Review of Alberta’s Integrated Land Management Policies, Practices and Legislation

Beginning in the fall of 2020, the Foothills Landscape Management Forum will be leading a five-month project to assess the opportunities, gaps and/or barriers in Alberta’s policies, practices and legislation for implementing ILM and collating a set of recommendations for ARCKP. The key objectives of this project are to:

• Facilitate the sharing of effective ILM practices within Alberta and help reduce the cumulative effects of development on forest ecosystems, the environment and other societal values.
• Facilitate more effective cross-sector communication for increased ILM coordination in Alberta.
• Develop recommendations for ILM approaches for improved woodland caribou habitat with consideration of regional differences.

Key project components include:

• Synthesis of ILM practices in Alberta that identifies successful and unsuccessful practices within different regions of Alberta, drawing from specific examples and case studies.
• Review of ILM practices used in other comparable jurisdictions with similar ILM challenges. 
• Review of Alberta’s ILM policy potential to identify policy opportunities and potential policy barriers to the successful implementation of ILM.
• Identification of useful cross-sector communication/collaboration techniques. with examples of communication practices, tools or strategies that have been shown to facilitate improved ILM – either within Alberta or within other jurisdictions.
• Recommendations for cross-industry ILM approaches for improved woodland caribou habitat, with consideration of regional differences in resource composition (e.g., oil sands region versus west-central Alberta) and in regional differences in forest tenure holders. 

This project will also include a one-day workshop to test recommendations with stakeholders and allow for important dialogue and feedback before any final recommendations are made.