SACPA to discuss ‘Do Parks Protect Nature?’

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs is holding its first weekly session after the holiday break today.

The guest speaker is Kevin Van Tighem, a landscape ecologist, author and retired park superintendent. Van Tighem is an outspoken advocate for the preservation of Alberta’s wilderness areas, headwaters landscapes, rivers and native prairies.

His presentation “Do Parks Protect Nature?” will address the controversy over new parks in the Castle area. He will speak to questions such as whether park protection is an outdated approach to biodiversity conservation, and are there better ways to protect nature or are we just thinking about parks in the wrong ways?

Van Tighem will illustrate his talk with excerpts from his recently released book “Our Place: Changing the Nature of Alberta,” a collection of writings spanning a third of a century that chronicle the ecology, conservation history, missed opportunities and emerging possibilities of a place that should have been about so much more than resource exploitation.

Van Tighem chairs the Science and Stewardship Committee for the Nature Conservancy of Canada and serves on the boards of the Livingstone Landowners Group and Alberta Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

Moderated by Heather Oxman, the session will run from noon-1:30 p.m. at Country Kitchen Catering (below the Keg restaurant: 1715 Mayor Magrath Dr. S.). The cost is $14 (includes lunch) or $2 (includes coffee/tea).