Alberta will lose parts of its natural heritage unless the province adopts an integrated resource-planning approach that balances industrial development with community and environmental values, says a government-appointed advisory committee.
In a recent report to Alberta Environment Minister Lorne Taylor, the committee recommends the government abandon its current piecemeal and adversarial approach to resource planning across the province.
The report, which took two and a half years to produce, calls for a comprehensive, co-ordinated “Cumulative Effects Management System (CEMS)” approach to developing oil and gas, forest products, eco-tourism and other industries, while protecting the environment, wildlife and other natural values.
“It will be the first regional strategy of its kind in Alberta, and the first time that a concentrated effort has been made to come up with recommendations to manage all types of Crown land use in a way that balances economic prosperity with environmental and community values,” said Fred Munn, co-chair of the regional advisory committee.
The report, titled The Northern East Slopes: Sustainable Resource and Environmental Management Strategy, focuses on a 7.7-million-hectare region. The area stretches from the B.C. border and Rockies in the west to the Barrhead area in the east, and from Drayton Valley in the south to the Grande Prairie area in the north.
However, the recommendations for a management system that addresses cumulative effects on the landscape is meant to serve as a “dramatic” new model for resource planning throughout Alberta, says committee member Jonathon Russell.
Without a CEMS approach, “I think we’re going to start to erode the natural forest land base over time, as a province,” said Russell, chief forester at Millar Western Forest Products Ltd.
“The cumulative effects of current, past and projected future development are reaching a point where, if you value the natural environment, there are going to be some aspects of it put in jeopardy,” he said.
For example, all three woodland caribou herds in the region “are in serious trouble,” Russell noted. “I would be amazed if 20 years from now, any of those herds were left.”
Caroline Kutash, a teacher who served on the advisory committee, says while industry is appropriate in parts of the landscape, some of the region should be left totally undeveloped “so that it actually does have natural characteristics, and that the caribou have places to be and the species that need old growth can survive.”
The CEMS approach would see government departments and various industries, including the petroleum and forest sectors, working together and with regional communities and other stakeholders to manage the land base.
The committee, which included government and citizen members, recommends amalgamating existing industry and government departments involved in resource planning into “a single, provincially effective unit funded by industry, government, First Nations and stakeholders.”
“The current (project-by-project) review process is no longer satisfactory . . . and co-ordination between departments will be a key area of reform,” the report says.
The Alberta government started down the path of integrated resource management planning in the mid-1970s, when it released the initial Eastern Slopes Policy to guide development along the Rocky Mountain foothills.
Some of the committee members, along with environmental groups, say the process has been a failure.
“None of what we do is in an integrated fashion, especially within the government,” Russell said.
Glen Semenchuk, executive director of the Federation of Alberta Naturalists, says that in 25 years, there has never been a serious commitment by provincial cabinet to integrated resource planning, or any comprehensive new legislation that reflects such planning.
“I’m not convinced this isn’t just another government make-work project,” Semenchuk said, of the new Northern East Slopes strategy report.
But Alberta Environment spokesman Robert Moyles says that Environment Minister Taylor established the committee because of the need for an integrated strategy in the region that would examine the overall impacts and recommend ways to co-ordinate activities of various industries and other stakeholders.
The committee’s report “is intended to help provide a framework for future policy decisions, even rules and regulations, in that area,” although it shouldn’t be seen as the final word, Moyles said.
Taylor, along with Sustainable Resource Development Minister Mike Cardinal and other departments, will respond to report recommendations in the fall, Moyles said.
The oil and gas industry generates more than $8.2 billion a year, or almost 57 per cent of revenue in the region, while the forest sector comes second with over $1.8 billion annually, the report says.
David Pryce, vice-president of Western Canada operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said CAPP supports the integrated planning process. “It provides the opportunity to understand the rules of access and the certainty and clarity that’s important for us for our investment decisions.”
Industry, government, environmental groups and the public all have been searching for the best model to manage cumulative impacts on Alberta’s landscape, he added.
The Northern East Slopes strategy will benefit the integrated planning process, even if its recommended CEMS approach turns out not to be the exact model used in southern Alberta and other regions, Pryce said.
