The Battle for Balance

Taking a Seat at the Table and Ensuring Local Voices are Heard

Northwest Alberta is vast and diverse—rich in both economic potential and biodiversity.

Residents care deeply about the health of their local communities as well as the health of their local ecosystem, but what happens when those lines start to tangle?

The Caribou: A Species at Risk

Leading up to 2016, the federal and provincial governments moved forward with legislation aimed at protecting the iconic woodland caribou. Their plan was to turn 18,000 km2 of government-owned crown land into a protected park—rendering it unavailable for local tourism, trappers and industry.

“We couldn’t believe it. They were ready to re-allocate 1.8 million hectares without input from the local municipalities or residents,” said Lisa Wardley, NWSAR Chair and Mackenzie County Councillor.

The Chinchaga Caribou Subregional Task Force

On a Mission to Network

The plan was questioned, which led to the formation of the Northwest Species at Risk (NWSAR) committee. Their mission: to advocate for policies that support all wildlife, thriving rural communities and access to crown land.

NWSAR was formed by six municipalities—Mackenzie County, the Town of High Level, the County of Northern Lights, the Town of Rainbow Lake, Clear Hills County and the Town of Manning—and eight associate member municipalities joined later.

“I believe we can learn from federal and global information, but we need to act locally for realistic and sustainable solutions,” said NWSAR Administrator Miranda Hebert.

Securing a Seat at the Table

In the beginning, NWSAR hosted open houses to mobilize citizens, explain the looming restrictions and gather local impact assessments.

“People were not happy,” said Terry Ungarian, County of Northern Lights Reeve and NWSAR committee member.

As a result, NWSAR drafted a petition calling for a thorough social economic review.

They began collecting signatures during an open house on February 2, 2018. They delivered it to the legislature on March 15, and four days later the plans were officially tabled at the provincial level.

“The petition included over 9,000 signatures—probably 50% of the local adult population—and it was successful in putting a pause on things,” said Ungarian.

This move got provincial attention and earned NWSAR a crucial municipal seat on applicable Subregional Planning Task Forces—the provincial government table where land-use planning decisions are made.

In Pursuit of the Facts

Alberta has 15 caribou ranges—areas where caribou tend to live—and 11 of them are found in the NWSAR region. Within the 11 local ranges, there are five distinct caribou herds. They are the Bistcho, Yates, Chinchaga, Caribou Mountain and Red Earth herds.

The Alberta government is being mandated by the federal government to create land plans with a target goal of a 65% undisturbed habitat area within each caribou range.

“We were trying to verify what we were being told—that we were in a state of chaos, that our landscape was 90% disturbed,” said Ungarian. “So, we partnered with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) to do some lidar mapping and ground truthing. We put boots on the ground in some of these caribou ranges to measure the actual disturbance levels.”

Members of the NWSAR committee soon realized that the quality of data available was far from sufficient.

“It turned out these government decisions were being made based on data that was either non-existent or was a guesstimate at best,” said Wardley.

The Data Imperative: 3-Year Project

In late 2019, NWSAR launched a three-year monitoring project to bridge the data gap. They partnered with the Alberta Trappers Association (ATA) and ABMI.

They deployed an extensive network of remote cameras and autonomous recording units (ARUs) across the Chinchaga and Caribou Mountain ranges—75 cameras and 12 ARUs across three caribou ranges.

“From the beginning, we were all involved in the training exercise where we found the location, set out the cameras and did the whole protocol. We documented everything,” said ATA member Terry Batt. “There’s just no better way to get into an area than to work with a local trapper.”

After each year, the video and audio files were collected, and ABMI, in cooperation with the University of Alberta, put the data together in a usable format.

NWSAR Members at September 2025 Meeting in Manning, AB | L to R: Robert Nygaard, Big Lakes County; Cameron Cardinal, Mackenzie County; Carolyn Kolebaba, Northern Sunrise County; Terry Ungarian, County of Northern Lights; Amber Bean, Clear Hills County; Lisa Wardley, Mackenzie County; Keith Hutchison, Town of Manning; Boyd Langford, Town of High Level and Linda Halabisky, County of Northern Lights.

The Project's Findings

In 2021, NWSAR submitted the State of the Region Report, which serves as a foundational document consolidating local data. It was designed to inform government land-use planning with evidence-based recommendations.

Today, the monitoring portion of the project is complete. ABMI is working on reports that take all three years of data into account.

“The project was a success. The dual monitoring system provided clear, verifiable data on a wide range of indicator species including the 68 species of birds detected in the first year alone,” said Wardley.

An indicator species is one that provides researchers with clues about the overall health of a given ecosystem. So, while preliminary results show low densities of caribou overall, the data collected helps paint a larger picture.

“There’s much to consider, and we now have a lot of data. We can look at our caribou’s predators, their competition and animals it can contract diseases from,” said Wardley.

A crucial, unexpected finding was caribou were detected most frequently in areas recently touched by forest fires, which could suggest a major need to rethink how wildfire affect caribou habitat use.

“It’ll be interesting to see if the second and third year follow the same trend that we saw in year one,” said Wardley.

Work Not Finished

While NWSAR can celebrate numerous wins—a 2022 Community Champion Award from the Forest Products Association of Canada; the pause on designating conservation areas; and a seat at the planning tables—their mission is far from complete.

The core tension remains. Government legislation and oversight loom over a region dependent on its ability to utilize crown land. The Bistcho subregional plan is complete and moving toward legislation, offering a glimmer of hope that industry access may return.

The Chinchaga plan is still pending.

Until the region’s caribou ranges are managed by comprehensive plans, NWSAR’s work must continue.

“We’ve learned a lot along the way, and we need to use our knowledge as power,” said Wardley. “We’re not done yet. NWSAR will continue to bring our local voices to the table and in the meeting rooms of the decision makers.”

For more information visit albertanwsar.ca