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Editorial: What is essential during this time depends on priorities

It is interesting to see how people have different definitions of what should be considered an essential service during the global COVID-19 public health crisis.

It is interesting to see how people have different definitions of what should be considered an essential service during the global COVID-19 public health crisis.

Essential services are determined by each province and as restrictions on what is considered to be non-essential services rolled out across the country, it was clear there is not unanimous agreement on what is and is not included in this category.

In Alberta at the moment, there is debate over golf courses and how they have been classified by the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw. Last week, Hinshaw was clear that her assessment is that golf courses are not an essential service, scuttling plans by those focused on getting ready for a spring tee time.

On the one hand, golf is a sport that naturally accommodates physical distancing and provides outdoor physical activity that can be a balm for the current crisis. On the other hand, however, it is a recreational pursuit and not necessary or critical for the functioning of our communities as we isolate and wait out the spread of this virus. 

While that debate remains ongoing and we reach the one month point of having our communities locked down, it would be a worthwhile exercise to consider whether there are any larger projects that may not only continue to move forward, but what ones can be accelerated to take advantage of the situation. 

In particular, we would suggest that both Parks Canada and Alberta Environment and Parks should be seriously considering an aggressive and escalated prescribed fire season this spring.

Springtime can create the ideal conditions to conduct prescribed fires – and we now know this early season practice on the landscape goes back thousands of years thanks to Indigenous knowledge keepers. 

As of April 1, it is officially wildfire season in Alberta and this week the government announced additional response measures, including 200 additional firefighters, additional funds for FireSmart initiatives and a fire ban in all provincial parks, recreation and forest protection areas. 

While on the surface this support will be welcome by municipalities on the front lines of trying to mitigate the loss of millions (if not billions) worth of properties during the wildfire season, it could go even further by supporting more prescribed burns.

One of the biggest challenges to those responsible for managing prescribed burns is getting the right conditions at the right time to deploy. The right time has a lot to do with how many people may be out on the landscape at any given time.

With our provincial and national parks closed to visitation, both agencies should immediately begin to advance prescribed burn projects in Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country.

Precautions to maintain distancing for staff would be a minor detail to overcome in the grand scheme of gaining some ground on this very important annual to-do-list item.

Prescribed burns are an evidence-based strategy to create diversity in vegetation across the landscape and that protects communities like Canmore and Banff from large catastrophic wildfires in the future. Like the 2016 wildfire that forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray – a natural disaster with a pricetag of approximately $9 billion. 

When you add climate change into the mix, then we know based on the advice from experts that it will create conditions favourable for wildfires to burn uncontrolled, potentially pumping thick smoke into the air and choking out regional outdoor recreation.

We know fire is a natural part of the ecosystem and without prescribed burns the risk of catastrophic wildfire increases – creating a homogenous canopy of coniferous trees as a fuel source for future fires. 

Now is an opportunity that shouldn't be wasted to advance prescribed burn objectives immediately, and over the short-term while our country and region is locked down. In our perspective, this is easily an essential service that will improve public safety from another potential hazard to our way of life. 

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