Can Alberta save the South Saskatchewan Watershed?

David McIntyre, Letter to the Editor

Throughout the grasslands and forested headwaters of southern Alberta, Albertans have, for decades, witnessed an ever-accelerating tide of rampant degradation. All across this iconic, world-class landscape, heritage values have been eroded.

Five years ago the Government of Alberta recognized the wholesale loss of cherished and intrinsic virtue and promised action.


The government's recent release of a draft South Saskatchewan Regional Plan reveals its tide-turning vision. This draft is full of hope and good cheer. It defines a "diverse, healthy, vibrant and prosperous region," a "thriving place that offers a wide range of opportunities."

But what does the plan actually do to achieve its stated objectives? Looking beneath the proposed protection of selected mountain tops, the plan fails to save watersheds, or salvage the land's sliding biodiversity.

Can the government resurrect its stated objective, rewrite the plan and save this treasured landscape, or will the degradation continue? Will threatened westslope cutthroat trout and grizzly bears be required to climb to the summits of a handful of "protected" peaks in order to live in tomorrow's Alberta?

The current plan represents a small step for man, a giant sidestep for the Province of Alberta. Instead of embracing landscape values and implementing a plan that saves them for future generations, the current draft amounts to a false embrace and a cryptic, but lethal, kiss of death. And nowhere would this be felt more profoundly than the forested headwaters of the Rocky Mountains.

Alberta's world-renowned heritage landscapes are in peril, and the clock is ticking. This is no time for empty words. It's no time for plans that lack substance. This is the day—and the opportunity—for Alberta to bring meaningful leadership to the table. This is the day to turn the tide and began to restore integrity throughout the headwaters of the South Saskatchewan.