Editor: This past week the conservation easement agreement on the Stewart Creek section of the Three Sisters Along Valley Corridor, and a small portion of the Stewart Creek Across Valley Corridor, was finally registered “in perpetuity” with Alberta Land Titles, after being signed a year ago in November of 2014 by Three Sisters Mountain Village (TSMV) and the Province.
We wish to thank Mayor Borrowman and council for honouring their commitment to stand behind permanent protection for these regionally and nationally important corridors for wildlife movement.
The easement was initially a policy requirement in the 2004 Stewart Creek Area Structure Plan, strongly supported by then-Councillor Andre Gareau and by the Bow Corridor Organization for Responsible Development (BowCORD) up to the present day.
In 2005, TSMV, the Province and the Town of Canmore agreed in writing to provide permanent protection for these corridor sections.
In 2013, our Canmore council supported the signing of this agreement to permanently protect these corridors before development plans for the Stewart Creek cabins went ahead adjacent to the Along Valley Corridor. Council’s support is consistent with the legal requirements and expectations of the Natural Resources Conservation Board (NRCB), where provision of connecting wildlife movement corridors “on Three Sisters property” is a condition of the 1992 NRCB Decision on Three Sisters Resorts.
Protection of this section of the Along Valley Corridor is particularly important since the Stewart Creek golf course, which takes up approximately 60 per cent of the corridor, was approved in 1991 by the Municipal District of Bighorn just prior to annexation by the Town of Canmore, the proclamation of the NRCB and the 1992 NRCB hearings on Three Sisters Resorts. Without permanent protection, the intrusion of golf in the corridor threatens the functionality of the corridors for wildlife movement unless the corridor is kept free of human use in the late fall, winter and early spring.
The advantage to the developer of this easement is that TSMV now has ownership of 32.9 hectares of former Crown land which lie entirely in the Along Valley Corridor and were previously leased from the Province. Now, under the 2015 agreement, ‘golf course’ is the only permitted human use other than wildlife corridor.
TSMV’s new development proposal for their Smith Creek Area encompasses 344 acres in Sites 7, 8 and 9, where Sites 7 and 9 are adjacent to the Along Valley Corridor. Before these development plans can go forward, the remaining Three Sisters Corridors need to be designated by Alberta Environment and Parks, which legally acts “in good faith” for the NRCB. These corridors need to be consistent with provincial scientific data and recommendations, where in 2004 the NRCB approved “the application of more recent scientific thought in relation to wildlife corridor design.”
It is to be hoped and expected the Province will require the best permanent protection for the remaining Three Sisters Along Valley Corridor consistent with the provincial conservation easement agreements now in place on the TSMV Resort Area section of the Along Valley Corridor (2003 and 2007), with an average corridor width of 635 metres (including a 35 metre corridor buffer). And that such protection, like the new easement on the corridors in Stewart Creek, “shall not permit any hunting, killing or trapping of animals, including birds.”
As the chair of the NRCB stated in his 2005 letter to conservation interveners in the 1992 NRCB hearings, such as BowCORD: “Completing the network of functional corridors remains an essential requirement of the NRCB’s decision to approve the development. The clear objective is to ensure that development of this portion of the Bow Valley Corridor is compatible with the long-term survival of large mammal populations in the Alberta Rockies.”
Heather MacFadyen, chair
Bow Corridor Organization for Responsible Development
