Episode Details

In this episode, Alex and I delve into critical environmental issues, focusing on the conservation and restoration of Alberta’s Eastern Slopes. Guests Kevin Van Tighem, Lorne Fitch, and Colin Smith, discuss the urgent need to address cumulative impacts on the environment, particularly water security and biodiversity. They emphasize the importance of collective responsibility, local community involvement, and informed land use decisions. The conversation highlights successful grassroots mobilization against coal mining and advocates for large-scale restoration projects. The podcast underscores the interconnectedness of land and water management and calls for a shift in cultural and political perspectives to prioritize ecological health and sustainability.

Welcome and Introductions to Kevin and Lorne

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast. Here we break down heavy ideas into small buckets that you can handle. Our mission is simple. Help us work through your dilemmas and conversations and process. And together you, we and our communities will face your dilemmas and make our world a better place for all beings.

Jenny:

In the spirit of truth, I acknowledge I’m a settler on stolen Blackfoot Treaty Seven and Metis Districts Five and Six Territories. I take Reconciliaction by seeking the wisdom of elders and individuals who aim to restore water, air, land, life, or community. A healthy living relationship with the earth and each other is our guide.

Thank you for being here, Kevin and Lorne, and Colin again, I’m excited to speak with you three. Lorne and Kevin are two conservationists and writers now, biologists and ecologists by background and have worked, they’ve said together for nearly 40 years trying to help make sure that Alberta is moving in the right direction in terms of restoring our environment and looking after the ecology. And Colin, this is his third time on the show for us (episodes 4 and 11). Colin, myself, and Alex have been working together to try and bring community together and understanding of where we need to go.

A lot of what we’re doing, of course, is following what you’re doing, Kevin and Lorne. Thank you very much for all the work you’ve been doing and we are trying to honour [your work] and make sure that as we go, that people understand that. I’m going to tee off the conversation with a first question. I want to start with purging, if you will. Let’s talk about what we are doing wrong in the province. If we can just go around, Kevin, I’ll let you start. Please, if you can just help us understand some of the things that we’re seeing that’s going wrong in terms of cumulative impacts on our environment. Thank you.

What is Going Wrong in Alberta with Respect to Cumulative Impacts?

Kevin:

I think the biggest thing, the overarching thing is it’s really past time that we stop thinking we can do whatever we want without consequences. There’s a bit of a libertarian colour to the Province of Alberta where people just want to be left alone to do what they want. We don’t want to regulate industry too much. We don’t want ourselves regulated too much. We all want to do what we want, but it’s a finite province. It’s a shrinking world, it’s a changing world, and we’re already seeing the stresses all around us. I think that would be the big overarching thing I would say is that we’ve got to stop living as if there’s no consequences to doing whatever we want. We need to start really taking, I think, at a more micro scale, since my primary focus for the last few years has been on water security.

I would say we really have to take a look at the Eastern Slopes and