Protect the Bighorn Backcountry as a Wildland Provincial Park

The Bighorn Backcountry is a spectacular land of mountains, foothills, plains, rivers and lakes located east of the iconic Banff and Jasper National Parks. It is also one of Alberta's last intact pieces of wilderness and is currently unprotected.

The Bighorn is home to iconic and imperilled wildlife including grizzly bears, wolverines, bighorn sheep. It provides 88% of the water in the North Saskatchewan River, bringing water to more than a million people in Alberta and Saskatchewan. These lands are also invaluable to the livelihoods and culture of many indigenous nations.

Despite its importance, the Bighorn Backcountry is under threat. Coal mining endangers its waters while unregulated off-road vehicle usage carves up wildlife habitat.

With so much at stake, now is the time to protect the Bighorn Backcountry by creating the Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park. This designation would support activities such as hunting, fishing, hiking, camping while also safeguarding it from extractive industries and creating a management plan for recreation.

Will you help save the Bighorn Backcountry? Tell Minister Shannon Phillips you support the creation of the Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park.
Subject: I support the creation of Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park

Minister Phillips,

Today I am writing to recommend that you establish a wildland provincial park in the Bighorn region of our Rocky Mountains.

Albertans rely on the water that comes from this landscape, wildlife depend on it for habitat and food, and humans treasure the leisure activities available here, such as hiking, hunting, horseback riding, camping and more.

Your government showed how much it values Alberta's headwaters when you protected the headwaters of the Oldman Watershed in the Castle Wildland Provincial Park and expanded the Castle Provincial Park in the southern part of the province. Please share this commitment by protecting the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River.

Management as a Public Land Use Zone has helped maintain the Bighorn as one of Alberta's last large, intact wilderness areas. Because the area has few roads, no commercial logging and limited industrial extraction, it is home to at-risk or vulnerable species including grizzlies, wolverine, bull trout, and trees like limber and white bark pine.

But the Public Land Use Zone designation is no longer sufficient for the growing pressure on the landscape. Coal mining, oil and gas development, and wide-ranging off-highway vehicle recreation are incompatible with protection of our headwaters and sensitive habitat for vulnerable and iconic wildlife species, or our province's most popular forms of mountain recreation.

I would like to see a wildland provincial park designation extend from the boundaries of Banff and Jasper National Parks to the west extent to Forestry Trunk Road in the east. This designation is backed by science.

[Your Comment]

It's time for Alberta to be a national leader in protecting nature and water.

Thank you for your attention to my concerns.

[Your Name]
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