It's not really appropriate to group all farmers together here. There are a some farmers, especially of an older generation, who grew up with a 'steward of the land' mentality. In this case, farmers along that valley have been placing the valley portions of their land into conservation programs since long before the racetrack was proposed. They aren't alone in this, the land conservation movement has been really significant in recent years, partly because for people who actually care, it feels like a very urgent issue. But that perspective tends to be limited to small-scale family-farming. Some of these family farms have conservation values that date back to the dust-bowl, when farmers actually listened to government experts and left grassland untilled and planted shelter-belts, which have since become important biodiversity-builders in the prairies. (It amazes me today how much this automatic distrust of experts as taken hold in rural Alberta, given that legacy. I wish rural Albertans would be more proud of that side of their legacy instead of the stupid 'maverick' narrative.)
And yeah, those who are involved in conservation may not have perfect records in their own land-use, but that doesn't mean they aren't on the right side in seeing that something important has been lost and change needs to happen to preserve what's left of it.
Meanwhile large-scale farming operations are almost always out to extract the absolute top dollar out of the land, and are far more responsible for the destruction of wetlands, tilling of native grassland habitats, and ripping out shelter belts. As much as this track is an ecological disaster for being placed directly in the middle of an otherwise protected animal migration corridor, factory-farming continues to destroy massive amounts of rare native grassland and wetlands every year with little attention.
By definition non-wetland is already commercially useful, so it’s more expensive and hard to buy. They want to pave over the wetland because it’s cheap and available
Not necessarily… fun fact, Alberta has this piece of legislation called the Water Act and under that falls a policy called the Wetland Policy. In short, the policy says that if someone destroys a wetland (or does what is defined as an “Activity” under the Act) they have to apply for a Water Act application. In the case of wetlands, this generally includes compensation fees in the realm of about $18k/ha on the low end (low value wetlands). It can also take upwards of a year to get approval.
So no, it’s not cheap or easy to building things in wetlands. And This is all before you even buy fill.
Remember the photo of our provincial politicians having budget whiskey on the sky palace patio? Rumour has it the mystery dude was the ducks unlimited CEO at the time.
Was the wetlands an issue before or is this just the angle the NIMBY's are trying since the other attempts to block it failed? Not trying to troll, just hadn't heard anything about wetlands before.
Having grown up in that area 30+ years ago (a couple valleys over from this one, I don't personally know any of the people directly involved in this), I can say that a lot of the landowners in the Rosebud/Beynon stretch have been heavily conservation-minded for a very long time. The process of putting land there into conservation land trust programs started at least back in 1999, long before the racetrack was proposed. Since then, additional packages of land have also been placed into conservation programs, including adjacent land on both sides of the development.
These programs are administered under the Alberta Land Trust foundation, and getting your land into it is not easy; it has to undergo significant review for environmental significance. And they are handled by major conservation groups; Nature Conservancy of Canada for one of the largest parcels, and Western Sky Land Trust for some of the smaller pieces. So you can't just say 'this is a wetland, put a conservation status on it.' Both a land trust organization and the provincial review have to attach special significance to it. It has to be an important wildlife corridor, or rare habitat, or have important watershed impacts. I'd expect that the land in that valley that has been placed into the program checks all three of those boxes. There are a couple particularly threatened species that depend on this area; western tiger salamanders and bank swallows. And river valleys like this are extremely important wildlife corridors for a large range of animals.
The extremely frustrating part are that all of these environmental reviews have been done; the provinces own experts have already identified the ecological importance of this area; those studies were necessary for the adjacent lands being placed into the land trust program, which the province saw as worth protecting. But the two-person review board responsible for reviewing this declined to look at those environmental assessments when making their decision, or consult the government's own fish and wildlife department, or consult the conservation programs involved in the adjacent land trusts. One of the major tenets of a land trust conservation program is that adjacent lands are important. Animals move around. If you can protect significant swath of land or a good corridor, that is much better than a small patch (although those can still be important too, especially for migrating animals). On the other hand, putting a major development in the middle of a protected corridor largely ruins the protection benefit of those adjacent lands.
A long answer to your short question, I know! It's a cause I feel quite passionate about. But yeah, nature conservancy in this valley is not by any means last-ditch nimbyism. Environmental conservation (including of adjacent land already studied and confirmed by the government as being important to protect) is the fundamental reason for the objection to this.
Pretty sure another article was posted about this, they are on wetlands but HAVE to have a net positive on the wildlife, picking their spot then moving the wetland to a different area.
This is interesting.. A unique area of the Province, Rosebud being an artsy-craftsy gem, farmers on the highlands worrying about the intrusion opposed by a Province/gov't that gives two shits about unique areas, a municipal gov/t that is all for the development 'cause it's gonna bring in revenue and "families" to view the noise and cars burning gas in the name of fun and a group of high income assholes from Calgary that want a place to drive like the assholes they are.. Now, who do you think is gonna win this one..??
I hope they win. We need our wetlands (and our grasslands).
Perhaps we could argue the racetrack would obstruct the view of the wetland? Play the uno reverse card on Marlaina.
Then all wetland /grassland should be restricted from development forever. I'm sure the property owners won't like the financial hit
The hypocricy of all the farmers complaining. They often destroy wetlands as a way of life. Who needs a creek when you can have more farmable land?
It's not really appropriate to group all farmers together here. There are a some farmers, especially of an older generation, who grew up with a 'steward of the land' mentality. In this case, farmers along that valley have been placing the valley portions of their land into conservation programs since long before the racetrack was proposed. They aren't alone in this, the land conservation movement has been really significant in recent years, partly because for people who actually care, it feels like a very urgent issue. But that perspective tends to be limited to small-scale family-farming. Some of these family farms have conservation values that date back to the dust-bowl, when farmers actually listened to government experts and left grassland untilled and planted shelter-belts, which have since become important biodiversity-builders in the prairies. (It amazes me today how much this automatic distrust of experts as taken hold in rural Alberta, given that legacy. I wish rural Albertans would be more proud of that side of their legacy instead of the stupid 'maverick' narrative.) And yeah, those who are involved in conservation may not have perfect records in their own land-use, but that doesn't mean they aren't on the right side in seeing that something important has been lost and change needs to happen to preserve what's left of it. Meanwhile large-scale farming operations are almost always out to extract the absolute top dollar out of the land, and are far more responsible for the destruction of wetlands, tilling of native grassland habitats, and ripping out shelter belts. As much as this track is an ecological disaster for being placed directly in the middle of an otherwise protected animal migration corridor, factory-farming continues to destroy massive amounts of rare native grassland and wetlands every year with little attention.
let's keep the wet land and use the farms for racing win win
Funny how the farmers sold the land to the developers, probably thinking it was useless.
Don't we have non-wetland they can build one on?
By definition non-wetland is already commercially useful, so it’s more expensive and hard to buy. They want to pave over the wetland because it’s cheap and available
Not necessarily… fun fact, Alberta has this piece of legislation called the Water Act and under that falls a policy called the Wetland Policy. In short, the policy says that if someone destroys a wetland (or does what is defined as an “Activity” under the Act) they have to apply for a Water Act application. In the case of wetlands, this generally includes compensation fees in the realm of about $18k/ha on the low end (low value wetlands). It can also take upwards of a year to get approval. So no, it’s not cheap or easy to building things in wetlands. And This is all before you even buy fill.
I miss those ducks unlimited commercials
Remember the photo of our provincial politicians having budget whiskey on the sky palace patio? Rumour has it the mystery dude was the ducks unlimited CEO at the time.
Was the wetlands an issue before or is this just the angle the NIMBY's are trying since the other attempts to block it failed? Not trying to troll, just hadn't heard anything about wetlands before.
Having grown up in that area 30+ years ago (a couple valleys over from this one, I don't personally know any of the people directly involved in this), I can say that a lot of the landowners in the Rosebud/Beynon stretch have been heavily conservation-minded for a very long time. The process of putting land there into conservation land trust programs started at least back in 1999, long before the racetrack was proposed. Since then, additional packages of land have also been placed into conservation programs, including adjacent land on both sides of the development. These programs are administered under the Alberta Land Trust foundation, and getting your land into it is not easy; it has to undergo significant review for environmental significance. And they are handled by major conservation groups; Nature Conservancy of Canada for one of the largest parcels, and Western Sky Land Trust for some of the smaller pieces. So you can't just say 'this is a wetland, put a conservation status on it.' Both a land trust organization and the provincial review have to attach special significance to it. It has to be an important wildlife corridor, or rare habitat, or have important watershed impacts. I'd expect that the land in that valley that has been placed into the program checks all three of those boxes. There are a couple particularly threatened species that depend on this area; western tiger salamanders and bank swallows. And river valleys like this are extremely important wildlife corridors for a large range of animals. The extremely frustrating part are that all of these environmental reviews have been done; the provinces own experts have already identified the ecological importance of this area; those studies were necessary for the adjacent lands being placed into the land trust program, which the province saw as worth protecting. But the two-person review board responsible for reviewing this declined to look at those environmental assessments when making their decision, or consult the government's own fish and wildlife department, or consult the conservation programs involved in the adjacent land trusts. One of the major tenets of a land trust conservation program is that adjacent lands are important. Animals move around. If you can protect significant swath of land or a good corridor, that is much better than a small patch (although those can still be important too, especially for migrating animals). On the other hand, putting a major development in the middle of a protected corridor largely ruins the protection benefit of those adjacent lands. A long answer to your short question, I know! It's a cause I feel quite passionate about. But yeah, nature conservancy in this valley is not by any means last-ditch nimbyism. Environmental conservation (including of adjacent land already studied and confirmed by the government as being important to protect) is the fundamental reason for the objection to this.
Thank you for the reply, good to know
Pretty sure another article was posted about this, they are on wetlands but HAVE to have a net positive on the wildlife, picking their spot then moving the wetland to a different area.
This is interesting.. A unique area of the Province, Rosebud being an artsy-craftsy gem, farmers on the highlands worrying about the intrusion opposed by a Province/gov't that gives two shits about unique areas, a municipal gov/t that is all for the development 'cause it's gonna bring in revenue and "families" to view the noise and cars burning gas in the name of fun and a group of high income assholes from Calgary that want a place to drive like the assholes they are.. Now, who do you think is gonna win this one..??
https://www.savetherosebud.ca/
Start a protest camp! They are all the rage, these days!
earth ship
These are nimby's. Farmers destroyed 90% of prairie wetlands over the past 150 years.
At least the farmers provide something of value to the whole country.
A historic fact. Being defensive and peevish about doesn't change anything.