Albertans love their mountains, which also attract millions of visitors each year. Yet, tourism should also drive more land protection.

Clean water, healthy wildlife and intact landscapes aren’t just nice to have. They’re the foundation of Alberta and our tourism brand, key to maintaining a stronger economy and a better quality of life.

Nature-based tourism can and should align with Albertans’ conservation goals if well planned. However, Albertans need to have their voices clearly heard when new plans affect how publicly held nature will be managed.

In Alberta’s Plan for the Parks, the desired tourism revenue for Alberta of $25 billion would be greater than the current oilsands royalty of $17 billion. This is big business.

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Managing tourism in ways that protect the main attraction of healthy, thriving ecosystems is the cornerstone of protecting the integrity of our current parks and ensuring the success of future conservation efforts. Anchoring future all-season resort areas (ASRA) to new protected areas is the best way to ensure the viability of new tourism opportunities.

Peter Lougheed knew this when he envisioned Kananaskis Country, and we can do this again by adding new protected areas.

If all-season resorts are to be part of strong management, the province needs to have more protected areas to support distributed nature-based tourism and sustainably planned, appropriately scaled, all-Season resort areas in locations that make sense for people and wildlife, while building public trust and optimism around nature-based tourism development.

To do this, ASRA designations need a clear process with high environmental, consultative and public engagement standards to make sure that resorts are developed in places that can sustain them without impairing the nature they depend on, and where they can contribute to the public good.

The province needs to lead using science, public consultation and traditional knowledge in determining the scope and scale of each new ASRA, before inviting proposals from private industry to bid on a well-defined opportunity.

These measures will help ensure that the tourism economy grows, sustainably, in places that will benefit from it — where it incentivizes conservation, creates jobs and aligns with community needs — not just in places that are struggling to manage an overabundance of it, such as Kananaskis and the Bow Valley.

Pre-scoping future opportunities also ensures developers have clear boundaries to work within and understand the scale of what is being offered for the duration of the leasehold.

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Further, the all-season resorts branch of the Alberta government needs to co-ordinate with other ministries to not only guarantee no net loss of protected lands, but also increase protected areas to ensure that the nature that supports tourism remains abundant and intact.

Any changes to land use, such as protected area boundaries, require Indigenous and public consultation before taking effect.

The new Alberta Plan for Parks provides a commendable policy framework. Parks are revered across the political spectrum — 72 per cent of Albertans and 86 per cent of regular park users support setting aside more land in Alberta for provincial parks focused on recreation and leisure, according to a CPAWS poll.

A survey released by the province in November found that public support for all-season resorts was highly dependent on environmental standards. Public feedback on issues from coal mining to park trail management repeatedly identify water and wildlife conservation, quiet recreation and public access as top priorities.

There is potential for all-season resorts to support nature-positive economic diversification by improving implementation in ways that build public trust and good faith for the Ministry of Tourism and Sport — starting by listening to Albertans.

The opportunity for the government to be able to create a legacy around the iconic landscapes that define the province and the wild places Canadians value is now.

If we are going to advance ASRAs, they need to be well-managed from initiation, and we need more protected areas.

With both, we can protect our natural heritage and support a nature-based economy.

Jodi Hilty is the president and chief scientist of the Canmore-based Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

© Calgary Herald