizens of Edmonton.

“Water being the largest ingredient in our beer, it’s an issue and something that’s very near and dear to our hearts and important to us,” Bent Stick Brewery co-founder Scott Kendall told City TV News.

Seems fairly reasonable, right? Nope. The brewery was struck with dozens of one-star reviews on its Facebook page for supporting the headwaters protection campaign.

Reviews like this one: “I will not support any company that supports foreign-funded groups such as Y2Y [Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative] and Love Your Headwaters that strive to limit my ability to responsibly access and enjoy the beautiful public lands in Alberta.”

And it didn’t stop at Facebook comments. By the time the event date rolled around, there were enough threats made on social media to warrant hiring four private security guards.

Why were some Albertans so hot under the collar? Because of a proposal to limit off-highway vehicle use in certain areas.

“My organization never had a security protocol until we started working on this issue,” said Stephen Legault, a program director for Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y).

Up until now, parts of the Bighorn Backcountry have been somewhat of a free-for-all when it comes to off-highway vehicle use, but all of that ripping around in the wilderness has consequences.

“Off-highway vehicle use can have a dramatic impact on downstream water quality and on the ability of endangered species to survive,” he said.

An example of the type of damage that can be caused by off-highway vehicles. Photo: Stephen Legault.

Legault — who’s lived in Alberta for 25 years — is adamant he isn’t against quadders and other off-highway vehicle users, noting that citizens have done a good job of managing stream crossings in some areas.

“I think the critical thing is that it’s not about eliminating it, it’s about finding a place for it where it does less damage.”

The first threats of physical violence came when Legault gave a talk in Caroline, Alberta, a few months ago.

“For the first time in 25 years, I actually had to leave an event and drive away in order to de-escalate the situation,” Legault said. “In many ways, what’s happening is there’s a proxy fight happening right now over government.”

It’s certainly not the first time a complex policy conversation has turned into a toxic, polarized debate. It’s just one of several attacks on academics, scientists and environmentalists in Alberta in recent years. Veteran environmentalist Tzeporah Berman has faced violent threats for her role in Alberta’s Oil Sands Advisory Group. And economists Andrew Leach and Trevor Tombe have weathered more than their fair share of rage online.“

Collaborating with the enemy

Adam Kahane knows a thing or two about how public conversations can get derailed. He has mediated conflicts around the world for more than three decades and has been credited with helping to end Colombia’s civil war.

In his latest book, Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People you Don’t Agree With or Like or Trust, Kahane says there are four choices when it comes to working with others: collaborate, adapt, force or exit.

There’s always the choice to collaborate. Unfortunately, often times when people can’t get what they want, they turn the other side into an “enemy.”

“The situation quickly moves from ‘those people have a different perspective’ to ‘those people are wrong’ to ‘those people are my enemy.’ That’s the process of enemy-fying, constructing enemies,” Kahane said.

“I’m not saying people never have enemies, but I’m saying we don’t have enemies as often as we think we do. And so turning an ordinary situation into a declaration of war is an unfortunate escalation.”

Another factor that has really irked some Albertans in the debate over limiting off-highway vehicle use in the Bighorn Backcountry is the involvement of Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Both of these organizations (like most non-profit organizations, including ourselves), receive some of their funding from foundations located outside of Canada that share a common interest in protecting wildlife and wilderness and addressing climate change. (We might need a passport at the border, but wide-ranging animals such as grizzly bear, wolverine and lynx roam freely back and forth between the two countries and require protection on both sides of the border for their long-term viability).

As for the involvement of “foreign-funded” groups, Kahane says it’s not the first time there have been charges of “foreign-funded” organizations coming in from the outside and meddling in local affairs.

“It’s a classic form of othering,” Kahne said. “It’s a very common way of looking at things, because then the problem isn’t us. It’s those outsiders. It’s a scapegoat.”

French thinker Rene Girard says a scapegoat removes the need to look at ourselves.

“Usually there’s something amongst us that has to be worked out,” Kahane said.

Crescent Falls in the Bighorn Backcountry. Photo: Stephen Legault.

The real issues

In the case of the escalating tension over the North Saskatchewan River, Legault says there’s been almost no monitoring or enforcement of off-highway vehicle use in Alberta over the last decade.

“An identity has developed that part of being an Albertan means I can go anywhere I want,” he said.

“We’re not asking the government to ban off-highway vehicle use. What we’re saying is there needs to be careful thought given to where off-highway vehicle use occurs … What we’re really trying to do is find a place for everybody to enjoy nature.”

Coletto said this issue feeds into a larger narrative in which the battle lines are easily drawn.

“There’s always a defence of tradition and heritage,” he said. “On the one hand, you’ve got a solid and larger than perceived group of environmentalists and progressives who are living and working and trying to advocate for change in Alberta, but there’s just as large a group that’s trying to defend their way of life.”

Since the early 1970s, there’s been a conversation about protecting the Bighorn Backcountry. In 1974, former premier Peter Lougheed held the eastern slopes hearings, in an attempt to engage ranchers, hunters and sportsmen on a vision for how the region would be managed.

“That proposal has gone so far as to be on roadmaps in Alberta in the 1980s and then got quickly rescinded,” Legault said. “This issue has been part of the effort to protect Alberta’s headwaters for a very long time.”

Getting beyond the battle of Alberta

Kahane is clear that if you want to reach a solution, sometimes you need to work with people with whom you have permanent disagreements.

“I think those situations are more and more common and it is possible. I’ve seen it with my own eyes many times, but you have to make a choice,” Kahane says.

Sometimes that means talking in the presence of armed guards and sometimes that means talking under the condition that people leave their guns at the door.

In Colombia, progress was made in peace talks by bringing together everyone from armed left-wing guerillas and right-wing paramilitary to trade unions, churchgoers and academics.

Alberta may be no Colombia, but it’s important to remember there are real differences at play, Kahane emphasized.

“They’re not imaginary. And they’re not necessarily ones that if we really had a good chat over a beer we’d find we agreed,” he said.

A fascinating piece of Coletto’s research indicates Albertans think they’re more conservative than they actually are.

“I think it’s historical. You have to always keep in mind the historical political culture of Alberta as being a place that was for most of its history on the outside looking in,” Coletto said. “It is remarkable to think how resilient those views have been and how effectively they’ve been passed down even from generation to generation. If you’re a progressive or an environmental-minded Albertan … that’s always going to be a hurdle in the province.”

But, while being conservative has been a core part of the Alberta identity for a long time, “that identity is starting to be chipped away at,” Coletto says.

Legault said he’s recently been able to start some productive conversations through posting his photographs of the Bighorn Backcountry.

“I think all sides of the conversation need to get over their fear of losing,” he reflected.  “Conservationists need to get over their fear of losing nature and recreationalists need to get over their fear that we’re going to take away everything they care about.”

The irony is people on both sides of the conversation are defending their right to spend time outside in nature.

“There are lots of shared values,” Legault said. “The problem is the divisions are easily exploitable.”

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Gravel-bed rivers and their floodplains are the lifeblood of ecosystems and need to be allowed to run and flood unimpeded if species are to be protected and communities are to cope with climate change, a ground-breaking scientific study has found.

The broad valleys formed by rivers flowing from glaciated mountains, such as those found throughout B.C. and Alberta, are some of the most ecologically important habitats in North America, according to the team of scientists who have done the first extensive study of the full range of species that rely on gravel-bed rivers, ranging from microbes to bears. The paper was published online Friday in Science Advances.

In the region that stretches from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to the northern Yukon, gravel-bed river flood plains support more than half the plant life. About 70 per cent of the area’s bird species use the floodplain, while deer, elk, caribou, wolves and grizzly bears use the plains for food, habitat and as important migration corridors.

While everyone knows that fish rely on rivers, the scientists found that species such as cottonwood trees need the river flood to reproduce and the ever-changing landscape of changing channels and shifting gravel and rocks supports a complex food web.

Gravel-bed rivers are much more than water flowing through the channel, said lead author Ric Hauer, director of the University of Montana’s Center for Integrated research on the Environment.

“The river flows over and through the entire floodplain system, from valley wall to valley wall, and supports an extraordinary diversity of life. The river is so much bigger than it appears to be at first glance,” he said.

But the floodplains are endangered worldwide as the flat, productive valleys are attractive for agriculture, roads or houses and it is time to look at gravel bed rivers with new eyes, said Harvey Locke, co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and one of the study’s authors.

“A wild and free river drives the life support system across the whole landscape and we need to keep them happy,” Locke said in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“We need to let them be rivers and run free and do our development respecting that need instead of trying to control them.”

That means not building dams or levees that prevent essential flooding, Locke said.

“Flooding is critical to the health of the riparian system and, by extension, organisms across the whole landscape and, when you put in a dam for climate change mitigation you are killing that process. It’s a catastrophe not only for the immediate ecological effects, but it also puts a huge barrier to connectivity so species cannot go up the river to adapt to climate change,” Locke said.

Hydro dams are often touted as green energy, but, in reality they are a huge problem, not a solution to climate change, he said.

Locke emphasized that the scientific study does not look at the controversy behind individual projects such as the planned Site C dam in northeastern B.C., but said he personally regards Site C as a prime example of the problem.

Existing dams on the Peace River have already had a devastating effect downstream, he said.

“And the horror of wrecking more of that beautiful river valley around Fort St. John is an example of not thinking clearly. It’s very bad for the resilience of the landscape,” he said.

Gravel-bed rivers are found mainly in the western U.S. and Canada — and include major rivers such as the Columbia, Fraser, Flathead, Mackenzie and Yukon — and every part of B.C is affected by them, said Locke, who is hoping the scientific paper will attract the attention of groups such as planners and politicians who make development decisions.

“The really big point is that gravel-bed river systems are the heart of the whole landscape and you don’t want to clog the arteries attached to the heart, which is what a dam does,” he said.

Even in protected areas such as Yellowstone and Banff national parks, humans have altered the floodplains, the scientists found.

Hauer said the increasing pressures of climate change mean that species need access to intact gravel-bed ecosystems in order to survive.

“These systems must be protected and those that are already degraded must be restored,” he said.

Biologist and grizzly bear expert Michael Proctor, of Birchdale Ecological, one of the report’s authors, said the research highlighted how river systems are a focus of regional connectivity, not only for grizzly bears, but for all species.

“This paper helped me realize the amazing significance of gravel bed river systems, not just river valleys, as an ecological focus and arena of so much biodiversity and ecological processes,” Proctor said.

“It’s like the narrow pinch point in an hour-glass of influence. Everything is influenced by that pinch point.”

Human settlement and activities in those river valleys and floodplains reduces their biodiversity and significance, Proctor said.

“We need to leave and even restore some portions of these river systems to more of a natural condition,” he said.

Photo: Flathead River by Harvey Locke

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Alan Ernst and his wife Madeline were world travellers for most of their adult lives. So when they decided to settle down, they gravitated back to one of the most beautiful places they’d ever seen: the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta.

There, the sharp slopes of one of the world’s most dramatic mountain ranges make a sprawling dive to the foothills, which settle into the continent’s vast prairies.

When the Ernsts saw the eastern slopes for the first time, they knew it was going to be their new home.

“We just wanted to do something different,” Alan said. “We had office jobs before and we decided we wanted to live in a more pleasant surrounding than the suburbs of a major city. We wanted to live in the mountains.”

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The Ernsts found one of the last undeveloped natural areas in the eastern slopes, in between Jasper and Banff, and built the first eco-tourism lodge in Alberta. The Aurum Lodge was constructed in 1999 and opened to the public in the year 2000.  To this day it is the only dedicated, low-impact eco-tourism lodge in the province.

“I sometimes joke and say we are the antidote to Banff,” Alan laughed.

Their lodge, located along the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan river basin, overlooks Abraham Lake, which glows electric blue with the region’s signature glacial water.

But all is not serene in Alberta’s foothills. The Ernsts say a “free for all” attitude is allowing industry to encroach more and more into the wilderness each year.

“There is very little understanding for conservation here,” Alan said. “It’s all about promoting industry and letting industry do whatever they want. Unfortunately that is resulting in the loss of natural areas. We see industry coming closer every year.”

But this year there’s a rare opportunity to protect the North Saskatchewan river basin while the Alberta government develops a regional plan, called the North Saskatchewan Land Use Framework.

The big question is how the plan balances the needs of people and the environment with industrial development and motorized recreation.

The region, despite being popular for recreation, is relatively undisturbed, says Sean Nichols, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association.

“It tends to be low-impact recreation,” he said. “And we’re really trying to get those people, who live in and use the area, involved in the land use framework planning process.”

Abraham Lake in fall. "This image shows the beauty of an area which deserves to be protected in its current state," Alan Ernst said. Photo by Alan Ernst.

The Alberta Wilderness Association has partnered with Mountain Equipment Co-op to help bring the voices of outdoor enthusiasts into the process.

A camper, hiker or kayaker might be “one of the strongest voices that can be a part of the planning process,” Nichols said.

Previous land use planning processes have been dominated by municipal, industrial or agricultural voices.

“We wanted people who actually recreate and live in these areas to get involved in the process,” Nichols said.

“For a long time, Alberta has been of a Wild West mentality: few people and lots of land and resources,” Nichols said. But as populations in the province grow and competition over resources increases, that’s beginning to change.

“We’ve got more people, fewer resources and land to support those people,” he said.

“We’re at a stage where the wild frontier mentality isn’t working.”

With a variety of demands on the land base, officials are now moving into a new mindset of developing integrated land use frameworks that take into account not just residential, recreational or industrial needs, but also the needs and limits of the ecosystem itself.

“We’re in a place where Alberta, maybe for the first time, is ready to make those tradeoffs,” Nichols said. “At this stage, we’re cautiously optimistic.”

Four Decades of Attempts to Protect the North Saskatchewan's Headwaters

Nichols’ colleague Vivian Pharis, a director of the Alberta Wilderness Association, has been involved in efforts to protect the eastern slopes region since the 1970s.

“It’s the most beautiful example of pristine eastern slopes Rockies out into the foothills,” Pharis said. “Our national parks don’t take in much foothill land so Alberta has protected almost nothing within its two foothills regions.”

Abraham Lake is Alberta's longest man-made lake at 33 kilometres. It formed after the Bighorn Dam was constructed on the North Saskatchewan in 1972. The area "would be an ideal candidate for a Provincial Park which would provide permanent protection," Alan Ernst said. Photo by Alan Ernst.

The region has nearly achieved permanent protection twice, before the opportunity slipped away.

“What most people don’t know is that in 1986 the government almost had this whole headwaters area protected,” Pharis said. “Prior to that most of these lands in the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan were part of the national parks system.”

A lack of public concern and an absence of government initiative allowed the region’s protected status to remain unlegislated, Pharis explained, and eventually vast areas were removed from within park borders, as boundaries designating Banff and Jasper National Parks were constricted.

Each time a policy plan has made its way into document form, Pharis said, it fails to become law, leading to incremental changes that threaten the integrity of the entire ecosystem.

Although the mid-80s showed some promise, with a minister keen on conservation, things eventually “fell apart,” Pharis said, and within a few years “the oil and gas activity, forestry, etcetera were just putting so much pressure on the province, they left land use planning altogether.”

Now, through the regional land use planning process, there’s an opportunity to protect 90 per cent of the North Saskatchewan headwaters.

“It’s essentially a no-brainer to protect,” Pharis said. “It would be such a boon to Alberta and this river system if those headwater did get protection under this plan.”

An advisory council could make recommendations to the province for land use plans in the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan river basin as early as this fall.

North Saskatchewan Headwaters Crucial For Drinking Water, Wildlife Survival

For Sarah Cox, senior conservation program manager with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, the land use plan has the unique opportunity to not only protect one of the province’s most significant sources of drinking water, but to protect vast wildlife range from human disturbance, saving it for generations to come.

The North Saskatchewan River in the Kootenay Plains. Photo by Alan Ernst.

“First and foremost, the North Saskatchewan Regional Plan should protect the extensive headwaters that supply cities like Edmonton with drinking water,” she said. But it should also include the means to conserve “wildlife corridors that allow grizzly bears and other wide-ranging species to move freely from one protected area to another.”

Cox notes that the region has already lost its native herds of woodland caribou. “We don’t want to lose any more species,” she said.

According to the Alberta government’s own data, she said, there are 45 at-risk species in the North Saskatchewan planning region, including Canada lynx, bull trout and the trumpeter swan. 

The land use plan could protect the least disturbed parts of the area from motorized vehicles and forestry, she said.

“People who live in the region love to recreate in the mountains. They would like to see protective measures in place so that their children and grandchildren will be able to experience the wilderness and catch a glimpse of the remarkable wildlife that draws people from all over the world to this area.”  

Eco-Tourism Provides Economic Opportunity for Alberta

For the Ernsts, protecting the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan offers more than an ecological opportunity — it has the potential to provide a new vision for the Albertan economy.

Saskatchewan Glacier and Lake in Banff National Park. Photo by Alan Ernst.

“When you look around along the North Saskatchewan river where we live it is still pretty much the way it was 100 or 200 years ago,” Alan said. “It is still a very natural area.”

“We have high density of wildlife which is important for biodiversity and also for potential tourism development. I think keeping an area like this the way it is has as much economic importance and benefit as developing it,” he said.

Continuing to attract tourists from all over the world to the Rocky Mountain region “will require careful land use planning,” Alan said.

He thinks previous land use plans have favoured industry, rather than considering other low-impact uses of the land.

“I am hoping that this will be different,” he said, “but I fear it will be more of the same.”

For Sean Nichols from the Alberta Wilderness Association, this is the perfect time for Albertans to get involved with the North Saskatchewan land use plan.

Although the Alberta government won’t officially seek public comments until a first draft for the plan is put on the table, you can register your interest through Mountain Equipment Co-op’s Homewaters campaign today and be kept in the loop on chances to comment.

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Image Credits: Top: Aurum Lodge overlooking Abraham Lake. All photos by Alan Ernst. 

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