Staff Feature: Sara Heerema

March 2, 2026

Sara birdwatching at Frank Lake. Photo © R. McKeeman

By Jill Girgulis, AWA Outreach and Communications Specialist

Read the PDF version here.

You may have noticed that the Wild Lands Advocate (WLA) has a new face gracing its inside cover: Sara Heerema, AWA’s Conservation Outreach Specialist, who is stepping up as the WLA editor while our colleague Amy Tucker is on maternity leave.

Sara has a long, storied history with AWA, having grown up with the organization thanks to an environmentally-focused family. “We always had Wild Lands Advocates in the house because my mom’s been a member since she was a young adult,” Sara says. “I grew up knowing about the issues going on in Alberta, environmental-wise… It’s always been my dream to work here.”

That dream came true earlier this year when Sara was hired in January as the Conservation Outreach Specialist, a new role for AWA. When asked what stands out from her first year, she rather fittingly cites the publication of her very first article in the Summer 2025 edition of the WLA. “Seeing that come to life and realizing that I’m part of an organization that I’ve idolized for so long is really cool.”

Sara also describes the opportunities she’s had via AWA to venture into Wild Alberta, including embarking on the Beehive stewardship trip in August with fellow AWA staffers Lindsey Wallis and Cameron Hunter. “I got to backpack for three days through some of the areas where we’ve been involved in stewardship projects for a long time, checking on the land and actually being able to see whether there’s a lot of improper land use.”

The outreach portion of Sara’s role at AWA includes involvement with the Adventures for Wilderness (A4W) program. This program is the source of another of Sara’s highlights from the year: the hike she did up to Jumpingpound Summit with plant ecologist Isaac Peetom Heida.

“That was incredible. We made a bunch of stops and talked about the biology of the trees in the area, and what kind of mushrooms grew, and why the trees were slanted a certain way,” Sara explains about the adventure. “Honestly, I have never been so enthused. It’s really cool when you’re with someone [who’s] an expert. I’m learning so much from a place that I would have just walked through.”

She adds, “I’ve always wanted to just go out somewhere and have someone explain to me every aspect of nature that I’m seeing — and that’s what happened.”

Speaking with Sara, it’s clear she’s been passionate about advocacy her whole life. “I definitely grew up with that mindset, especially from my mom. She was always a big advocate. She helped protect Nose Hill from development back in the 70s,” Sara says. “So I was always raised with a real appreciation for nature, and a strong moral sense that we had to protect it.”

That passion for advocacy only increased as she entered university. “Going through school, I really wanted to focus on climate change and protecting landscapes as a whole, and as I went through that process, I got more interested in protecting local landscapes as a way to combat climate change and also protect the areas that I grew up loving.”

Defend Alberta Parks display. Photo © S. Heerema

Sara graduated with distinction from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Science in Geography, and then obtained her Master of Environmental Studies in Geography from the University of Waterloo. Her desire to protect wild spaces close to home reached a tipping point in 2020 with the Defend Alberta Parks campaign, an experience Sara often thinks back on as a powerful reminder that meaningful change can occur.

Defend Alberta Parks arose in response to the Alberta government’s plan to remove 175 parks and protected areas from the Alberta Parks system. Sara, an undergraduate student at the time, was very involved in the campaign.

“I think that was the biggest movement in my lifetime where I’ve seen people of all different walks of life and different industries coming together to advocate for one thing, and that was that they loved their wild spaces in Alberta, and they didn’t want them removed or changed into different ownership.”

Sara considers Defend Alberta Parks a great example of how the public does have power, and what people care about matters, “so long as we make noise about something we don’t like.”

She is also a big proponent of the belief that people will be more motivated to advocate for Alberta’s wild spaces if they have ways to connect to them. “The more personal that you can make that, the more willing people are going to be to work to protect it.”

Given her family history and her present-day career, it’s no surprise that connecting with wild spaces comes naturally to Sara. When asked where in Alberta she most loves spending time in, she cites Kananaskis, admitting that it “isn’t an area AWA necessarily works with that much anymore because it has won a lot of protections — in part due to AWA’s work in the past — but that’s the main area that I grew up in as a kid.”

As a result, Sara is deeply familiar with Kananaskis Country and has made the most of its many hikes and ski trails over the years. “I’ve spent a lot of time just sort of existing there, like learning the wildlife, learning the birds, knowing my surroundings. That’s where I feel the most at home.”

Since joining the team at AWA, however, Sara has also made it a priority to look beyond home and learn more about the province’s many other wild spaces, including its public lands. “Being a part of A4W has been interesting in that regard, just getting out to areas that I wouldn’t really think of going to because I figured they were taken over by OHVs [off-highway vehicles] or they were private land. But there are all of these incredible areas in Alberta that you can go to as a member of the public.”

So what’s the next ‘incredible area’ on Sara’s list to explore? The Wainwright Dunes.

“I think those sandy, drier ecosystems in Alberta are super neat… [Wainwright] is an area of Alberta that I haven’t been in much — it’s a totally new landscape to me. There’s so much to discover there that I would like to see.”

And the hope is, thanks to the work being done by AWA — of which Sara is very proud to be a part — these landscapes (and Alberta’s many others) will remain wild and able to be explored for many decades to come.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.