Alberta’s 2003 Water for Life strategy marked a major shift in the management of Alberta’s water resources to better enable shared responsibility and environmental stewardship. The province’s 11 Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils (WPACs) cover the entire province and were created as the main mechanism to foster collaboration at the watershed level. Given that municipal governments play a central role in the management of land and water, they are crucial WPAC partners. In collaboration with four WPACs, this study will evaluate the effectiveness of joint WPAC-municipal initiatives that enable land stewardship and planning, water management, and ecosystem resiliency for sustainable communities in Alberta.

Managing tradeoffs in a context of climate change – This project will survey the attitudes of Alberta residents, leaders, and planners towards open space, farmland conversation, and economic development features in urban and peri-urban areas, providing qualitative research to realtors, municipal leaders, planners, and the public to inform decision-making.

The Welcome to the Lake Program engages realtors as healthy-lake stewards to help generate awareness about healthy-lake practices that will protect the lake and support a resilient ecosystem and strong community. This program provides training and resources for Alberta realtors selling properties in watersheds in Alberta. The professional development themes include watershed basics for maintaining a healthy lake, low impact development solutions, and lake wise landscaping with in-person training options for realtors selling in the Pigeon Lake watershed and online options for realtors selling properties in other watersheds across the province. To share their knowledge, this program offers realtors with a welcome stewardship package that they can provide to new home owners.

The project will educate and assist rural landowners in improved management of their forested lands. The project will assist the real estate industry in understanding and promoting increased property values through improved management of rural forested lands by current and future owners. The project will assist in increasing property values of rural lands.

The Alberta Emerald Foundation is Alberta’s environmental good-news storyteller connecting the province’s environmental leaders and providing a voice to share their positive examples to engage, inform, and inspire others.

Through their year-round programming, they celebrate and showcase initiatives that demonstrate leadership and collaboration in land and water stewardship, improving air quality, reducing land disturbances, and encouraging eco-tourism in Alberta.

This initiative will look at the challenges and opportunities for moving from conversion to conservation of agricultural lands which will result in a primer on agricultural lands law and policy in Alberta and a gap analysis to identify the legal challenges for conservation of agricultural lands. These reports will be conveyed to government, politicians, stakeholders and interested Albertans and will provide direct advice and support for emerging agricultural land conservation efforts.

A province-wide survey will assess attitudes of Alberta residents and municipal authorities toward fragmentation, conversion, and conservation policy tools. This research will help Alberta’s developers, provincial and municipal governments to better manage the fragmentation and conversion of agricultural land. This project involves two work streams with different deliverables at different dates: one on attitudes towards land use and the different policy tools; the other on the economics of land use change and the GIS planning tools. Final results will be disseminated in parallel.

The project is to create and publish a podcast series and website covering on-farm climate solutions—from solar power to better land management—in order to empower members of the rural community with the tools and understanding to be part of the clean energy economy of the future. This is an extension of an already existing program funded via the Alberta Government Community Environment Action Grant program to provide workshops and learning related to climate-positive agricultural and land-use practices.

OWC’s niche and ultimate goal of Connecting Urban and Rural Communities in the Oldman Watershed Legacy Program is to foster strong community ties between rural producers and urban consumers. Through rural community discussion sessions, OWC has gained a clear sense that the agricultural community feels misunderstood by their urban counterparts and wants to show the consumer that they can feel good about the food they eat, and the water they drink because of the best practices of agriculture. By bridging the gap and fostering strong community ties OWC can expand our capacity to help the agricultural community communicate their positive stories to the urban consumer, thus improving the producers social license, as well as the consumers understanding of food production and how the land and water is used.

The project is to update, improve, post and then reprint, our highly popular Sustainable Action Canmore booklet and online supporting materials which AREF helped us produce in the fall of 2013. The booklets were developed with the help of local Real Estate Professionals who wanted easily accessible local information on water, energy, transportation, garbage and recycling for their clients new to Canmore. The booklets are creatively wrapped and packaged together as newcomer packages with the AREF TNS Sustainability at Home Toolkit, the Town of Canmore Recycling brochure and the local public transit brochure. Packages are given out to clients by Real Estate Professionals, property managers, the Town of Canmore and other organizations and businesses.

The “Love Your Headwaters” awareness campaign is aimed at informing downstream users living in the Edmonton area that the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River, which supplies the city with 90 per cent of its drinking water, are in the Bighorn region. The Bighorn lies to the east of Jasper and Banff National Parks and provides fresh water to more than 1.2 million people. The Bighorn also teems with iconic wildlife and world-class backcountry recreational opportunities.

This project will also engage Calgarians around their headwaters in the Rocky Mountains.

Marketing Opportunities in Conservation Incentives Seminar

How can land that is or could be part of a conservation program advantage your realty business? That’s what you’ll find out with this new one-day course developed by Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) and supported by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF). After completing the course, you’ll discover that the benefits of restoration and conservation programs go beyond environmental; they can actually bring you more revenue potential. The key for you is being able to scout the opportunities.

This course explains how DUC identifies and secures properties with high restoration and conservation value potential. As a realtor, you can play an important part in this process as you are well positioned to help identify land that may qualify for DUC programs. This could also lead to gains for your business down the road from the potential sale and resale of the land.

Course topics include:
• What is a wetland and why wetlands matter
• Identifying existing wetlands and wetland restoration opportunities
• Historic loss of wetlands and the resulting impact on water quality,  flooding, drought and biodiversity
• Societal attitudes regarding wetlands and how they are changing
• Wetland and upland restoration and conservation incentive  programs offered by DUC including the Revolving Land Conservation  Purchase program, Wetland Restoration Lease program, and  conservation easements, and how they can enhance your business
• Geographic areas that offer the most potential for conservation and wetland restoration programs

This project will see the update and re-print of a wildly successful education and awareness tool, The Green Acreages Guide Primer. The Primer will be updated with content which was identified by partners as a necessary instalment to fulfilling landowners’ educational needs. By project end, realtors, stewards and Albertans everywhere will again have access to a key resource to assist them in sustainably managing their property for the benefit of the environment.

The AAMA is made up of ten ALUS communities, led by ALUS in partnership with municipalities. These programs are changing private land and conservation dynamics in several ways: they incentivize conservation activities on agricultural land by paying for ecosystem services; they build ownership over conservation and community support (each community forms a Partnership Advisory Committee made up of farmers, municipal officials, realtors, watershed based conservation groups, etc.); and they achieve measurable, verified conservation.

Energy efficiency is an important contributor to the future success of Alberta and the sustainability of real estate in the province. The AEEA proposes to build on its past success by continuing to work towards the creation of ongoing energy efficiency programs in the province.

The intent of the new Landowner’s Guide is to provide all parties with access to a common body of information about citizens’ rights in Alberta as they relate to oil and gas development. The result will be easier resolution of landowners’ issues.

Clean Calgary Association staff and volunteers will conduct home visits to 400 Calgary households during which time we will assess the “health” of the home and take immediate, hands-on action to improve the indoor air quality and reduce the amount of energy, water, and other resources used in the household. Staff and volunteers will follow up and provide resources for long-term sustained behaviour change and will calculate the impact of these cumulative actions.

This project will build awareness about the critical linkage between land use and water resources in the southern foothills of Alberta with a long-term aim to increasing land stewardship activities. The project will result in the completion of a scientific paper on the linkage between land and water as well as a survey of opinion leaders to determine what opportunities there are to increase land stewardship activities in this critical region.

The Albrta Water Learning Network brings together water-focused NGO’s from across the province for a series of retreats that enhance their capabilities to meet the increasingly salient issue of water resources sustainability. The fall session will focus on building communications and marketing skills among those leading water focused nonprofits.

Following the example of Albera Ecoroof Initiative in Calgary, we are proposing to establish three green roofs and evaluate possible plant species for greening in Edmonton while initiating NAIT students to green roof technology.

Development of standard protocols for baseline inventory, land monitoring, continued stewardship, communications and risk management models. Deliverables are to be available for use by other land trusts in Alberta.

The goal of this project is to develop an agenda for private land stewardship in the Bow Valley, in and around Canmore, AB. In doing so, the project will help municipalities, businesses, land trusts, private land owners, and other organizations to find the balance between preservation of wildlife habitat and responsible land use planning for future generations.

The Canadian Water Innovation Lab in Exshaw, Alberta, will bring together 250 young Canadians with key water decision-makers and stakeholders to explore solutions to water resource management problems. Participants will learn through experiential activities, tools and connections to prepare them for leadership roles in water management in the future.

A series of municipal based workshops to create community visions for the implementation of market-based instruments in at least two municipalities in southern Alberta as well as analysis of the Government of Alberta’s forthcoming conservation and stewardship policy paper.

Tunnel Mountain Bench Signage and Mapping Project

Phase I of the project will collect information regarding the resource needs and assess the demand for conservation planning among municipalities and land trusts in Alberta as well as the need to address public concerns within communities.

The project further advances previous studies concerning wildlife-vehicle collisions to build public consensus and government commitment to measures and techniques for responsible transportation planning.  The main focus of the project is consumer education intended to increase safety and reduce collisions with wildlife.

Our Watershed Stewardship project protects and preserves the ecological integrity of the fish Creek Watershed by monitoring and assessing the creek water and selected wildlife, mobilizing volunteers in activities that will protect the aquatic ecosystem and reporting the results to those who can improve policies and management strategies.  We are looking for support for Phase two of the Watershed Public Awareness campaign that will engage communities to act and ensure that the water in Fish Creek is safe, clean, sufficient and able to sustain Fish Creek Park for future generations to enjoy.

Energy efficiency is well regarded as the most cost effective way to reduce GHG emissions and improve energy sustainability. This project will pilot and demonstrate the feasibility of a program to support building owners in identifying, financing and undertaking energy efficiency upgrades. This will create significant energy savings, increase the value and quality of real estate, create jobs and reduce environmental impact.

Construction of a research facility around the use and management of treatment wetlands in urban residential and industrial settings.  Several naming opportunities are available.

Engagement of community partners to address systemic challenges of a sustainable and prosperous Edmonton and follows upon Phase I in which the groundwork for future collaboration were set. In this phase a series of projects will be launched that help the community address sustainability and prosperity as well as build on the City’s key strategic plans, The Way We Green and The Way We Prosper.

Residents of Waterton Biosphere Reserve (WBR) have been working together for more than 30 years to balance biodiversity conservation with sustainable use of the land in southwestern Alberta. A strong local constituency, with shared ideas and motivation for collaborative action is what makes biosphere reserves unique and will ensure the long term success and survival of WBR and the benefits that it brings to the citizens of southwestern Alberta. This project will work to build that constituency for conservation and sustainability.

The goal of this grant is to work with decision support specialists and CREB® to (i) create a web-enabled home energy-efficiency dashboard (HEED) that provides long-term evidence of a home’s energy performance and energy investment information – based on unique HEAT Scores™ and HEAT Maps™ (derived from airborne thermal images of Calgary homes), and monthly energy consumption data – that is easy to use, secure and transferable (between seller and buyer); and (ii) evaluate HEED’s ability to support green real-estate sales in Calgary.

Fish Creek Provincial Park provides a valuable recreational and natural resource that, with appropriate stewardship, will continue to serve Calgary families and support local real estate values far into the future. By leveraging skilled staff and volunteers to provide outreach activities, hands on stewardship and social enterprise a core of informed park users will be supported by a stable nonprofit society. Supportive actions and attitudes of our neighbours and sustainable use will ensure a vibrant healthy park to be enjoyed by future generations whilst adding value to surrounding properties.

Without proper planning, Southern Alberta could lose the values that attract people from all over the world to live and work here. The Alberta government is currently preparing a new land use plan for Southern Alberta. Y2Y will work to ensure plan provides protection from floods and drought while preserving the scenery and recreational opportunities that contribute to real estate values.

The project integrates and implements the recommendations identified in the 2009 Lac la Biche Watershed Management Plan. Through better understanding Lac la Biche’s ecology and how people relate to it socially and economically, we can improve lake and land use decision-making through a collaborative lake management planning strategy. Healthy watersheds are important to healthy communities.

Beyond Market-Based Land Values – Using a Long-term, Cumulative Effects Modelling Exercise to Measure Ecological Values of Sustainable Ranching
“Buy land, they’re not making it any more.” ~ Mark Twain Mr. Twain’s sparse words, as usual, speak volumes, and bring immediately to mind what we value about land – our finite vistas, natural habitats, and open spaces; however, this finite resource also provides other essential values that are only more recently drawing our attention: the complex suite of ecosystem services that sustain life. Certainly in Alberta’s predominantly agricultural prairie region, land values are beginning to reflect these services (e.g., environmentally well-managed ranches are often more highly assessed); but, in order to more accurately and inclusively reflect the full suite of land values we need to a.) Measure these values (and thus, bring greater clarity to defining “well managed”), and b.) Use these measures to guide future management. Through a broad-scale cumulative effects modelling exercise in a largely rural agricultural (ranch/farm) area of southern Alberta, we will provide first steps to finding answers to these questions and the solutions to moving forward – the value of our land leaves us no choice.

This project is phase one of a project exploring best practices for recreation in Alberta. Phase one aim to understand Albertans’ views of nature and recreation and outdoor recreational activities. This project will be used to inform land use planning in Alberta such that the views and needs of all Albertans are used in achieving sustainable recreation and conservation planning.