My colleague Natalja Vojno and I had the pleasure of interviewing Kennedy Halvorson, Conservation Specialist at Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA), and Colin Smith, Community Coordinator with Land Lovers Network, for this story. Kennedy began chairing Knowledge Sharing meetings for the Alberta Environmental Network Water Working Group when she took on the water file at AWA in 2023. Tapping into the group’s legal and policy expertise, she works to elevate key water issues through AWA’s campaigns. Colin joined the group in late 2024, and stepped up to enable Strategy & Action meetings in early 2025. Starting with a love for healthy soils, he understands that land and watershed health are interconnected.
When we asked them to describe how they came to do this work, Kennedy and Colin both humbly emphasized not being water experts. They see their role as working alongside generations of water leaders in Alberta to mobilize positive action.
Kennedy Halvorson tabling for Alberta Wilderness Association on World Water Day at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 2025. Photo credit Alberta Wilderness Association.
Colin Smith at the Seniors for Climate Action Rally on October 4 2024. Photo credit Albert Woo.
Evolution of the Alberta Environmental Network Water Working Group
Like many environmental networks in Canada, the Alberta Environmental Network (AEN) enables caucuses and working groups for members “to share resources and jointly work on their shared agendas.” While AEN has existed since the early 1980s, its Water Working Group launched in the following decade, drawing dedicated leaders with a deep understanding of Alberta water issues to share resources and knowledge. The group welcomes academics, legal advisors, nonprofit changemakers, Indigenous allies, and other experts for in-depth water conversations. Since 2021, AWA has been chairing the group’s monthly Knowledge Sharing meetings, and is well positioned to do so. With a history dating back to 1965, the nonprofit hosts a decades old archive documenting watershed issues that remain relevant today (such as, for example, changes in key native fish populations over time).
Earlier this year, some of the group grew their engagement to convene Strategy & Action meetings. The impetus for this collective action has been building, with a number of factors coming to a head, including:
- a severe multi-year drought in Alberta, leading to major concerns about water resilience;
- a July 2024 auditor general’s report critiquing Alberta water management and public reporting;
- Government of Alberta consultations in late 2024 and early 2025 that some interest holders felt sidelined their voices (see articles from the Rural Municipalities of Alberta and Alberta Wilderness Association);
- signals from the Government of Alberta about changing the Alberta Water Act, including potentially supporting interbasin transfers, with growing opposition from Indigenous leaders.
In the short term, those attending Strategy & Action meetings of the AEN Water Working Group hope to connect the disparate groups working on parallel water issues in Alberta. With stronger ties amongst them, there can be increased mobilization to bring sound knowledge of watershed health to the forefront in the public mind.
Connection to Watersheds
“No one is going to say they think it’s okay for rivers to be polluted.” –Kennedy
“It’s like getting down to first principles: water is life.” –Colin
“Water unifies people.” –Kennedy
“If you can win here, you can win anywhere.” –Colin
Changemakers in Alberta see a way forward because water helps people find common ground. Additionally, public pushback in the province can strongly support conservation when peoples’ connection with local watersheds is truly at stake. In short, Albertans hold a great deal of care for their home.
For example, a grassroots movement opposing open-pit coal mining in the Crowsnest Pass region united around water in the early 2020s. Ranchers, Indigenous groups, conservationists, artists, and local leaders formed a coalition that helped depoliticize dialogue and break down siloes. In 2020, the public also strongly opposed delisting 175 parks from the provincial parks system. Both of these movements highlight people’s connection to place while leaning on each other, coordinating inclusively, decentralizing leadership, and accepting some disagreement.
Long Term Vision
Kennedy’s hope for the AEN Water Working Group is that its intergenerational well of knowledge can help inform a truly water-wise public (for example, knowing that only 2% of the fresh water in Canada is found in Alberta). Long-term, she wants to see future decision making based on ecological limits, working with rather than against watersheds. Examples of what this looks like include meeting river instream flow needs; bringing back beavers to engineer water retention; and protecting headwaters and prairie pothole wetland complexes for their ecosystem services.
For Colin’s part, he would love to see collective shifts in consciousness evolve from work on bioregionalism, connecting local culture, politics and economies to natural watershed boundaries. He is driven to bring people together to form a provincial coalition, fund, and workforce, potentially modelled on the:
- B.C. Watershed Security Coalition,
- B.C. Watershed Security Fund,
- and B.C. Working for Watersheds initiative
…all tailored to the Alberta context. He would also really like to see polluter-pays models for watershed restoration; literacy around the links between water and climate; and recognition for the rights of nature in watersheds. He believes humans can play a role in healing watersheds, beginning with the “AHA!” moments that come from getting out on the land.
If you are living in Alberta and working on water, or simply interested in learning more about the AEN Water Working Group, reach out via email.
About Rebekah Kipp
Network Communications Lead, Our Living Waters: mother, freshwater champion, beachcomber, and origami enthusiast
