Trails for off-road vehicles part of 10-year parks plan

Alberta wants to create trails for off-road enthusiastsas part of a 10-year parks management plan unveiled Monday.

Alberta's population has doubled since the 1970s, when many of the park facilities were built,said Cindy Ady, the province's minister of tourism, parks and recreation. Besides more campgrounds and bigger camping sites to accommodate trailers, she said would like to see trails designed for off-road vehicles.

"We have more [off-road] vehicles being sold in this province than anywhere in North America. We can continue to let it just go anywhere it wants to or we can start to designate trails and try and say 'look, we want this activity to try and happen on trails,'" she said.

Quads,some motorcycles, snowmobiles and dune buggies are among the vehicles Alberta designates as off-road.

"What we are looking at are those more remote campgrounds where perhaps you could exit out the back of the campsite and on to trails. We are not looking at dumping [off-road] vehicles into the Kananaskis or anything like that," she said. "Definitely thereare ecosystems out there where they don't belong and they shouldn't be and we are never going to allow them."

Two out of eight of the province's parks classifications currently allow off-road vehicles wildland and wilderness parks.Ady would like to work with the SustainableResource Development department tosee trails created outside of the parks, a spokesperson for her department said.

Parks advocates critical of plan

Alberta's parks system makes up aboutfour per cent of the province and includes provincial parks and smaller reserves and natural areas, according to a report on the parks planreleased Monday.

'We don't have a comprehensive plan. We have a plan to create a plan. It's very thin.' Greg Belland, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

Under the plan, Alberta wants toask for public feedback on parks planning, make it easier to nominate an area for a park or a park expansion, and come up with guidelines for activities such as geocaching a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure involving GPS horseback riding and hunting.

As part of the improvements, a new online reservation system for booking campgrounds will be ready for use beginning in May.

Parks advocateswere critical of the new plan, saying it contains no target for the number of new parks to be created or a specific percentage of what land needs to be set aside.

Greg Belland of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society called it a big disappointment.

"We don't have a comprehensive plan.We have a plan to create a plan. It's very thin. It's basically a policy document with some philosophy, a vision," he said. "There is no sense that there are gaps, that there are areas under ecological stress that need to be enhanced."

Albertans have told the province they want to see more land set aside as park, but how that might be done isn't reflected in the 10-yearplan, said Dianne Pachal of Sierra Club Canada.