Land Stewardship
Land stewardship involves responsibly managing and conserving natural resources, ecosystems, and landscapes to sustain their ecological health and diversity for current and future generations.
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Land and Water: Connecting Science, Stewardship Opportunities and Public Awareness
This project will build awareness about the critical linkage between land use and water resources in the southern foothills of Alberta with a long-term aim to increasing land stewardship activities. The project will result in the completion of a scientific paper on the linkage between land and water as well as a survey of opinion leaders to determine what opportunities there are to increase land stewardship activities in this critical region.
ResourceCommunicating Ecological Worth
Educational and outreach presentation materials developed by Cows and Fish to reach a diverse audience of Albertans, including realtors.
ResourcePrivate Land Conservation Opportunities in Alberta’s Bow Valley
This report sets forth the plan, promotion, and implementation of a private land conservation agenda for the Bow Valley that will contribute to continentally significant outcomes for biodiversity protection, consequently sustaining the real estate property market over time.
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ALTA Community Outreach Program
The Alberta Land Trust Alliance is the umbrella organization for Alberta’s land trusts (not for profit charitable organizations that have as one of their core objectives the conservation of private land) and strives to build capacity in land trusts to conserve diverse and ecologically important landscapes in Alberta. This project will directly benefit Alberta’s land trust community (professionals such as realtors, developers, appraisers, lawyers, accountants and financial planners, landowners, land trusts and governments-all levels) by building awareness and transferring knowledge about land conservation in Alberta and by building capacity for land trusts and the ALTA which in turn, will enable Albertans to enhance the ecological quality of their communities.
ResourceMaking the Connection: Water and Land in Alberta
A comprehensive analysis of how land use impacts the health of watersheds, Making the Connection points out the best – and often cheapest – way to maintain clean drinking water, healthy aquatic ecosystems, and abundant fisheries is not to allow them to be compromised in the first place.
ResourceStewarding Alberta’s Future Part 1 – Green Communities Guide
The Green Communities Guide will be an essential tool to help elected officials, municipal planners, developers, real estate associations, stewardship groups and citizens develop strategies to conserve water, protect water quality, conserve valuable agricultural land, and protect critical open space and wildlife habitat. Through the guide, municipalities, stewardship groups, and developers will be informed about the innovative approaches other communities are taking to avoid, mitigate, or reduce the impacts of growth and development, to maintain the flow of ecological goods and services from their landscapes.
ResourceConservation Brochure
The Alberta Land Trust Alliance is a nonprofit organization that strives to ensure Alberta’s future landscapes are rich in biodiversity and have strong ecological integrity. The Foundation funded a series of factsheets on private land conservation in Alberta and the services offered by land trusts.
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Cows and Fish Education & Outreach: Communicating Ecological Worth
Part 1: Outreach to educate landowners, realtors and consumers on maintaining the ecological and economic value of lands along streams and lakes. Part 2: Sharing short outreach podcasts from our website to reach younger and technically savvy audiences on their own schedule.
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Sustainable Action Canmore
Canmore residences will be canvassed and householders enlisted to adopt sustainable behaviours with regards to water use, energy efficiency, waste reduction and transportation. In 2008, AREF supported the Sustainability at Home Toolkit. A copy will be hand delivered to each Canmore resident, asking for a commitment to sustainabilty. Follow up activities will provide opportunities for participants to take further action and the results will be disseminated.
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Greening Roofs in Edmonton, Alberta
Following the example of Albera Ecoroof Initiative in Calgary, we are proposing to establish three green roofs and evaluate possible plant species for greening in Edmonton while initiating NAIT students to green roof technology.
ResourceLong Term Sustainability Protocol Development
The Foothill’s land trust developed these materials to enhance a small land trust’s sustainability and operations. Templates developed include: (1) Policies and Procedures (2) Legal Defence Costs (3) Conservation Easement (4) Baseline Template (5) Baseline documentation. This resource is available as a hard copy in the AREF office.
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Athabasca River Valley – Community landscape Vision Process
The Athabasca River Valley – Community Landscape Visioning Process is a citizen-led, community values mapping process to provide broad-baed public recommendations for land use in the Athabasca River Valley west of Hinton, AB.