Wilderness & Parks

Jasper National Park has released a report from an expert scientific review about whether conservation breeding can recover Jasper’s critically low numbers of caribou. Jasper has also announced it will review caribou habitat winter access for 2021-22 to ensure Parks Canada’s efforts are focused “on what is most effective”. Read More

The Globe and Mail’s Emma Graney reported earlier today that Alberta will impose a $90 annual fee for vehicles entering Kananaskis Country. Since last year AWA has warned Albertans of Minister Nixon’s intent to shift the financing of parks and protected areas onto user fees and away from general tax revenues. This announcement, coupled with the new public lands camping pass, is just further evidence of the UCP government’s commitment to the user fee model for funding parks. Read More

The Government of Alberta has introduced Bill 64, the Public Lands Amendment Act. This Act proposes a new Public Lands Camping Pass. AWA believes this initiative unjustifiably targets low impact users of Alberta’s backcountry and will reduce accessibility to public lands for lower income Albertans.

The UCP election platform promised to: “Apply a mandatory $30 trail permit fee to Off-Highway Vehicles (OHV) and camping trailers to pay for restoring and creating OHV trails and preventing damage in Alberta’s great outdoors, and to hire additional enforcement officers.” Read More

Yesterday’s announcement from the Government of Alberta launching the consultation process for a new Coal Policy does not address CPAWS Southern and Northern Alberta Chapters’ concerns around coal development in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. While CPAWS is happy to see that the process will be run by an independent committee, the survey released as part of the consultation is narrowly focused on regulation of coal developments.  Read More