Unsteady ground--recreational access on Alberta's grazing lease land.

• Author: Wenig, Michael M.
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT on Farming and Ranching

Last fall my 13-year old son and I spent many hours hunting elk and deer on my in-laws' grazing lease. This being his first year hunting, my son was surprised at how many other hunters we encountered and a little frustrated whenever we found the choice hunting spots already taken. "Why can't we kick these hunters off our land?" he asked more than once.

"Because it's the public's land, not our land," I would reply, all the while knowing that this simple response belied a much more complex reality with respect to public access to grazing leases.

Alberta's grazing lease system is older than the province itself, having been established by Ottawa in 1881 to reduce the growing conflict among ranchers competing for use of what was then free or open rangeland. And at one time or another, many Albertans will have had some connection with the grazing leases.

As of 2003, there were 5,700 grazing leases covering roughly five million acres (or 5%) of Alberta's public lands. Those leases are primarily in the unforested, so-called "settled" portions of the province. Grazing leases are only one of several forms of agricultural dispositions of Alberta's public lands, but they account for over 60% of the land covered by those dispositions for grazing and over 75% of the actual grazing allowed on those dispositions. Grazing leases also account for nearly 10% of all agricultural land in Alberta. Individual lease sizes generally range from a section (640 acres) in central Alberta to almost three sections (1,920 acres) in southern Alberta grasslands.

Grazing leases are a creation of section 102 of the Public Lands Act, which authorizes the public lands Minister (currently the Minister of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD)) to lease public land for grazing cattle, horses, and sheep when, in the Minister's opinion, livestock grazing is the "best use that may be made of the land". Besides granting grazing rights, those leases impose various duties on leaseholders to keep the land in good condition and to pay annual rentals. Leases can be issued for up to twenty-year, renewable terms.

Grazing leases have arguably provided a mainstay for Alberta's cattle industry. Besides supporting beef production, the lease lands provide substantial value for maintaining biological diversity and other ecological services, and for Albertans' recreational enjoyment.

Much of the provincial land managers' time in managing grazing leases has focused on setting stocking rates and performing other tasks designed to balance provincial objectives of facilitating livestock grazing and preserving the ecological integrity of the provinces' rangelands. But likely a considerable portion of managers' time has been spent setting policies relating to issues that are inherent in the grazing lease system. Chief among these issues have been the appropriate level of lease rental rates; the transferability of leases; whether leaseholders and others should be able to purchase lease land for private ownership; the accessibility of public grazing land to developers of other commercial resources (e.g., oil and gas, timber, and trapping); and grazing leaseholders' entitlement to compensation for other commercial resource-related activities on their lease land (Government of Alberta, Agricultural Lease Review Report (Nov. 1998). Among the more controversial of these issues, and the issue which is the focus of this article, is the...