Natural prairie grasslands at sunset near Suffield, Alberta. (Photo 219786047 © Ramon Cliff | Dreamstime.com)

By rdnewsNOW staff

Nature Conservancy of Canada

Major conservation meeting in Calgary focuses on native prairie grasslands

Sep 21, 2023 | 3:21 PM

The importance and urgency to conserve and protect native prairie grasslands is the focus this week as Nature Conservancy of Canada gathers in Calgary for its annual fall conference.

According to NCC officials, staff and volunteers from around the country with the not-for-profit group will discuss strategies to accelerate conservation.

The organization says grasslands are one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems, noting over 80 per cent of native prairie grasslands in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been lost to conversion.

NCC says grasslands are threatened by conversion and fragmentation for human uses, as well as degradation from incompatible land practices.

So the NCC says it is in a race to protect the best of what is left by working with private land owners and ranchers to conserve these areas.

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NCC says grasslands are every bit as important to the sustainability of the planet as the oceans and rainforests, and understanding this is why they have chosen to meet in Calgary to highlight grasslands as a national priority. From carbon-storage to water purification, and protection from flooding and drought, NCC says these lands do so much for communities every day.

Officials say the group will also tour the McIntyre Ranch in southern Alberta. It is where NCC says it is presently raising funds to help conserve this area through a conservation easement. Established in 1894, officials say the McIntyre Ranch is 22,000 hectares and the largest private Prairie grassland conservation project in Canada’s history.

NCC says grasslands store about a third of the world’s land-based carbon through its deep root system.

On World Environment Day, NCC says it launched its Prairie Grasslands Action Plan which aims to conserve 500,000 hectares of land by 2030. To put that into context, the organization says that is an area six times the size of Calgary. To accomplish this, NCC hopes to raise $500 million to set aside these ecologically sensitive areas.

In the time it takes to watch your favourite television show, NCC says the equivalent of 12 CFL football fields will be lost to grassland conversion and human activity. By the end of the day, another 260 football fields will be gone.

NCC officials say every year 60,000 hectares, or 100,000 football fields, disappear. NCC’s Prairie Grasslands Action Plan aims to work to conserve 500,000 hectares by the end of the decade; equivalent to what we will lose if we don’t act now to protect the grasslands that remain, officials point out.

Here are some additional facts about Grasslands from NCC:

• Grasslands are nature’s unsung heroes. Think of them as upside down forests, with 90 per cent of their biomass hidden underground in vast and deep root systems. But therein lies their secret powers: Grasslands absorb carbon dioxide and store billions of tonnes of carbon, keeping it fixed in the soil and helping to counter the effects of climate change.
• They trap and filter precious water resources on the Prairies, mitigating both floods and droughts, and providing drinking water for thousands of communities.
• Grasslands are an economic driver of local economies and essential to food security.
• They host an astonishing variety of plants and wildlife, which are increasingly threatened by habitat loss. In fact, bird populations that rely on native grasslands have declined by 90 per cent since 1970.
• Western grasslands are the ancestral homes of many Indigenous communities, whose culture and history are entwined with the natural cycles of the Great Plains.
• Too often grasslands are overlooked and undervalued. Without them, we lose our resilience in the face of natural disasters. But they are being lost at an alarming rate — 82 per cent of our Prairie grasslands are already gone.