Integrated Resource
Management in Alberta:
Past, Present and Benchmarks for the Future
Steven A. Kennett
Canadian Institute of
Resources Law, 2002
Occasional Paper #11
Executive Summary .......
....................... v
Acknowledgements ...............
....................... ix
1.0 Introduction
1
2.0 A Brief History of IRM in Alberta..........
4
2.1 The Eastern
Rockies Forest Conservation Board
4
2.2
IRM and Integrated Resource Planning
5
2.3
The Failure of IRM and the IRP Process
8
2.4
Explanation and Implications of the Experience with IRM and IRPs 12
3.0
The Current IRM Initiative
15
3.1 The NES
Strategy...
16
3.2
The Draft Provincial Framework
19
4.0 Benchmarks for IRM..
22
4.1
Structural Integration
22
4.2
Formalization of Land-Use Planning
25
5.0 Conclusion
28
Integrated resource
management (IRM) is currently being promoted in Alberta in response to
resource-use conflicts and the challenges relating to cumulative environmental
effects. The Alberta government's ongoing IRM initiative was launched in 1999.
An important component of that initiative has been the development of
"regional strategies" in two areas of the province. The release in
January 2002 of a draft provincial framework for regional strategies marks an
important advance for IRM. If approved and implemented, this framework will lead
to additional regional strategies across Alberta.
IRM also has support outside of government. There is growing recognition in
Alberta that sectoral fragmentation and incremental decision making in
environmental and resource management make it difficult, if not impossible, to
reconcile competing demands and achieve long-term objectives at a landscape
level. Furthermore, scientific and technological advances are enhancing the
information base and analytical capacity of decision makers and other interested
parties as they address competing resource uses and cumulative effects. For
these reasons, conditions have never been better to make IRM a reality.
This paper argues that the history of IRM in Alberta provides some important
lessons that are directly relevant to the current IRM initiative. The paper
begins with a brief review of Alberta's experience with IRM, the origins of
which can be traced to the creation of the Eastern Rockies Forest Conservation
Board in 1947. The integrative potential of this Board was, however,
progressively eroded by the development of Alberta's resource management regime.
In the 1970s, the province embarked upon a major IRM initiative that included
the Eastern Slopes Policy and the integrated resource planning (IRP) process. By
the 1990s, however, it was evident that IRM and the IRP process had failed to
achieve integration in environmental and resource management. Furthermore, the
IRP process was clearly inadequate to address resource-use conflicts and
cumulative environmental effects. This outcome is significant, since the latest
IRM initiative includes a commitment to principles and planning processes that
resemble in important respects those that were promoted by the Alberta
government from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Although a variety of factors contributed to the demise of IRM and the IRP
process by the early 1990s, this paper argues that two important features of
this initiative are particularly relevant to understanding its outcome. First,
IRM was implemented through a commitment to general principles, regional
planning and coordination mechanisms, but did not penetrate to the structural
level of policies, legislation, institutional arrangements and decision-making
processes. Second, the land-use planning process at the heart of IRM was never
entrenched in law. These features contributed to the ultimate failure of IRM by
reducing its ability to achieve effective integration and by increasing its
vulnerability to ideological opposition and funding cuts.
This analysis sets the stage for the paper's review of the current IRM
initiative. The discussion focuses on the 'prototype' regional strategy in the
northern east slopes region (the NES Strategy) and the draft provincial
framework for regional strategies. While it is premature to draw final
conclusions about the NES Strategy, structural obstacles to IRM and the
formalization of land-use planning have already emerged as important issues. The
draft framework provides a basis for progress in each of these areas. It
includes a commitment by the Alberta government to review the entire legislative
and policy context for resource and environmental decision making from the
perspective of IRM. In addition, it lays out in some detail a set of procedures
and substantive outcomes to guide the development of regional strategies. While
these components of the draft framework are commendable, the Alberta government
has yet to commit itself to either a specific agenda for structural reform or to
the legal entrenchment of land-use planning. These two areas are therefore
important benchmarks for IRM.
In the area of structural reform, the first step is to establish a credible
process for the promised legislative and policy review. Elements of such a
process would include high-level political and inter-departmental support, clear
and far-reaching terms of reference, a systematic and detailed review of issues
and options, and the development of effective mechanisms for stakeholder
involvement and information dissemination. The substantive steps towards
structural integration include the alignment of policies, legislation,
institutional arrangements and decision-making processes with the principles and
operational requirements of IRM. Changes to mandates and management objectives
that have narrow sectoral orientations are likely to be required. A range of
other policies, such as the rigid commitment to 'honouring' existing resource
dispositions, should also be reconsidered.
A primary objective of structural reform is to overcome sectoral fragmentation
in resource and environmental management. Revisions to sectoral mandates and
effective land-use planning may go some way to addressing this problem. Sectoral
integration may, however, require far-reaching changes to institutions and
decision-making processes. For example, a single agency could be given
responsibility for allocating resource rights, including forest management
agreements and quotas, oil and gas leases, and surface leases. Similarly, the
Energy and Utilities Board and the Natural Resources Conservation Board could be
brought within a broader project-review and regulatory agency responsible for
overseeing both energy and non-energy development. Ultimately, structural
integration should make it possible to answer the fundamental institutional
question for IRM: Who is the land manager? At the present time in Alberta, there
is no simple answer to this question.
The second benchmark for IRM is the formalization of land-use planning. The
paper argues that progress in this area requires legal entrenchment of the
planning process and the establishment of direct linkages between planning and
other stages of decision making. Measures are identified in four areas. First,
planning should be undertaken pursuant to a clearly defined statutory mandate
that establishes procedural requirements and accountability mechanisms. Second,
the legal basis for land-use planning should require the development of specific
management objectives, indicators and thresholds. In this way, it will provide
some assurance that planning in Alberta will move beyond vague 'multiple-use'
objectives. Third, regional strategies should be situated within a clear and
relatively simple planning hierarchy. Finally, measures should be taken to
strengthen the linkages between land-use planning and resource dispositions,
project review processes and regulatory decisions. The paper argues that
approved land-use plans should have some 'teeth' to direct and constrain
subsequent decision making.
The paper concludes by recalling the old adage that 'those who ignore history
are doomed to repeat it'. Despite the evidence of progress at the policy level
since the launching of the Alberta government's latest IRM initiative in 1999,
important benchmarks remain to be achieved. Specific measures to address
structural issues and to legally entrench land-use planning would signal a
strong commitment to IRM and would significantly increase the likelihood that
the current initiative will yield significant and durable changes to resource
and environmental management. These changes are essential to provide Alberta
with the tools that are urgently required to address resource-use conflicts and
manage cumulative environmental effects.
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