Unfinished business: Market-based instruments under the Alberta Land Stewardship Act

Abstract

In the first decade of the twenty-first century the Canadian province of Alberta was enjoying vigorous economic and demographic growth. To address concerns with cumulative impacts on the landscape and rising user conflicts the provincial government introduced a policy that articulated the need for regional planning and the greater use of market-based instruments to incent land stewardship. This was followed by enabling legislation called the Alberta Land Stewardship Act (ALSA). The policy instruments of conservation easements, conservation offsets, and transfer of development credits were identified as being of special interest and were enabled by ALSA. We review the development of policy for each of these instruments subsequent to the legislation and suggest that implementation has faltered in marked departure from the initial enthusiasm for the policy direction.