Whew! Any Other Ideas for Kananaskis?

Photos

Proposed Park

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uploaded by ppeggy

Creating a new park in Kananaskis might be one way to halt Ted Morton's plans to clear-cut 800,000 acres there.  The rest of Kananaskis is already a park but the eastern section, the one in question, was kept multi-use, probably to appease oil and gas interests, not to mention loggers and others.  Bypassing these interests is no small matter.

Doug Sephton, a key leader of the clear-cutting opponants, comments: (see tagatree.ca)

 It's
a nice idea, but it's not all that easy to make a park in this area.
First you have to negotiate agreements to compensate all the lease
holders in the area. The logging companies, gas companies, trappers and
farmers will need to be accommodated. You can't just rip out all the
gas wells and pipelines. Some leases can be traded, others will likely
need to be purchased. I heard that the lease holders don't pay for the
right to use the land, but do pay for the resources they take away.

Next
you have to decide what kind of park it should be; a Wildland Park, a
Provincial Park, a Recreation Area, or something else. What kind of
park it is will determine what you can do there and who has access to
it. Cyclists, hunters, off-highway-vehicle riders, horseback riders and
others - all will want access and facilities.

Others may
want different park borders. The Moose Mountain Wildland Park proposal,
for example, was a smaller area, mostly in the Elbow Valley.