A provincial plan to battle the spread of the pine beetle infestation by allowing more logging in southwestern Alberta is drawing fire from critics.

The provincial plan to allow increased logging on a strip of land in southwest Alberta could harm an important watershed, critics say. (CBC)The plan would permit a 20 per cent increase in logging over the next 20 years on a strip of land between Waterton Lakes National Park and Kananaskis Country, a provincial recreation area.

A conservation expert with the Alberta Wilderness Association says he's skeptical about provincial arguments that more logging will help prevent the spread of the pine beetle.

"Pine beetle measures which are really targeted on finding infected trees and clearing and removing those are really great," Nigel Dawson told CBC News. "Those are really focused.

"But then there's this vague 'we ought to get ahead of any possible pine beetle outbreak and log those forests.' There isn't any justification for that. It doesn't make sense and I think the real risk here is that we're going to do more damage trying to fix any future pine beetle problems than any pine beetles might do themselves."

The land contains a crucial watershed that supplies drinking water to communities in southern Alberta, Dawson said.

"It's where our clean drinking water comes from, this forest in particular," Dawson said. "It supplies clean drinking water for southern Alberta — for Pincher Creek, for Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and those communities."

, adding he and other opponents of the plan are hoping a provincial land- use plan in the works may address the need to protect the region.