Dennis Hryciuk, Journal Staff Writer
Edmonton, The Edmonton Journal,Wednesday, February 24, 1999

Environmentalists say they could be heading for a confrontation with local ranchers who recently rejected proposals for a Special Place in south eastern Alberta.

Little known to most Albertans, the Bodo area near the Saskatchewan border is one of the last remaining large areas of mixed natural parkland grassland in the world.

But ranchers, who lease the Crown land involved, turned down the idea of formally protecting about 250 sq. km. under the province's Special Places program.

The did so after the Alberta government provided so little direction about the program that a local Special Places committee decided they didn't want any part of it, says environmentalist Cliff Wallis.

"People were told to do whatever they liked, and it fell apart," says Wallis, a Calgary botanist and director of the Alberta Wilderness Association.

Now a coalition of environmental groups has asked Premier Ralph Klein to step in and designate the area as a Special Place anyway because of its international ecological significance.

The groups are only doing so because the local agricultural community rejected the idea of cooperation with the environmental community, Wallis says.

Partnership Preferred

"Its leaves us no option but to become adversarial. In the United States, urban environmentalists have proven they have more clout."

Where those clashes have occured, urban groups have won and opponents have ended up being evicted from the protected areas, Wallis adds.

He'd instead prefer a partnership approach with local lease holders.

"If you form a partnership, it can mean a long-term relationship."

What has been frustrating about the process is that it only took a few local people to distort what Special Places could accomplish, Wallis says.

"There was a rancher who wound up the fax machines and misrepresented the Special Places process and said environmentalists wanted to take over."

The ranchers also argued they didn't need the government coming in to protect what they were already protecting, Wallis adds.

But area residents are wary of outside controls, says Wendy Murphy, who ranches near the Bodo proposed site.

"You have to understand the area and the people here. They feel their livelihoods would be threatened."

Farmers feel their grazing or cultivation leases could be ended or that too many restrictions on their activities could be imposed under Special Places, Murphy says.

"Someone could come in and say an area is a nesting spot for a bird and you can't graze there," she explains.

Robert Worobo, the chair of the local committee that rejected Bodo as a Special Place, has refused comment on the issue.

But Wallis says the committee missed a central point of the program - that is could protect the area from future industrial activity such as oil and gas development.

Petroleum development has sprung up all around the region and poses a major threat, he says.

"And if it isn't oil and gas, it will be ATV's (all-terrain vehicles)."

Wallis has studied the area as a botanist and says it's with preserving, with its rolling terrain, native grasses, wildflowers and rare plants.

The Special Places proposal did find supporters among some residents, although they're reluctant to be named because of the controversy it caused.

"There are the ecologists and the rednecks," says one who doesn't want to be identified.

"I think I'm in the middle ... Special Places is a very good idea as long as they don't get carried away," she says.

But large-scale rancher Pat Rutledge says he can't see what all the fuss is about.

"I don't think it would have made much of a difference, to tell the truth."

So why did local people reject Special Places? "I think it was fear of the unknown."

Locals also probably wanted to keep the independent way they have been operating, Rutledge adds.

"You might be subject to being managed by a committee of your neighbours," he explains.

"If you don't have to have that, most ranches would just as soon not."

But Wallis says environmental groups will try to overturn the local committee's rejection of Special Places.

"Why should we have a group of six to 10 people decide matters when we have thousands of people saying we should have a conservation program?"

Provincial officials are declining comment on the area while it is being reviewed by Klein's office.