Province tries to achieve green growth
By Trish Audette, with files from Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald, Edmonton JournalApril 28, 2009

The province introduced landmark legislation Monday aimed at harmonizing the duelling wants and needs of economic growth and environmental protection.

Bill 36, the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, tinkers with 26 different laws already in place and puts a framework in place to assign seven regional planning boards across the province. Regional plans should be done by 2012.

“With Bill 36 our province enters a new era of land and resource stewardship, one that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the opportunities of the next generation,” said Sustainable Resource Development Minister Ted Morton, who tabled the bill.

It may be a mistake to emphasize the potential power of local advisory councils, however, Green Party Leader Joe Anglin said Monday.

“Whether the minister listens to them or not is strictly up to the minister,” he said.

The proposed Act pays special attention to community, business, landowner and aboriginal stakeholders in maintaining Alberta’s biodiversity. But Anglin warned cabinet members will be able to override everything.

Edmonton-Strathcona NDP MLA Rachel Notley offered a similar caution, noting how the provincial government rules on matters that pit environmental sensibility against business interest will be very important. “At the end of the day, not all of this is going to come together through some magical consensus.”

So far, the province has appointed a regional advisory council in the Lower Athabasca region, which includes Fort McMurray and the majority of northeast Alberta. The South Saskatchewan regional council is next in line, encompassing most of southern Alberta.

Nanton-area rancher Mac Blades said he likes the sound of what the government is pro-posing, but wants details on the tools the government will use to conserve land.

Particularly, Blades would like to see a major expansion of conservation easements, which are agreements to conserve the ecological integrity of a parcel of land. The easement is registered on the land title with restrictions on land use, but landowners retain ownership.

“There’s so much more pressure on the land,”Blades said, adding that more and more farmers and ranchers are interested in this program.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

So over the weekend we passed the 900 petitions signed and sent to the politicians and officials involved in the developments along the Kananaskis slopes in south eastern Alberta. 900 times Albertans and visitors to Alberta have sent a message to our politicians that they want more thought and care going into where and how sour gas is developed along the eastern slopes of the Rockies. We are so close to 1000, lets see if we can get there by the end of the week!

You can sign the petition on our website, or you can forward the petition on to others who you think are interested here. With your help I know we can get past the 1000 signatures milestone! Tell a friend! Pass it on!

Over the weekend we were able to pass the 100 members line on our Facebook group! Thanks to everyone who has been forwarding on the group and to those who have joined. Our next target is to get past the 250 members line, we are currently at 110 people, so we need to get as many people as we can right now. If you know someone interested in joining up, or if you are interested yourself, just head on over to our Facebook Group and join up.

Thanks to everyone who has helped push our group forward, slowly but surely!

Even The Economist is concerned about the way the environment gets short shrift from governments when they weigh the economic benefits of their decisions.

Check it out at:

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933604&story_id=13474652

So our developers over at StormCode took a moment to upgrade our petition page. Once you have sent in your petition, it sends you to a forward page where you can pass the petition on to your friends, automatically, from the Petrocant website, no fuss no muss.

Easy as key lime pie.

For those who’ve sent a message to Alberta politicians already, feel free to do so again and pass on the petition to others. We’ve made it even easier to do so.

If you are just looking to forward the petition on, and not resign it, you can do that on the new forwarding page. Tell your friends, family, kids, grandkids, pets, and anyone else able to sign a petition. We are so close to 1000 messages sent, we only need 150 more or so and we can break that milestone!