Hundreds of protesters angry with the government’s plan to ban OHV use in Castle Provincial Park gathered at McDougall Centre Saturday.
They carried signs that read ‘OHV users’ votes count’ and said they’re all being punished because of the actions of a few bad apples.
Others said the government is just listening to what the majority of Albertans’ want.
When the NDP government announced it would close all trails for OHV use in the Castle Wilderness area over the next five-years, it made environmentalists and hikers happy but left people on quads furious.
READ MORE: Battle of Castle Wilderness area: OHV supporters vs. protesters
“This government has done a very poor job of engaging the OHV community in terms of its plans for the Castle,” Aaron Bauer, with the Alberta Off-Highway Vehicle Association, said.
Bauer questioned the environment minister’s claim that scientific research was behind the ban on motorized recreation.
“I find it interesting that the minister of environment makes a commitment to a local off-highway vehicle group in December 2015 – committing that off-highway vehicle use in the Castle will continue. Yet 13 months later, the science suddenly appears saying that OHV uses not compatible in the Castle,” Bauer said. “We all know that it takes years to put together an impact study such as this. So my question is who gathered the data? Who analyzed it and who developed the conclusions?”
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READ MORE: Doubts raised about plan to protect Alberta wilderness area
Biologists say science shows that OHV use displaces wildlife, harms water sources and that creeks are disturbed by vehicles crossing them.
“So you’re basically just destroying your reservoir. So why would you do that? Especially in an area that is critical to southern Alberta,” Kevin Van Tighem, Biologist and former Banff National Park superintendent, said.
Tighem is part of a group of authors, scientists, hunters, anglers, local residents and conservationists who have come together to form ‘Albertans in Support of the Castle.’
“There might be a way to mitigate the harm with better trail engineering and the bridges in landscapes that are managed for multiple use but the park is a protected place and in a protected place you don’t try to accommodate destructive uses. You just don’t have them,” Tighem said.
Members of Trout Unlimited said the Castle area is important for some of Alberta’s native trout species like West slope Cutthoat Trout and Bull Trout.
“Although these species have persisted in this landscape for thousands of years, a few short decades of landscape abuse has resulted in their dramatic decline,”
said Lesley Peterson, an Alberta Provincial biologist with Trout Unlimited Canada. “But there is hope. Protection of the Castle area, including the rivers and streams that support these populations, is an important step towards necessary and urgent recovery efforts that will allow current and future generations of Albertans and Canadians to continue to connect with and catch these wild, native species in their native range, right here in Alberta.”
But OHV users at the rally insist they are the ones who have been caring for the environment by building trails and bridges.
“The local groups down there have put in tens of thousands of hours and millions of dollars of their own cash contributions to develop the area and that’s essentially being taken away from them,” Bauer said.
READ MORE: Government of Alberta seeks public input on conservation plan for Castle area
On Wednesday, the Alberta government announced that they were revising the OHV ban by not making any changes this year to the rules. But the environment minister is sticking to the five-year plan, which calls for a complete phase-out of off-highway vehicles and random camping.
The public consultation period on the Castle draft plan has been extended to April 19.
In January, the province released final boundaries for the Castle Wildland Provincial Park and the new Castle Provincial Park, which together will preserve just over 1,000 square kilometres.
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