Throw a lifeline to the Oldman

The crushing and erosive pace of unrelenting, ever-accelerating off-highway-vehicle (OHV) landscape degradation in the headwaters of the Oldman watershed must be stopped today. I’ve delivered this message to government ministries and managers of Alberta’s public lands for more than 30 years.

What’s happened during the past three decades? The pace of watershed destruction has snowballed. Watershed health has nosedived.

Today, the public land that surrounds me, scarred and bleeding, can no longer tolerate more damage. It cries for battlefield triage.

I live on a thrust-faulted, topographically tortured Crown of the Continent landscape. Here in the headwaters of the Oldman, land-use planning is in progress. Meaningful change must occur. Beyond my front door, the waterways, degraded in a wholesale way by decades of OHV abuses and other forms of maltreatment, are muddy, choked with sediment. They’re failing to sustain Alberta’s native trout.

I shed tears every time I revisit old — once treasured — haunts in the headwaters of the Oldman. I’ve witnessed watershed and ecological losses there that are nothing short of staggering.

Today, as a general rule of conduct, I avoid the once-cherished public lands in my backyard to find, far from home, the peace, tranquility and landscape integrity that, not long ago, were available at my doorstep.

Almost 90 per cent of Albertans — they send a strong and unequivocal message — want more wilderness lands protected from development and damage.

I read, recently, words written by Gary Clark, president of the Crowsnest Pass Quad Squad. He reported living in Crowsnest Pass for five years. In other words, Mr. Clark arrived after the Oldman’s waterways had already been severed by thousands — literally thousands — of OHV stream crossings … and after native trout — identified species-at-risk — were found living on only a small fraction of their former range. Think about that for a long minute.

I step forward armed with the belief that meaningful headwaters restoration can occur, and I do it with the vision that future generations can experience, here in the storied birthplace of the Oldman, a brand of watershed health and integrity that OHV advocate Gary Clark has never seen.

It’s time for everyone to step into the mud. It’s time for everyone to find truth, accept responsibility, and pursue — and contribute to — a responsible course of corrective action.

Stand tall, Alberta. Join me. Throw a lifeline to the Oldman.