Editor: On behalf of our membership, we would like to pay tribute to council for its wise and unanimous decision to withhold approval of first reading for TSMV’s proposed Area Structure Plan for its resort area, which would have significantly altered low intensity land uses adjacent to the Along Valley Wildlife Corridor currently zoned under Bylaw 36(Z)2004.
Council understands that it took a long and careful process to establish the land uses adjacent to the Along Valley Corridor in the Resort Area, from terms of reference in 2001 to Golder Report recommendations for the Along Valley Corridor and the adjacent land uses in 2002 to two conservation easements to permanently protect the Along Valley Corridor in 2003 and 2007 and land uses adjacent to the Along Valley Corridor approved in 2006 under Bylaw 26(Z)2004, with the resort area golf course adjacent to the corridor (leaving it seasonally free for wildlife movement in the fall, winter and spring) with the first building set 300 metres below the corridor boundary.
The 2002 Golder process alone involved the collaboration of biologists from the Province, TSMV and Golder as the independent biologist for the Town (before they became the consultant for TSMV in 2003) along with three independent biologists: Dr. Danah Duke and Dr. S. Alexander of the Miistakis Institute of the Rockies at the U of C, and Jacob Herrero.
As stated in a recent staff report, “In 2002 the wildlife corridors adjacent to the Resort Centre were adjusted from the 1998 approval.” The result is a wider corridor, with an average corridor width of 635 metres for the Along Valley Corridor protected under two conservation easements: the core corridor in 2003 and the 35-metre corridor buffer in 2007, where “The primary purpose of these buffer lands is to widen the effective width of the wildlife corridors to provide for transition lands between the development and the wildlife corridor, while allowing for vegetative removal and thinning for wildfire protection.” Both the 2007 conservation easement and Canmore’s 2010 Firesmart policy place fire thinning outside the core corridor.
Council is also aware that as the science on wildlife corridors has evolved, the most recent scientific thought continues to confirm that a functional corridor for multi-species of wildlife must be consistent with the Province’s 2012 BCEAG guidelines and provincial data, i.e., a corridor width greater than 800 metres.
Consequently, if we are to offer wildlife the best possible chance of survival, even the minimum corridor width of 450 metres below a slope of 25 degrees (based on provincial empirical data) will require an increase in the effective width of the corridor by zoning low intensity land uses consistent with the 2012 Bow Corridor Ecosystem Advisory Group (BCEAG) Guidelines, provincial scientific data, and Town of Canmore Municipal Development Policy 4.2.14 which requires that: “For the purposes of this section, the Town will determine adjacency consistent with the BCEAG Wildlife Corridor and Habitat Patch Guidelines for the Bow Valley (2012).”
Neither provincial nor Town policies are consistent with a fence which would create a barrier between the Along Valley Corridor and zoned adjacent land uses, whether in the TSMV Resort or Smith Creek Areas, given the connectivity between the proposed Smith Creek corridor and the existing corridor in the resort centre area.
So it is to council’s credit, with its long experience and engagement with Canmore, that they have stood behind their commitment to stewardship of our wildlife corridors, the Town policies which they have forged, and the strong conservation values of our citizens.
For this and many other reasons, we pay tribute to members of council who, in Mayor Borrowman’s words, made a decision that represents “the greatest benefit to the community” and as Councillor Krausert said, observes the “precautionary principle” of not putting Canmore’s environment or community at risk.
Heather MacFadyen, Colin Ferguson, Alan MacFadyen, Eileen Patterson,
Steering Committee, BowCORD
