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At the recent Land Use Conference held in Edmonton, participant response clearly showed an interest in land use issues and a recognition that all stakeholders have to start working together. Public, private and community interests were well represented by over 660 participants and 70 speakers from Alberta, Canada and the U.S. "The Land Supports Us All" conference was the first time all sectors of Alberta's economy (forestry, energy, agriculture, environment, tourism and urban development) have ever gathered to discuss current land use issues, future needs and opportunities.
"The conference is the first of its kind," says Harvey Buckley, a southern Alberta rancher and chair of the conference planning committee. It's the first time that people from every economic sector came together to share information and ideas that will begin a land use strategy for Alberta. "It was amazing to see everyone listening and learning from each other. We are ecstatic that people see the importance of our land and the need to collectively discuss its use," he adds.
The opening session focused on the theme: "using a finite resource: overview of the challenge of balancing sustainable food production, a rising population/expanding economy and quality of life." Through plenary and concurrent sessions, and the exhibit showcase, participants got an overview of the land use issues affecting the various sectors, and an idea of future needs, trends and opportunities. Several of the concurrent sessions provided an overview of potential tools and techniques that could help with preserving agricultural land, dealing with urban sprawl, and the provision of environmental stewardship incentives.
In the Landscape Planning session, the Land Use Core Action Team (LUCAT) presented a draft discussion paper called "Provincial Land Use Framework: Alberta's Options". LUCAT is one of the 12 teams working with Agrivantage in the Ag Summit Process. One of their responsibilities was to plan the Land Use Conference, along with Chair Harvey Buckley and Executive Director Bob Anderson. LUCAT will present a final recommendation report to Agrivantage at the end of March 2002, but until then welcomes comments and feedback. The LUCAT Draft Discussion Paper can be downloaded from their conference website (ref: www.landuse.ab.ca).
Recognizing that our land resource base is finite, and that the only way industry sectors can grow is through intensifying land use, the need for a collaborative and cooperative approach to land use planning was clearly at the forefront of discussions. All sectors of the economy are competing for the same, very limited resource. As demonstrated by a Pembina Institute study (www.pembina.org), Alberta's ecological footprint is 4 times larger that the average global footprint. This means that if all earth's inhabitants chose to live and impact the earth equal to Albertans, we'd need four more planets to survive. Clearly, this is not sustainable.
Keynote speaker, Dr. Jack Ward Thomas, an internationally respected wildlife biologist, author and Chief Emeritus of the U.S. Forest Service summed it up best in his speech. "It is [everyone’s] job ... to lead and get on with the business of living sustainably on spaceship earth. We have the most important jobs in the world -- individually and collectively. For, if we fail, nothing else -- absolutely nothing else -- matters."
Conference proceedings from the Land Supports Us All Conference will be available on their website (ref. www.landuse.ab.ca). |
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