The SAPAA 2.0 update outlines six priorities for 2026, highlighting volunteer roles and an article from the Government of Alberta (GoA). SAPAA faces challenges including public awareness and volunteer recruitment amid discussions of its future. This Newsletter can be downloaded in pdf.
- Editorial – SAPAA, Where to From Here?
- First the Context – an Unique Protected Area System
- SAPAA’s History and its Existential Crisis
- SAPAA 2.0 – Too Big, Too Soon, and the Future
- SAPAA 2.0 – Four Challenges
- A Sextet of Priorities that Will Play with the Challenge Quartet
- Want to Help the Quintet of Priorities?
- Volunteer Roles – Operational
- Volunteer Roles – Project Based
- Success and Progress in Managing Alberta’s Protected Areas
- Membership
- Editorial Team, Links and Resources at a Glance:
Editorial – SAPAA, Where to From Here?
by Frank Potter, President SAPAA
Half a Term. The President role is elected for two-years, and I am halfway through it. I am fortunate to be able to build on the legacy of the former and current board members.
Four Challenges. This AGM edition of the newsletter discusses four topics. Firstly, an outline of the four challenges SAPAA faces. Next, what the organization has done and what it is proposing to do to address the challenges over the next two years.
Your Role. The fourth topic is what role you can play in all of this? There are interesting projects coming up in 2026 in which you can use existing or learn new skills. If you want to contribute more, consider joining the board.
The GoA Role. Rounding out this edition is an article from the Government of Alberta (GoA); Lands Operations Division, Alberta Forestry and Parks.
President’s Report. Looking back, please find linked the 2025 President’s AGM Report. SAPAA accomplished quite a few things. Read on for what we will do in 2026! The 2025 Web and Social Media Report is also available.
Other Reports. The current Financial Statements, 2024 Minutes, and the 2025 Site Inspection Reports are available online as well. Other reports will be delivered at table.
First the Context – an Unique Protected Area System
As far as one can tell, Alberta’s protected areas covered by the Wilderness Areas, Ecological Reserves, Natural Areas and Heritage Rangelands (WAERNAHR) Act are unique to the province. The legacy government volunteer stewardship program was also unique. Campground hosts are common but asking citizens to check in and report on a natural area is not.
While Crown Land is abundant in Alberta, these sites conserve unique plant, geological, or cultural treasures and provide critical stepping stones for flora and fauna. Those close to urban areas (e.g. J.J. Collett Natural Area, Wagner, etc.) help to introduce and educate the public about nature. In other words, they are bite sized, accessible, and worth protecting.
SAPAA’s History and its Existential Crisis
At the last AGM, SAPAA was faced four possible futures: close its doors, merge with another organization, continue to exist but without a clear purpose, or take on some of the functions of the legacy government program through SAPAA volunteers. This last option was labeled SAPAA 2.0 and what the board has investigated over the past year.
SAPAA 2.0 – Too Big, Too Soon, and the Future
A merger was quickly set aside as other nonprofits are facing similar struggles. Closure is a last resort, and the status quo is simply the waiting room outside of closure – thus the interest in SAPAA 2.0.
In 2025, SAPAA investigated this option with a particular focus on asking, how much effort would it take to field SAPAA volunteers to conduct site inspections that is compliant with safety legislation. The answer is no less than $25,000 per year for the bare bones’ variation and north of $75,000 for a full complement of volunteers [1].
SAPAA also investigated the grant landscape for operational funding to pay for this and found it wanting. The conclusion is that SAPAA 2.0 is too big to undertake in the near future. However, that does not mean that we cannot start to chip away at it. Before getting to work, we need to talk about our challenges.
- This analysis was done by Grant MacEwan University Student Project in the summer of 2025. $25,000 was to field 3 volunteers but also include the fixed costs needed to safely field a larger complement. $75,000 was based on fielding 15 individuals. In both cases, an honorarium would be paid to defray travel and incidental costs to the volunteer. Technology would eliminate much of the manual processes around managing reports submitted. Other costs include training and potentially contracting out some of the functions to offset a lack of volunteers.
SAPAA 2.0 – Four Challenges
Three of the four challenges listed below are germane to every nonprofit in Canada (see Statistics Canada | Volunteer Vibe). SAPAA has the additional challenge of government interest. So, without further adieu, introducing SAPAA’s challenge quartet:
- Public Awareness. Is the average citizen aware of the protected areas and considers the sites to be important?
- Government Interest. The protected areas are Crown Land which the provincial government is the custodian. In this role, how interested (or indifferent) is the province as reflected in public policy and resources.
- Volunteers and Resources. The 262 protected areas administered under the WAERNAHR Act are more of an abstraction on a map. This makes recruiting volunteers challenging. Are individuals willing to take on leadership, site inspection, marketing, and other volunteer functions? What other resources are available to SAPAA (e.g. students, grants, partnerships, funding, etc.)?
- Processes and Technology. The tools to manage the other three challenges. This has been SAPAA’s focus and we have been reasonably successful creating a website, a database of past inspections, and doing things like integrating iNaturalist.ca.
A Sextet of Priorities that Will Play with the Challenge Quartet
The following six priorities address one or more of the above challenges. Included with each priority are the expected Time, Talent, and Treasure to achieve them. Some of the Priorities are encores from the Ten 2024-25 Priorities while others are new.
Note that the six priority was recommended and added as part of the 2025 AGM.
- Operations. Sustaining current operations, supporting new projects and activities, and giving our volunteers a best in class experience. Inform the public and the Minister(s) about the state of the protected areas.
- Site Inspections. Develop and refine the site inspection process. Align questions with GoA priorities, continue Ministerial reporting, and increase inspection submissions.
- GoA Relations. Maintain a productive working relationship with Ministries and the Minister(s) of the day. Engage at the political level and in particular with rural MLAs. Support legacy government Stewards.
- Cultivate Peer Relationships. Make better use of the resources provided to SAPAA by Nature Alberta. Develop Site Inspection capacity by partnering with interested environmental, recreational, and educational organizations.
- Stewardship Best Practices. Identify and communicate best practices to members and peer organizations. Topics include administration, safety, science, and technology. Best practices come from Alberta, across Canada, and globally.
- Students, etc. Use non-traditional resources, such as student teams, to resource SAPAA.
Want to Help the Quintet of Priorities?
Now it comes time to ask for your help by contributing time, talent, or treasure. Starting with the last item, Treasure. Consider donating to SAPAA. Unfortunately, we can not issue a tax receipt, but funding can be used to hire summer students or pay for technology. If SAPAA does apply for grants, cash donations are an excellent way to show community support for the organization.
If you have more time, hidden talents, or a desire to learn new things, read on for volunteer opportunities. Please note that these are roles and not people. Someone may only take on one role or may do multiple roles.
Volunteer Roles – Operational
Inspection Report Storyteller
- What: While a site inspection may only take 20-30 minutes to submit, it often represents a day or of effort. This role reads the report, summarizes key learnings, recommends its further publication (e.g. as a feature post or newsletter article), and potentially creates the blog post, etc.
- Skills: Empathy, basic ‘nature-literacy’, good writing skills, and basic computer skills. Optional skills include comfort creating online content. Comfort with digital images.
- Time: 1-2 hours of orientation and training. Each report will take one or more hours to process and ideally each volunteer will process five or more reports per year.
- Where: This role requires a computer connection and is entirely virtual. Comfort talking to individuals contributing a site inspection report on the phone or setting up virtual meetings is an asset.
- Urgency: Ideally, each report is processed within about a month of its receipt. If we get back logged due to a volume of great reports, that is a wonderful problem to have.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Funding Helper
- What: Working with a designated board member and the president, identify and pursue funding opportunities to support SAPAA programming.
- Skills: Good research, writing, and/or organizational skills.
- Time: Effort varies according to the point in the grant life cycle and is between 20 to 50 hours per year. For example, writing the grant may require 10 hours of effort one week followed by a month or two of inactivity.
- Where: This role requires a computer connection and is entirely virtual.
- Urgency: Urgent at a few points in time, for example to make a grant submission deadline. Urgency is reduced with good planning.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Maven of WAERNAHR iNaturalist.ca
- What: According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a maven is a person with good knowledge or understanding of a subject. In this role, you will help iNaturalist.ca newbies get onto the application and start identifying.
- Skills: You can either have good natural science skills (e.g. species identification), and/or technical skills (e.g. teaching the app), but you must be empathic and willing to help.
- Time: Intermittent and less than 50 hours over the year. Participating in (or ideally hosting) online sessions dealing with the technology or subject matter (e.g. common invasive species for a particular area of Alberta).
- Where: Can be entirely virtual with an option of participating and/or running local iNat field trips for both SAPAA volunteers and participants from peer organizations.
- Urgency: Optional attendance at virtual or in person training sessions. Otherwise, ad hoc and on demand.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Peer Organization Communications Helper
- What: Work with a designated board member and the president. Identify and communicate with peer organizations to make them aware of the protected areas and incorporating site inspection reports in their programming.
- Skills: Basic research, communication, and/or organizational skills.
- Time: Effort varies according to tasks being completed. Expect at least 20 hours in 2026 and more if you have capacity.
- Where: This role is both virtual and may involve speaking in-person to peer-organizations.
- Urgency: Low urgency except for around pre-arranged meetings with organizations.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Volunteer Roles – Project Based
Community of Practice Subject Matter Expert
- What: SAPAA will continue to offer online webinars of topics of interest to peer organizations. The focus is on practical skills needed to safely and effectively visit a protected area. Topics may include using technology (e.g. iNaturalist.ca, GPS tracking software, digital imaging, etc.), nature literacy (e.g. botanical knowledge), or basic bush craft (e.g. using a GPS, compass, Alberta’s rural road system).
- Skills: Content experts in nature literacy. These individuals will then present at one of SAPAA’s information sessions and help to pull together a body of knowledge on the topic.
- Time: Highly variable but typically between 10 to 20 hours per session. This includes preparation time, the actual webinar (or field trip), and reviewing follow up material.
- Where: Mostly virtual with optional field trips.
- Urgency: Availability in and around a webinar is critical but otherwise a much slower pace.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Community of Practice Production Assistant
- What: Developing graphics and content to support one or more webinars, and/or support in editing video and finalizing content both on the SAPAA Website and a YouTube channel.
- Skills: Pre-existing skills in one or more production areas and/or a strong aptitude and a willingness to learn the necessary skills.
- Time: A thirty minute webinar will result in a fifteen to twenty minute video with supporting web content. Each webinar requires in total about 30 hours of effort divided over the number of supporting volunteers.
- Where: Mostly virtual with the possibility of documenting one or more field trips.
- Urgency: Availability in and around a webinar is critical but otherwise a much slower pace.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Field Trip Leader
- What: SAPAA is about the protected areas, so let’s go visit one! It may be an old friend you have visited dozens of times or a new one you have been meaning to get to. If run through a peer organization, you will follow that organization’s safety and programming protocols. If it is run by SAPAA, you must follow our safety standards. Protocols is a fancy word for common sense and creating an enjoyable experience for participants!
- Skills: Basic organization and communication. SAPAA will take care of things like a registration page or email blasts, but you will be involved in drafting them. Basic leadership skills for running the event and basic writing skills to document the results.
- Time: Highly variable depending on the nature of the trip, duration (day versus over night), and the trip’s objectives (climb a mountain or walk around groomed trails). Plan for no less than 10 hours to prepare for, run, and finalize the trip.
- Where: In the field and ideally outside of the metro Edmonton area.
- Urgency: Availability in and around the event is critical but otherwise a much slower pace.
- Next Steps: contact president@sapaastewards.com.
Success and Progress in Managing Alberta’s Protected Areas
by Lands Operations Division, Alberta Forestry and Parks.
Alberta Forestry and Parks is playing catch up in remediating sites that have fallen into disrepair or abuse. Efforts included trail management plans, infrastructure upgrades, and improved signage at various natural areas. 5 Natural Areas (out of 138) have benefitted to ensure visitor safety and ecological protection.
Read the full report provided by the Ministry and stay tuned for further remediation efforts in 2026.
Membership
Annual membership renewal remains at $15 per individual, family or group steward and includes a $5 insurance fee the society pays to Nature Alberta.
E-transfers are preferred (treasurer@sapaastewards.com) but if payment is made by cheque, it should be made payable to Stewards of Alberta’s Protected Areas Association (in full, the bank is persnickety) to c/o Patsy Cotterill, Membership Secretary, contact for mailing address.
The membership year runs from October 1 to September 30. If you have changes to make to your information or wish to provide additional information, please provide updates by completing a Membership Form.
Thank you.
Editorial Team, Links and Resources at a Glance:
Editorial team: Patsy Cotterill, Frank Potter, Hubert Taube.
SAPAA 