Albertans value nature highly. In a survey conducted for the Alberta Growth Summit in September 1997, people were asked to identify what they valued most about the quality of life in Alberta. Twenty-six percent stated “Nature.” This was the top response, clearly ahead of the next two qualities: “No provincial sales tax” (21 percent) and “Unpolluted air” (15 percent). In a 1994 poll commissioned by World Wildlife Fund Canada, 93 percent of Albertans expressed support for a network of protected areas with no industrial use.¹
In a province that has only three million people in an area of over 660,000...
Protected areas have many functions:
They provide habitat that is essential for retaining the abundance and biological diversity of native species and are particularly important for protecting the habitat of rare and endangered plants and animal species.
They allow the management of environmentally sensitive areas, including wetlands, watersheds and critical wildlife areas, and they help protect water quality.
They provide opportunities for natural history interpretation.
For many people, they are the focus for a wide range of recreational activities. The permitted activities depend on the nature of the designation, ranging from hunting, fishing, horseback riding and boating in some locations,...
The index for parks and protected areas is based on the Alberta government’s Special Places program (see Figure 6). It has as its target the goal the government set in 1995, which was to protect an additional 18,070 sq km of Alberta by the year 2000. Thus zero was the starting point of the program in 1995. The index is based on the net additional area added to the program each year, so where a newly designated area under Special Places incorporated an existing protected area, only the net increase in area is included.† As explained previously, the Castle Forest...