It was 2009 when the first iteration of Alberta’s Plan for Parks was released as a 10-year blueprint for strategic planning of the parks system. Now, about 15 years later, the province is working on an update to address evolving needs and conservation challenges brought on by increasing population and visitation.
The province’s population has grown over 30 per cent from 2009 to 2024, and with that visitation has increased, creating growing pressures on the landscape.
A revised strategic plan for parks will identify options to manage growing recreation demand across 78 provincial parks, 34 wildland provincial parks and 193 provincial recreation areas. “We see that as an opportunity for providing more recreational opportunities and not having everyone in the exact same locations. Granted, of course, Kananaskis is so popular because it is so close to Calgary’s backyard.
There are about 14,000 campsites, 201 backcountry camping sites, 74 comfort camping sites and 162 group camping areas, offered by Alberta Parks currently. From now until Aug. 18, forestry and parks is asking the public for input to inform the new Plan for Parks, which will be shared as a draft, with more opportunity to provide further input in a second phase.
Over the last decade, visitation has shot up from around 3.5 million to over four million visitors per year, with social distancing restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic pushing the area to an all-time high of 5.4 million visitors in 2020. The group has a unique understanding of the area and its challenges, with boots on the ground day in and day out.Julian supports Alberta Parks’ plan to hopefully ease these issues and wants to see more investment in designated official trails.
Julian said he would also like to see a strong focus on education in the province’s new plan, another area where the Friends are frequently engaging the public. Kerr said CPAWS has some concerns with the terminology used. Under the 2009 plan, the province listed what are now being proposed as guiding principles as priority actions and strategies. One of those was to conserve landscapes.“There is a guiding principle on sustainability, but there isn’t mention of the focus of our parks is to be protecting nature and the wildlife and plants within them, and the benefits of protecting nature for communities.
“We don’t feel that, if the way the questions are framed is where they’re planning to go on the new version of the Plan for Parks, that it is going to be what parks should be doing, which is protecting landscapes for both the benefit of nature but for people to enjoy nature as well,” said Kerr. The inclusion of questions around Indigenous-led conservation in the plan’s engagement phase, as well as several areas that leave room for specific comment instead of just a multiple-choice selection, is encouraging to this effect, Kerr said.
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