Engagement Guide for the Upper Smoky Sub-regional Plan Survey

May 16, 2025

CPAWS Northern Alberta, Nature Alberta and AWA put together a guide to help you fill the Upper Smoky Sub-regional Plan Engagement – Public Survey.

The survey takes around 10-15 minutes to complete and closes June 25th, 2025.

Survey Guide for the Upper Smoky SRP 2025

Key messages: What You Should Know About the Draft Upper Smoky Sub-Regional Plan

The Alberta government’s draft US SRP puts two threatened caribou herds – Redrock Prairie Creek and Narraway – at serious risk of extirpation (local extinction).
This plan would allow U.S.-based company Weyerhaeuser to clearcut nearly all remaining winter habitat in these caribou ranges. The first years of timber cutting would eliminate the ability of these caribou herds to exist in their winter ranges.
The draft plan also proposes expanded oil and gas development and identifies zones for potential coal development, all within critical caribou habitat.
These developments would further destroy the old-growth and undisturbed forest caribou need to survive, forcing them into mountainous terrain year-round – where food is scarce, and avalanche risk is high.
Although the government continues to cull wolves, predator control alone cannot save caribou if their habitat keeps shrinking. Long term survival depends on habitat protection and restoration.
Caribou require at least 65% undisturbed winter habitat to survive and recover. Neither of these populations is anywhere near that threshold – and the draft plan would push them even further away from it.
The draft plan includes no clear targets or strategies for how it will support caribou survival or recovery.
Approving a plan that increases disturbance in already threatened habitat contradicts decades of scientific research and undermines Alberta’s commitment to species at risk.

Send an email

You don’t have to be an expert to share your feedback on this land use plan. Let them know that you do not support clearcutting the remainder of caribou critical habitat. Ask how this plan will affect caribou survival – and how long Alberta plans to keep culling wolves while allowing U.S.-based Weyerhaeuser to log the little habitat that remains.

Send an email to EPA.SRPRegDetailsRP@gov.ab.ca and

Minister of Environment and Protected Areas – epa.minister@gov.ab.ca

Minister of Forestry and Parks – fp.Minister@gov.ab.ca

Minister of Energy and Minerals – Minister.Energy@gov.ab.ca