Calls to protect one of Alberta’s last great unprotected watersheds received a recent boost with the publishing of the province’s new report, Status of the Grizzly Bear in Alberta. The 4,000 square kilometre Bighorn area, which sits east of Jasper and Banff National Parks, has suffered from motorized abuse, and it is now clear that grizzly bears are one more victim of that abuse.

Despite good progress by a multi-stakeholder group in understanding issues around Athabasca River water withdrawals, Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) is concerned there will still not be protective water rules for low winter flows. AWA believes oilsands mine river withdrawals must cease during low winter flows.

Alberta conservation groups are seeking an emergency order from Jim Prentice, Federal Environment Minister to enforce habitat protection for the endangered Foothills and Oil Sands woodland caribou herds. “Minister Prentice has recently acknowledged that there is a need for industry and the Alberta government to work with Ottawa to improve Canada’s environmental reputation. Alberta’s caribou desperately need Federal help, and this is Prentice’s chance to take meaningful action,” says Rocky Notnes with the Athabasca Bioregional Society.

Edmonton, Alberta — Alberta must act fast to protect 50% of the oil sands area from industrial use so that wilderness, biodiversity and traditional use can continue into the future.

That is the key advice contained in an open letter to Ed Stelmach from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). CPAWS wrote the letter to the premier on the occasion of World Wetlands Day, February 2, and the International Year of Biodiversity.

The province and energy industry have been criticized by leading thinkers and governments for their rush to extract fuel from the oil sands without regard for the environmental costs. Alberta has a chance to prove the critics wrong, says Helene Walsh, Boreal Conservation Director for CPAWS, Northern Alberta

Calgary – The Suffield Coalition is disappointed to have learned last week that the Crown has stayed the case against EnCana on charges of violating Canada’s Wildlife Act. EnCana was scheduled to be tried on March 19, 2010, almost five years after EnCana installed a section of pipeline in the CFB Suffield National Wildlife Area without a permit (in March 2005). Numerous adjournments and a preliminary hearing were held in Medicine Hat, but now there will be no trial.

The ecological integrity of Waterton Lakes National Park looks set to suffer if a draft Management Plan for the Park is passed without changes. Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) is calling for changes to the draft Waterton National Park of Canada Management Plan to bring it back in line with the legally-required priority for National Parks: ecological integrity.

Peace River — Mel Knight’s announcement that nuclear power will be considered as an energy option in Alberta does not sit well with the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Alberta, the province-wide alliance of grassroots organizations opposed to nuclear development.

Edmonton— Canada’s inability to play a leadership role at international climate change negotiations is just one of many negative consequences of an energy sector that is dominated by large for-profit corporations, and we need to begin exploring alternate business models for the industry.  This is a key message of a new discussion paper released today by Alberta’s Parkland Institute in conjunction with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Calgary — As a series of public meetings kick off today in Calgary and Vulcan addressing land-use in Southern Alberta, many Albertans may be surprised to learn that water security is at stake in the planning process. That’s the overarching theme of Source of Opportunity: A Blueprint for Securing Source Water in Southern Alberta, a report released today investigating the potential of South Saskatchewan Regional land use plan to protect water.

Rural and provincial conservation groups today distributed copies of a new provincial government recovery plan for Alberta’s endangered woodland caribou. The ‘Action Plan for West-Central Alberta Caribou Recovery’ authorizes ongoing logging and oil and gas development in the caribou home ranges north of Hinton and Grande Cache. The groups also displayed more than two dozen Alberta government and science reports, consultations and recovery plans for caribou released since the late 1970’s, showing industrial impacts on forests and wildlife as the root cause of caribou decline.

The groups highlighted the fact that the government did not act on the previous plans written since the 1970’s, while at the same time Alberta’s caribou population has declined by almost two-thirds, from a high of an estimated population of 7,000 - 9,000 in the 1960’s to an estimated 3,000 today. Last year, a Canada-wide scientific review found that Alberta’s herds of woodland caribou were the most in danger of extinction among all provinces. Logging and oil and gas allocations increased rapidly during the 1980’s and 1990’s and now blanket Alberta forests.