Reclamation Activities of Alberta Environment

Ineffective surface reclamation legislation for many years left thousands of hectares of Alberta landscape scarred and abandoned after being disturbed by man's activities. In an effort to reclaim some of these disturbed areas, a
Land Reclamation Program was established in 1973 by the Alberta government with a budget of $600,000 .
Administered by the Reclamation Branch of Alberta Environment's Land Reclamation Division, the program has since developed into a $5-million per year operation . This consists of a $3.5 million annual operational reclamation program actually reclaiming derelict lands and a $1.5 million annual reclamation research fund to find ways for improving and/or developing all aspects of land reclamation.  To date, the program has returned to productive use more than 1,200 individual parcels of land in the province. Without the program, these areas would have remained dangerous, weed-infested, useless sections of land.