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.
ResourceSubsidiarity in Action: Effective Biodiversity Conservation and Municipal Innovation
This report examines the important contribution that municipalities can make to biodiversity conservation in Alberta where amendments to the Municipal Government Act empower, and indeed require, Alberta’s municipalities to enhance their environmental protection efforts. An examination of these changes, assessed using the principles of subsidiarity, environmental governance, and biocultural diversity, reveals that municipalities, both large and small, urban and rural, can innovate with novel legal initiatives to improve their biodiversity related conservation actions. Concurrently, while municipal innovation is possible, improving local biodiversity conservation action also requires innovations in funding, citizen engagement, and regional environmental governance. Municipalities are already recognized contributors to biodiversity conservation and great strides have been made at the municipal level to increase habitat connectivity. Current municipal conservation efforts need to be augmented to harness new statutory powers, capitalize on local knowledge and initiative, and enhance citizen education and engagement.
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ReFraming the WaterShed
This project approaches watershed management for drought and flood resiliency from a Low Impact Development land-use perspective to literally build upon the success of the Piper Creek Restoration Agriculture Project. Conventional outreach activities by environmental non-profit organizations can be enhanced to deliver important lessons by offering hands-on experiential / skill-building learning that engages new audiences who otherwise would not be reached. Our initiative addresses watershed management through both active and passive rainwater and solar energy harvesting through a series of workshops that culminate in the raising of an open-air timber frame barn dubbed, “The Water Shed.”
NewsComing Soon: Traversing Terrain and Experience: Atlas of the Battle River and Sounding Creek Watersheds
By Battle River Watershed Alliance
News25th Anniversary celebrations at Friends of Fish Creek Park
By Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society
NewsEnvironmental leaders recognized
On June 6th, environmental leaders from across the province gathered at Edmonton’s Royal Alberta Museum for the 26th Annual Emerald Awards. Presented by the Alberta Emerald Foundation, the Emerald Awards recognize and celebrate outstanding environmental achievements across Alberta.
NewsAREF Helps Alberta NGO Spread a Vital Message: Safe Water Shouldn’t Be Taken For Granted
By the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST)
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Decision-Making for Wetland Management Real Estate Professional Workshop
Marketing Opportunities in Conservation Incentives Seminar
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Sustainable Action Canmore Client Package
The project is to update, improve, post and then reprint, our highly popular Sustainable Action Canmore booklet and online supporting materials which AREF helped us produce in the fall of 2013. The booklets were developed with the help of local Real Estate Professionals who wanted easily accessible local information on water, energy, transportation, garbage and recycling for their clients new to Canmore. The booklets are creatively wrapped and packaged together as newcomer packages with the AREF TNS Sustainability at Home Toolkit, the Town of Canmore Recycling brochure and the local public transit brochure. Packages are given out to clients by Real Estate Professionals, property managers, the Town of Canmore and other organizations and businesses.
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Alberta Emerald Awards
The Emerald Awards are uniquely Canadian and allow Albertans to be recognized and celebrated for their outstanding environmental achievements in over 12 categories annually. Since 1992 the Emerald Awards have recognized nearly 300 recipients for their innovative and thoughtful projects, resulting in a healthier and cleaner environment for us all. The Shared Footprints Award is one of 12 categories that allow groups to showcase projects that create environmentally ethical plans aimed at managing the impact of human use of land and resources. It is a form of stewardship that changes the way we do business, ensuring that we share the land and work together to reduce the impact on that land.
ResourceLove Your Headwaters
We rely on the headwaters of the Rocky Mountains for 90% of Alberta’s drinking water. Fed by rain, snow, and glacier ice, these landscapes absorb, clean, and release our water into streams and river systems — eventually reaching our homes in communities across the province.
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Watershed Legacy Program
OWC’s niche and ultimate goal of Connecting Urban and Rural Communities in the Oldman Watershed Legacy Program is to foster strong community ties between rural producers and urban consumers. Through rural community discussion sessions, OWC has gained a clear sense that the agricultural community feels misunderstood by their urban counterparts and wants to show the consumer that they can feel good about the food they eat, and the water they drink because of the best practices of agriculture. By bridging the gap and fostering strong community ties OWC can expand our capacity to help the agricultural community communicate their positive stories to the urban consumer, thus improving the producers social license, as well as the consumers understanding of food production and how the land and water is used.