"Today's rapid growth in population and economic activity
is placing unprecedented pressure on Alberta landscapes. Oil and gas, forestry and mining, agriculture
and recreation, housing and infrastructure are all in competition to use the
land...we have reached a tipping point where sticking with the old rules will not
produce the quality of life we have come to expect."Draft Land Use
Framework, Government of Alberta, 2008
Alberta is booming, but
quality of life is declining
Population: The population of Alberta, now approximately 3.5 million, is
projected to be 5 million by 2026.Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is hitting all time highs.
We have the lowest unemployment in the country. Opportunities for the future
appear limitless. It would seem that the good life has arrived. Or has it?
Recreational activities: There were 67,000 all-terrain vehicles registered in Alberta
in 2006 up from in 1995.
The cumulative impacts of industrial development and other
rapid land use changes are degrading Alberta's landscapes and harming our
environment. This has resulted in the deterioration of air, soil and water
quality. The prospect of water shortages
in certain regions has heightened along with the loss and fragmentation of
wildlife habitat.
Oil and gas: The number of oil and gas wells drilled annually increased
from 8,400 in 1995 to more than 16,500 in 2007. The number of coal-bed methane
wells increased from less than 1,100 wells in 2003 to 12,500 in 2007.
The cumulative impacts of rapid change has also resulted in
critical shortages of affordable housing, traffic congestion, and a staff
retention crisis across various labour markets especially among social service
organizations caring for children, the elderly, and people with special.
Electricity generation and transmission: Over the past decade, the demand for electricity has
increased at a rate equivalent to adding two cities the size of Red Deer
every year. Alberta's load growth in 2007 was equal to that of Ontario-a
province with a population three times larger.
There is now over 194,000 kilometres of electrical transmission
lines (250 and 500 kV) in Alberta.
In short, Alberta's boom could be its demise, if change is not managed
appropriately. The Draft Land Use Framework outlines a strategy for managing
change and cumulative impacts on our land, which are intrinsically linked to
fluctuations in our economy, environment and society.
Current land-use system is defunct and success gauge is
skewed
There are two fundamental reasons why Alberta is on a path
to declining quality of life and unsustainable development.
System Failure
Forestry: Alberta's
annual timber harvest increased 4.6 times between 1980 and 2005 from 5.93
million cubic metres to 27.55 million cubic metres. Today, Alberta
produces 3.2 billion board feet of lumber up from one billion board feet in the
early 1980s.The system for managing the use of Alberta's land and
resources is failing us badly. It has put us on a path of unsustainable
development by facilitating rapid industrial growth over the past thirty years
on a finite land base. We are left with a legacy of unplanned, unintended, and
undesirable outcomes, including steady degradation of the environment.
Skewed Success
Registered motor vehicles: cars and trucks: Between 1980 and 2006, there was a 64 percent increase in
the number of registered vehicles in Alberta from 1.6 million to approximately
2.6 million registered vehicles.
Success is defined too narrowly. The Government of Alberta
and the private sector have fixated on maximizing economic growth. Defining success around financial indicators
such as GDP, we are under the false assumption that economic growth is all that
is required to ensure a prosperous and secure future. Important non-market
benefits and costs — both social and environmental — are ignored or
under-valued in this economically derived definition of success.
Source: Alberta by Design: Blueprint for an Effective Land-Use
Framework (Pembina Institute and Canadian Parks and Wilderness
Society)
More information about Genuine Progress
Indicators:
On a path towards
unsustainable development
There are now multiple demands on a finite land base that
has environmental and social limits.
"Oil and gas,
forestry and mining, agriculture and recreation, housing and infrastructure are
all in competition to use the land-often the same parcel of land. There are
more and more people, doing more and more activities, but on the same piece of
land. This not only increases the number of conflicts between competing user
groups, it often stresses the land itself. Our land, air and water are not unlimited. They can be exhausted or
degraded by overuse."Draft Land
Use Framework, Government of Alberta 2008
Agriculture: There are now over 6 million cattle in Alberta up from 2.8
million in 1960. There are now over
2,400 confined feeding operations (i.e. feedlots).Alberta's
land-use system does not have effective mechanisms for making trade-offs among
competing land-use values. This same
system lacks the capacity to manage the cumulative impacts of development.
--
Source: Draft Land Use Framework, Government of
Alberta 2008. For a comprehensive report
about land use in Alberta, read Understanding Land Use in Alberta.
