United Conservative Party Environmental Priorities

June 1, 2019

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• Caribou
• WLA Archive

Wild Lands Advocate article by: Carolyn Campbell, AWA Conservation Specialist

Click here for a pdf version of this article.

The UCP replied to the Alberta Environmental Network’s election period survey of major Alberta parties. The results were released in early April 2019. Here is the full text of two of the party’s responses.

“1. What are your party’s top 5 environmental priorities?

                  A United Conservative government would propose a Common-Sense Conservation Plan that recognizes that recreation, economic use, and conservation can and should support each other.

The United Conservative Party’s top five environmental priorities are:

1. We will restore Alberta’s reputation as a world leader in developing resources respon­sibly and as a leader in predictable and efficient regulation by completing a review of Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and establish clear performance benchmarks;
2. Review Alberta Environment and Parks legislation to modernize it for the 21 century;
3. Improve data collection on environmental outcomes relating to parks and public lands to ensure these lands meet the needs of Albertans in the 21st century in an environ­mentally sustainable way;
4. Ensure that in the future, all major environmental protection proposals will be subject to mandatory social-economic impact assessments to allow the government to strike the appropriate balance between economic growth and environmental protection; and
5. Ensure that more department staff work in the outdoors and with local stakeholders, including facilitating visitor enjoyment of the back country and conducting environ­mental monitoring.

2. Alberta is home to a number of species at risk. What are your party’s plans to halt the continuing decline of wildlife populations? Will you commit to implementing recovery plans that include substantial habitat protection for Alberta’s species at risk, such as threatened native fish species, woodland caribou or whoop­ing cranes?

            A United Conservative government will address the continuing decline of wildlife populations, namely the wildland caribou. We recognize the federally-mandated need to propose a caribou range protection plan, but this must be done in close collaboration with all who are affected, and must be based on science and common-sense conservation policies.”

A United Conservative government will reverse four years of reductions in the fight against the Mountain Pine Beetle by increasing funding by $5 million to $30 million annually. We will immediately form a Caribou Range Task Force of local municipal governments, the Northwest Species at Risk Committee, forestry and other industries, Indigenous representatives, and habitat scientists to review the Alberta Caribou Draft Plan.”