New Conservation Agreement in Southern Alberta Preserves Endangered Prairie Grasslands

"When properly managed using holistic tools and principles, cattle ranching is complimentary - not competitive - with wildlife.

NOTE: this article was originally published to Calgary Herald's Apple News Channel on December 12, 2023. It was written by Stephen Tipper.

A new conservation agreement announced Tuesday preserves more than 300 hectares of southwestern Alberta land featuring endangered Prairie grasslands.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada said Tuesday the agreement ensures the cow-calf operation will continue to operate on the land, located south of Cardston near Police Outpost Provincial Park, and conserves the 323-hectare property’s “remarkable ecological integrity.”

Canadian Prairie grasslands, which comprise almost 80 per cent of the conserved land, store billions of tonnes of carbon in their root systems, the organization said in a news release.

“The Prairie grasslands of Canada are one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet,” said Jeremy Hogan, the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s director of prairie grassland conservation. “Less than 20 per cent remains in all of Canada.”

An Environment Canada study released in 2021 suggested protecting native grasslands is the single most effective nature-based solution available to Canada for mitigating the effects of climate change, said Hogan.

Grasslands also maintain water in place during the spring melt and early rains, causing less soil erosion issues, he said.

Through its Prairie Grasslands Action Plan, the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s goal is to conserve more than 500,000 hectares —  an area six times the size of Calgary — by 2030.

“That only symbolically offsets the rate at which we’re losing grasslands currently,” said Hogan.

“That only symbolically offsets the rate at which we’re losing grasslands currently,” said Hogan.

As well as its abundant grasslands, the property also provides habitat to many different species of wildlife, including several listed under Canada’s Species At Risk Act, including ferruginous hawk, grizzly bear, horned grebe and American badger.

The land features western blue iris, an at-risk wildflower species that grows in wet meadows and shorelines at fewer than a dozen sites in southwestern Alberta. It is listed as a special concern under Canada’s Species At Risk Act.

“Our family would never want to see this property subdivided and turned into acreages,” said landowner Jeff Bectell, whose family has raised cattle on the property since 1917. “We’re pleased to know our land will remain intact and continue to be managed in the way we have done for generations.”

This latest agreement expands on the NCC’s efforts to conserve land in the area, forming a block of almost 2,900 hectares of conserved lands that provides a large corridor for wildlife.

The agreement was funded through private donors, the federal and Alberta governments, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Weston Family Foundation.