home / conservation / Alberta Parks: Is the Choice Really Ours?
In what can only be described as an abject lack of vision and leadership on the part of the Alberta Government, the future of Alberta’s Provincial Park system has been given over to it’s “citizens”, special interest groups, and industry stakeholders with predictable results – increased access, increased infrastructure, and increased demand for recreational opportunities including off highway vehicle use within our parks. Instead of seeking solutions to long standing land use, wildlife and environmental issues the Stelmach Government played it safe and pandered for votes essentially putting off, yet again, the vital resources necessary to ensure there are wildspaces left in Alberta for future generations.
Touted as a unique collaborative effort, Cindy Ady, Minister Tourism, Parks & Recreation introduced Plan for Parks (link to the plan – here) a document outlining the 10 year strategy for managing the province’s park system. The plan seemingly contradicts the wishes of Alberta citizens as it recommends replacing the current model of preservation and protection of historic and natural resources with one that favours a “balanced” environmental and commercial/recreation model. According to an Ipsos Reid survey park users do not support the concept of recreation at the expense of nature. Further these same users claim that more needs to be done to protect the parks by expanding the current parks system (see table below – ‘click’ on it for a larger image). One has to wonder given the collaboration why did Government choose to ignore a clear mandate by its citizens and adopt a contrary position?
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Posted on: Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Posted in: conservation
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Comments: One Response
May 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
[...] Plan for Parks – a ten year framework for managing Alberta’s Provincial Parks – link to post here. Now it’s time to throw the research community under the bus. Evidence-based scientific [...]