Alberta Wetland Replacement Program — Statutory In-Lieu Fee Offsetting (Canada)

Alberta's Wetland Policy (2013) requires anyone whose development impacts a wetland to first avoid and minimise the loss; where on-site replacement isn't practical, they can instead pay a wetland replacement fee into a provincial fund administered by the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas. Money raised through this in-lieu fee is used to restore or construct replacement wetlands elsewhere in the same watershed, often delivered with partners such as Ducks Unlimited Canada under an initial three-year agreement followed by a five-year service contract that includes four years of post-construction monitoring.

Since the Wetland Replacement Program began funding projects in 2020, Alberta has invested more than C$25 million to restore or construct approximately 676 hectares of wetland province-wide. The first funding round (2020) supported seven projects covering about 158 hectares, including Silver Sage (29.4 ha), Willow Creek (13.7 ha) and Lochend Lake (112 ha). The most recent round, for fiscal year 2025-26, committed a further C$5.3 million to seven new projects adding 67 hectares.

The publicly reported figures track hectares restored and dollars spent, which demonstrate real, repeated on-the-ground activity across multiple funding rounds. None of the sources reviewed, however, report post-restoration ecological outcomes — such as water quality, wildlife use, or wetland function relative to what was lost — so the programme's ecological equivalence to the wetlands it replaces has not been independently evaluated in what is publicly available.

Read the full analysis: https://www.alberta.ca/wetland-replacement-program