Legislation and Policy

Government Structure for Parks and Environment

by David W. Poulton, former Executive Director, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Calgary/Banff Chapter

When the Alberta government regrouped following the March 12th election in 2001, it did so in a form which transformed the division of responsibilities for parks and protected areas, and for environmental affairs generally.

For several years prior to the election, the Department of the Environment had encompassed parks and protected areas, Fish and Wildlife, the Alberta Forest Service, air and water quality, and environmental assessment and monitoring. Conflicts between protected areas and forestry were concealed within the department, and often forestry was the victor.

The present structure spreads responsibility among three separate departments:

• The Department of Environment is responsible for air and water quality and environmental assessment. It is also responsible for integrated resource management, even though the operational decisions with respect to resource allocation and development are made elsewhere.



• Forestry, Fish and Wildlife, Public Lands, and the Natural Resources Conservation Board is lumped together under the Department of Sustainable Resource Development. This department, together with the Department of Energy, is responsible for issuing the permits and leases which regulate the industrial use of Alberta lands, and which are critical to sound environmental planning.



• Parks and protected areas is separate from all other environmental affairs in the Department of Community Development, in an unlikely bundling with a variety of services for persons with disabilities.

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