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The
drive down Highway 22, along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains,
is one of the most scenic trips you can take in Alberta. Ecologists will
tell us that it is important because so many eco-regions come together
here: Rocky Mountain, Foothills, Grasslands and Parkland. But your eyes
will tell you it is beautiful. Unfortunately, that beauty is
creating the region's
greatest pressure.
For over a hundred years, ranching has been the mainstay for humans in
this region. Where Chinook winds once bared the winter grass for
bison, they now
do
so for cattle. In the process, the wildlife habitat, landscape processes
and scenic beauty have remained relatively intact because living here
was based on living within, rather than in competition with, the land's
abilities. The place was too unrewarding for the plow, and too remote
to attract many people. However, that's changing.
Developing Trends
Pressures on People
Developing Trends
A number of trends are converging. As a society, we have more
and more disposable cash and more leisure time. The baby boomers are retiring.
Cell phones, powerful computers, the internet and couriers have freed
us from having to work in a specific location. And the population is growing. The City of Calgary has seen significant growth that continues into the new millenium. By 2006 its population had passed the one million mark.
These trends have combined to place a tremendous amount of pressure on
an area that is still natural and still beautiful. The native rangelands
of the eastern slopes south from Calgary to Waterton Park have begun to
see residential and recreational development pressure like never before.
Suddenly, it is the place to be. Land values have skyrocketed, well beyond
what is accessible to someone making a living by running cattle across
native grasses.
Species that have lost their homes during the last 100 years as Calgary
has expanded, or that have been displaced by the tourist attractions
of Alberta's protected areas still find a home along the Eastern Slopes.
This attracts
a lot of attention from those who are concerned that all the pieces
of
the ecological puzzle stay in the picture. However, in the efforts to
protect nature, we often forget to ask why those pieces are still in
certain
areas, and what can be done to encourage the land use patterns that have
kept them there.
Pressures
on People
Contrary to the popular media image of the wealthy cattle baron,
the margins on cattle ranching are slim, and the vast majority of Alberta's
ranchers fall under the old cliché "land rich and cash poor." If wealth
comes, it is usually the result of selling land for development at the
end of a ranching career, and that choice is often a difficult one.
An increasing number of Alberta's ranchers are, or soon will be, facing
this situation. The average of a individual running a single-person agricultural
operation in Alberta is now 50.2 years old (up by 1.3 from just 5 years
previous). That means in the next 10 to 15 years a tremendous amount of
land in the province will change hands. And increasingly, less of that
land will go to heirs and other ranchers.
To be connected for your entire life to a landscape in a dirt-in-your-hands
way, and then watch that same piece of land become a residential sub-division
is not a scenario that attracts many ranchers. The decision to sell is
generally one of pure economics -- providing an 'RRSP' or paying taxes
payable on death.
When ranches become subdivisions, everybody with an interest in rangelands,
ranching communities, habitat, water, scenery and sustainable economies
loses.
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