Moose Lake Plan Moves Forward to Support Treaty Rights, Biodiversity and Responsible Development

November 10, 2025

• •
• •
• •

• Birch-Wabasca
• Bison
• Caribou
• Protected Areas
• WLA Archive

Fort McKay First Nation’s vision and tenacity through lengthy negotiations and a successful lawsuit achieved a landmark regulatory and management approach, which is now being implemented.

By Carolyn Campbell, former AWA conservation director

Read the PDF version here.

 

On Treaty 8 lands in northeast Alberta, an inspiring Indigenous initiative is producing hopeful and essential land-use changes. The Moose Lake Access Management Plan (MLAMP) applies to 1,000 square kilometres of public lands, protected area lands, and First Nation Reserves, about 100 kilometres northwest of Fort McMurray.

The plan was signed between Alberta and Fort McKay First Nation in February 2021. Fort McKay First Nation’s vision and tenacity through lengthy negotiations and a successful lawsuit achieved a landmark regulatory and management approach, which is now being implemented.

MLAMP supports the exercise of Indigenous rights, their members’ traditional land uses and cultural practices, and the biodiversity of their traditional lands and waters. Its framework offers opportunities for responsible resource development, while greatly expanding shared governance and rules to strongly monitor, manage, and limit the contribution to cumulative environmental and cultural impacts of land-use decisions. If more Albertans know about this innovative approach, we can help support its success and other similar possibilities.

The MLAMP spans a 10 kilometre-wide zone. Its origins were in Fort McKay First Nation’s interests in a cumulative effects management approach for the Broader Moose Lake Area of its western traditional territories, which the nation pursued in negotiations with the Alberta government that began in 2003 (see Map 1).

The 10-kilometre zone encircles Fort McKay First Nation’s Moose Lake reserves (which were called ‘Namur River’ and ‘Namur Lake’ reserves 174A and B when created by Canada in 1915). They are essential for Fort McKay First Nation members to exercise their Treaty rights. Their main Fort McKay settlement to the southeast has become surrounded by large open-pit tar sands mines, including tailings ponds and refinery-like upgraders. Extensive land fragmentation was also reaching towards the Moose Lake reserves via seismic exploration and growing infrastructure for proposed in situ industrial projects to steam, pump and process deeper subsurface oil sands deposits (see Map 2).

A turning point came in 2020, when Alberta’s Court of Appeal upheld a Fort McKay First Nation legal claim and overturned the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER)’s approval of the Prosper in situ oil sands project. The court said the AER must reconsider whether approving that project is in the public interest after considering the honour of the Crown as it related to then-ongoing Moose Lake Access Management Plan negotiations with Fort McKay First Nation. As a result, the final 2021 MLAMP states that construction and operation of central processing facilities for oil sands, as well as aerodromes, landfills, and permanent work camps, are not permitted within the 10-kilometre zone (see Wild Lands Advocate Summer 2021 article for a fuller timeline).

In April 2025, I asked Fort McKay First Nation about key activities since 2021 to implement MLAMP.

Governance mechanisms to implement the plan have been established. A Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has been set up, co-chaired by the Government of Alberta, Fort McKay First Nation, and Fort McKay Métis. The TAC also includes reps from oil sands and forestry industries and an AER observer. It has developed Terms of Reference, implementation priorities, and a work plan.

MLAMP states that water in the Moose Lake area is in excellent condition, and keeping it so will remain a priority. The water management intent is to protect Fort McKay’s drinking water, sourced from Buffalo (Namur) Lake, Moose (Gardiner) Lake and the Ells River watershed; maintain watershed function and integrity; and support Indigenous traditional uses in the watershed. The lakes are in the Birch Mountains, elevated above surrounding areas, but it’s important to understand connectivity and any potential impacts from oil sands operators’ deeper groundwater withdrawals. A technical experts committee is now moving forward to characterize and monitor groundwater-surface water interactions.

Biodiversity is central to the exercise of Indigenous rights. In general, boreal wetlands provide crucial habitat for diverse plant and animal communities, including species used by Indigenous communities for food, medicine, and ceremony. These wetlands can be difficult to restore or replace to their pre-disturbance functions. MLAMP applies more stringent compensation measures for wetland loss compared to Alberta provincial policy. Activities to map and characterize wetlands in the 10-kilometre zone are underway, to support awareness and avoidance.

Half the zone is either in Birch Mountains Wilderness Park or on First Nation Reserve lands, both of which remain relatively intact from industrial disturbance. The other half is on mixed-use public lands with oil sands, forestry and sand/gravel leases.

MLAMP provides an innovative approach to managing cumulative land-use impacts on Alberta public lands for biodiversity, traditional use, and responsible development objectives. The plan recognizes that industrial features, including roads, seismic and pipeline corridors, forestry cutblocks, and well pads, have habitat-degrading edge effects. Their impacts on soils, microclimates, hydrology, invasive species, predator mobility and other ecological changes radiate well beyond the immediate points of industrial disturbance.

MLAMP therefore assigns buffers of between 50 to 200 metres around human industrial and access features. Crucially, it also established a maximum 15 percent limit of buffered industrial disturbance in the 10-kilometre zone. Actual buffered industrial disturbance was measured at 13.5 percent as of the 2016 baseline year. (Note that this is similar to threatened woodland caribou range recovery processes, which apply 500-metre buffers to industrial disturbances based on best available evidence of those particular impacts to caribou).

MLAMP also allocated the 15 percent total disturbance limit amongst the forestry, oil/gas and sand/gravel sectors, a significant step for sector-specific planning and accountability. The area left outside of the buffered industrial footprint is called interior habitat. That is the pre-development natural landscape that’s left to support biodiversity. To encourage prompt, high-quality reclamation/restoration actions, MLAMP reduces allocated buffer widths of industrial footprint in a particular spot based on achieving milestones of restoration actions and plant community responses.

Under MLAMP, Alberta promised to oversee and provide funding to restore legacy seismic lines in the 10k-kilometre zone. Even after decades, the lines aren’t returning to pre-disturbance conditions, so they still fragment interior habitat. For the past several years, teams have conducted detailed inventories of legacy linear disturbances, and prioritized early activities where there is maximum habitat benefit. They are also discussing with community members which routes to retain for traditional land uses, while reducing their residual impacts, for example, by interrupting unnaturally long sight lines for predators.

In another key provision for accountability, MLAMP commits that interior habitat and sector-specific footprint monitoring data will be made publicly available at regular intervals. Alberta has recently updated its 10-kilometre zoneone footprint: the update will include a new footprint, plus a discounted footprint from meeting restoration and reclamation milestones. The reporting protocols are under development by the MLAMP TAC. As well, a sub-group called the Footprint Management Working Group has been learning about Alberta footprint monitoring and forecasting techniques. Over the next year it will also be seeking community members’ input to develop culturally relevant reclamation indicators and practices.

Similar firm, insightful regulatory approaches to limit biodiversity loss and ensure continued exercise of Indigenous rights should be implemented much more broadly in Alberta. Although MLAMP’s area is small in terms of Alberta’s size, its measures to manage cumulative land-use impacts on Treaty lands are a momentous starting point.