The book launch of The Grizzly Manifesto: In Defence of the Great Bear by author and conservationist Jeff Gailus has led to discussion throughout Alberta on the fate of grizzlies and indirectly prompted us to re-consider the overlap between grizzly bear habitat needs and the requirements for the responsible management of our watersheds.

The Grizzly Manifesto stresses the need for good governance and maintenance of large intact areas of low road density and, although Gailus's book does not focus on the similarities between the wildlife and water conservation movements, the parallels between the needs of sensitive watersheds and grizzlies suggest that often fragmented conservation initiatives around protecting wildlife and watersheds might benefit from greater coordination.

Supporting Bears — Supporting Water

The recent listing of grizzly bears by the Government of Alberta as a threatened species is a much needed first step in protecting these bears in Alberta. Many of the steps Water Matters suggested in Source of Opportunity, our submission to the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan for source water protection, also act to support the protection of grizzly bears. Implementing these recommendations is certainly part of the support required for grizzlies. The following are landscape conditions required to effectively safeguard source water quality and supply, which should also help to maintain healthy grizzly bear populations in the province:

• Major and minor basins must maintain a reasonable percentage of vegetation cover (e.g., protecting intact forests) to ensure the role of vegetation as a regulator of natural flow regimes, a natural filter of water, and as a stabilizer of watercourses
• Native plants must be maintained and augmented to provide a buffer against human impact on the landscape, drought, and erosion and to serve as an indicator of the health of an ecosystem

• The function of riparian areas — areas along water bodies — must be maintained. This protection should also include maintaining fluvial channel movement to allow for essential recharge of wetlands and groundwater.
• Key recharge areas — land areas with high porosity to precipitation — must be safeguarded from the impacts of development, i.e., the cumulative effects of road and trail development, silvicultural practices (forestry), urban sprawl, and the energy mining, agriculture, livestock, and irrigation sectors

The environmental, social, and economic well being of southern Alberta depends on our ability to maintain the conditions that support healthy ecosystems for grizzly bear habitat and ensure adequate access to clean water supplies at the source, which in most cases is the mountains and foothills in the Eastern Slopes. For the Land Use Framework process to live up to its expectations, it will need to embrace recommendations such as those listed above to help achieve multiple objectives for water resources and threatened species.

Sources

Droitsch, Danielle and Joe Obad. 2009. Source of Opportunity: A Blueprint for Securing Source Water in Southern Alberta. Canmore, AB: Water Matters

Gailus, Jeff. 2010. The Grizzly Manifesto: In Defence of the Great Bear. Rocky Mountain Books. Canmore, AB.

Gailus, Jeff. 2010. Personal communication. Canmore, Alberta.

Water Matters. 2010. Annual Report 2009. Canmore, AB.