Many Albertans, but few visitors, know the scenic Foothills Natural Region from family canoeing and camping trips and from fall hunting excursions up the forestry roads that head back into the hills west of Rocky Mountain House, Edson and Grande Prairie.

It is a landscape of long ridges and rolling hills clothed with lodgepole pine, aspen and spruce, where small streams wind their way through valley-bottom meadows of dwarf birch, willow and grasses.

Elk, moose, deer, bears and other wildlife are widespread.

But the foothills are being fragmented by resource development. As new roads and seismic lines change predation patterns by both wild and human hunters, natural balances are upset and species like the woodland caribou are in dramatic decline.

There are a few places where foothills ecosystems survive essentially intact, but we will have to act quickly to protect them.

Marshybank, the Ram River valley, the Prairie Creek drainage and the vitally important Clear Hills with their old-growth forests and endangered woodland caribou are among the few special places where we can yet ensure that Alberta's Foothill legacy will survive for future generations.

Want to help protect the Rocky Mountains? Join or Make a Donation to an Organization that makes a difference.

• The Alberta Wilderness Association, Calgary, Alberta
• Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society
• The Federation of Alberta Naturalists
• World Wildlife Fund - Canada
• Canadian Nature Federation
• Canadian Wildlife Federation
• Green Links: USA and Canada

Boreal
Region