• Thank you for listening
• I think we need to take the bull by the horns now before it gets out of hand.
• Please don’ t let Fernie become Canmore.
• Environmental impact can be controlled by education, policing and maintenance. Reducing recreational area increases traffic in the remaining areas which increases damage to the areas.
• It is not a question of whether there are too many or too few recreational users and visitors to this area, it is a matter of what type of users and visitors we have and how they treat this area. It is a question of how we navigate and encourage the kind of use that helps us to retain what is so incredible about this area.
• Tourism is only going to grow. We need a more proactive strategy to the future. As a region, we need to lead where we want tourism to go with a vision, guiding principles and long-term strategy that is widely supported. From this plan, identify projects that support a sustainable direction and start implement them.
• Trails are one of the area’ s # 1 unappreciated assets and the community / government need to recognize the benefits that our trails bring to the community through tourism and support the people who work so hard to maintain access.
• This idea that " too many " are coming is ridiculous and even asking the question suggests some bias towards that thinking. What would " too many " even mean? How would you measure it? Would you then explore methods to discourage it? To be clear, the economic and social benefits of more visitors are ESSENTIAL to the fabric of our local communities. We can either embrace it, nurture and manage DRAFT
it, or we can dream of the " good old days " while suffering unmanaged and damaging flows of visitors. Time to get on board and embrace it and use it to our advantage.
SECTION 2- RDEK‘ AREA A’ RURAL RESIDENT SURVEY – 149 participants About the 149 respondents:
• 93 % live in in the Elk Valley full time versus seasonally or part-time( ie 2 nd home owner).
• Respondents indicated their age range with 26 % being 61 years or older, 57 % between 41-60 years of age, and 17 % between 21 – 40 years of age.
Survey Question: Which area of the RDEK Area A do you reside?
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