ALBERTA FOOTHILLS

Where the Rocky Mountains meet the Boreal

The Rocky Mountain Foothills contain a wonderful diversity of boreal ecosystems and an incredible variety of plant life, with forests of white spruce, black spruce, lodgepole pine, balsam and sub-alpine fir, aspen, birch, balsam poplar, mixedwood forests, wetland complexes. The Foothills provide important wildlife winter range because winters are warmer than in the adjacent Rocky Mountains. Woodland caribou, grizzly bear and wolverine roam widely in the relatively intact areas, and many migratory birds arrive from the tropics in the summer to raise their young.  And yet only 1.2% of the Foothills have been protected from industrial use in a region of very intense industrial use by the forest and petroleum industries.