News Release: All-Season Resorts Act and Policy Must Be Strengthened to Protect Public Lands

December 10, 2025

Public lands are just that, public. Since the provincial government announced the legislation, Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) has vocalized concerns that the All-Season Resort Act (ASRA) may continue the worrisome trend of privatizing the benefits and access of nature away from the public.

Many public lands include critical species at risk habitat, wildlife corridors, and other environmentally significant areas unsuitable for tourism development. This necessitates that any development, including that of all-season resorts, be compatible and sustainable with the ecosystem they are situated in, with defined thresholds in place to determine and halt when use is exceeding capacity.

The Policy announced today has some promising commitments but still requires improvements to ensure there is no negative impact to Alberta’s wild species and spaces, or loss of existing protected areas.

AWA would like to see the Act and the All-Season Resorts Policy amended or updated to include,

A clear, consistent, transparent, accountable, rigorous, and legally binding process on how public lands will be considered for an ASRA designation.
Commitments to ensuring no loss of existing protected areas. ASRA currently allows the Lieutenant Governor in Council, on recommendation by the ministry, to rescind protected area designations so the lands can be used to develop all-season resorts. At minimum, if any protected area designations are removed, ASRA should stipulate that protected areas of equal value and size be designated to compensate. Expanding protected areas should occur in tandem with ASRA designations, particularly in underrepresented natural areas within Alberta’s parks system like the Parklands, Grasslands, and Foothills.
Clarity on how ASRA designations will align with the Alberta Land Stewardship Act in the absence of completed regional and subregional plans, as well as how consistency with existing environmental policies and plans (Species at Risk Recovery Plans, Canada and Alberta Nature Strategies, Plan for Parks, Kananaskis Country Recreational Policy, Castle Management Plan, etc.) will be ensured.
Strengthened designation criteria that prioritizes the protection of ecosystems and their services. The criteria should explicitly identify how the ASRA designation process will evaluate the ecological values and constraints, existing human footprint and cumulative effects, and the suitability for sustainable development of a potential ASRA area. What sustainable development means in an environmental context must be clearly defined. Wildlife corridors, critical habitat for species at risk, and environmentally sensitive areas must be identified and avoided.
Mechanisms that avoid increasing tourism concentration and pressure on the environment. If the proposed recreation, tourism, and economy all rely on a healthy functioning environment to exist, then the needs and limits of the environment must be accounted for in the designation process. Areas that are already experiencing high and potentially unsustainable traffic and use, like the Bow Valley and Kananaskis, should not be areas prioritized for designation. Increasing human footprint here risks jeopardizing the environmental benefits these areas are valued for.

AWA is concerned that two of the first three areas announced for ASRA designation are in Kananaskis, which is already showing signs of over-visitation. The region contains Alberta’s top provincial parks based on visitation numbers, Bow Valley and Peter Lougheed, and welcomed over five million people in 2025. The government has confirmed unsustainable pressures in the region and implemented the Kananaskis Conservation Pass in response. Charging fees for access to these public lands was justified on the basis that the revenue generated would help address the increases in littering, injuries, human-wildlife conflicts, illegal parking, trail and amenity overcrowding from the region’s high visitation rates that were negatively impacting the environment and visitor experiences. Since 2000, total human footprint in Kananaskis country has seen a 70 percent increase, with over 14,000 hectares of native habitat converted for human use. This has been accompanied by declines in landscape and stream connectivity across the region. Research indicates wildlife movement, behaviour, and resource selection has been negatively impacted by increased human presence and infrastructure.

AWA calls on the Province to address these concerns to strengthen the Act and its Policy before advancing any new all-season resort designations. ASRA should focus on designating areas that will spread tourism and recreation opportunities around the province, rather than intensifying use in already high-traffic locations. Albertans deserve assurance that public lands will remain protected, accessible, and managed for the long-term health of the ecosystems we all depend on.

For more information, contact:

Kennedy Halvorson, (403)283-2025, cs1@abwild.ca