DIDSBURY, Alta. – When Francis Gardner was a boy he could study at night by the light of the flares from Turner Valley oilfields 30 kilometres from his family’s ranch.
Over the years the Alberta rancher has become a spokesperson for environmental protection in the southwestern part of the province, where his family has operated Mt. Sentinel Ranch since 1898. It is home to wide stretches of native grasses and a diversity of wildlife.
Rough fescue grass found in this area is of particular interest to Gardner because it acts as a water filter for prairie watersheds.
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“It is 10,000 years old and it will stay there another 10,000 if we give it a chance,” he said at a meeting of the Society for Environmentally Responsible Livestock Operations in Didsbury April 21. It is a non-profit group working on environmentally and economically sustainable land stewardship.
Gardner worries about encroachment from oil and gas well sites as well as more roads cutting through native grasslands. Few reclamation projects have worked well, in his experience.
He is active with landowner groups such as the Pekisko Group, Southern Alberta Land Trust and the Southern Foothills Study, which are all concerned about cumulative effects of development in an area that stretches from Pincher Creek to Okotoks. It has some of the province’s fastest growing communities and resource development.
Landowners in the region fear unchecked development could destroy the integrity of the land east of the Rocky Mountains.
Gardner sees strength in landowner groups.
“If we protest enough, we may be able to save the fragile Alberta landscape.”
Others agree.
A loose coalition of land owners and conservation groups representing more than 10,000 people wrote to the province in April asking for a pause in eastern slopes development.
So far no response has been received, said Joe Obad of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
Individual projects are approved without considering what is already there, he said. A municipality may approve a subdivision, an energy company builds roads to get to well sites and forestry companies build another set of roads to get to the timber.
“When these things are not co-ordinated we lose quality of life, water integrity and wide open spaces.”
The province is undergoing a land use planning process but the coalition argues the plan and provincial water strategy will not be achieved if too many development decisions are made now.
“That framework won’t be worth the paper it is printed on,” Obad said.
Land use strategy has been discussed for more than a year. An 80 page document was released at the end of last year on the first stage of land use planning. The report was compiled from a December meeting of 240 members of the public.
It said the process was being rushed, although it also recognized that the pace of growth in Alberta is creating uncertainty. Priorities for certain regions need to be set to protect specific landscapes including agricultural land.
However, the group could not agree on what priority land use might mean and whether it is appropriate to apply this concept to a large tract such as the eastern slopes.
