Amiskwaciwâskahikan | Edmonton, AB / Moh’kinstsis | Calgary, AB – While the current Alberta government often frames environmental conservation and protection as a fringe concern, new polling commissioned by CPAWS Northern and Southern Alberta paints a very different picture: protecting the province’s lands, waters, and wildlife is, in fact, a core value held by nearly all Albertans that transcends political lines.
Albertans not only care deeply about enjoying and protecting the province’s lands and waters and exceptional national and provincial parks, the poll reveals, but also strongly support expanding parks and protected areas, for both sustainable recreation and wildlife conservation.
Key Findings:
95% of Albertans are concerned about species loss and the biodiversity crisis.
72% support creating more parks for recreation and leisure.
78% support creating new protected areas specifically for wildlife.
85% support Alberta committing to Canada’s target of protecting 30% of its land for conservation purposes by 2030.
57% of Albertans expressed support for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) as a tool for conserving ecosystems in Alberta, an increase from 2022. An additional 26% were neutral on the matter, which may simply indicate a lack of familiarity with IPCAs.
“Recent environmental and land use decisions that put industrial uses above nature protection have been falsely framed as something most Albertans want, but that’s simply not true,” says Tara Russell, Program Director of CPAWS Northern Alberta.
“Albertans want nature to be protected, and they support policy decisions that do just that. We do not want to see the loss of a species like caribou due to permitted logging, and we do not want to see our Rocky Mountain rivers destroyed for coal mines. The facts are clear: across the political spectrum, Albertans want more nature protection, not less.”
Albertans Prioritize Nature over Short-Term Profit
While Albertans’ strong support for conservation may not come as a surprise, the poll also surfaces that most Albertans support environmental protections even when it means risking legal battles with coal companies or passing up short-term economic gains from further industrial development.
Key Findings
63% of Albertans believe protections for the Eastern Slopes should be maintained, despite potential legal challenges from coal companies, due to the region’s importance for water security, wildlife, and recreation. Only 10% support the Government of Alberta’s current choice to go back on protections in the face of legal challenges.
Eight in 10 Albertans are concerned about the future of Alberta’s water supply and 69% believe the provincial government should take stronger action to manage water supply, even if this means restricting some industrial land and water uses.
Only 25% of Albertans support increased logging in areas critical to threatened species like caribou and native trout.
“We have seen time and again that Albertans are willing to stand up for the lands, waters, and communities that they love,” says Katie Morrison, Executive Director of CPAWS Southern Alberta. “We saw it in 2020 with the Defend Alberta Parks campaign, where widespread public mobilization forced the government to reverse its plan to delist 175 provincial parks. And we saw it again from 2020 to 2022, when strong and sustained opposition to new coal development led to a moratorium on any new coal projects or exploration in the province.”
“But Albertans also understand that maintaining the status quo isn’t enough. They want to see proactive protection for these important and irreplaceable landscapes, through the expansion of protected areas and implementation of effective conservation tools.”
A Growing Gap Between Public Values and Government Actions
Despite longstanding public support for conservation, recent provincial decisions are inceasingly at odds with these mainstream values. In the last six months alone, the Alberta government has:
- Lifted the moratorium on coal mine development and exploration across the Rocky Mountains and Eastern Slopes. The lifting of the moratorium reverted Alberta back to the 1976 Coal Policy and consequently opened up huge swaths of the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains to coal exploration projects. The removal of the moratorium coincided with a promise to release a new Coal Industry Modernization Initiative (CIMI) this fall. However, the policy is being developed exclusively in consultation with coal companies. In 2021, over 25,000 Albertans said no to new coal development, and recent polling shows opposition remains strong.
- Passed Bill 35, The All Seasons Resorts Act (ASRA), exposing Alberta’s parks to delisting and Alberta’s public lands to privatization. ASRA exempts any tourism development in ‘all-season resort zones’ from the usual environmental land use planning, review, and approval processes. The Act gives the Minister of Tourism and Sport —who does not have the landscape scope or expertise— unprecedented land use management power and the ability to delist and remove protected area designations to create All-Season Resort Zones.
- Released a Draft land use plan that will cause the loss of two Southern Mountain Caribou populations. Proposed logging outlined in the draft plan will remove nearly all remaining critical biophysical and undisturbed habitat in the caribou winter range, eliminating the possibility of recovery for the threatened Redrock-Prairie Creek and Narraway caribou populations. These are two of the last southern mountain caribou populations in Alberta.
These actions suggest a growing disconnect between what Albertans value and what their government is prioritizing, especially when it comes to the stewardship of parks and protected areas.
Now is the Time to Speak Up for Alberta’s Parks
One of the ways that Albertans can act on their deeply held conservation values is through the current Phase 2 public engagement for Alberta’s new draft Plan for Parks. This is a critical opportunity for Albertans to help shape the future of the province’s parks system.
CPAWS will be releasing a survey guide soon to help Albertans navigate this phase of the public engagement process.
Click here to access the full poll results.
For more information, contact:
Tara Russell, Program Director, CPAWS Northern Alberta
[email protected]
Katie Morrison, Executive Director, CPAWS Southern Alberta
[email protected]
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