Federal funds to foster cooperative care for tall-grass prairie region

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This article was published 09/10/2020 (1670 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ottawa is investing nearly $2 million to protect at-risk species in Manitoba’s endangered tall-grass prairie region, and the organization entrusted with the funds is determined to demonstrate that conservation and agriculture can coexist.

On Sept. 30, Environment and Climate Change Canada announced a four-year, $1.9-million investment in the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) to protect at-risk flora and fauna in Manitoba’s remaining tall-grass prairie.

Located in southeastern Manitoba, the habitat area targeted by the funding spans 1.1 million acres and includes a 2,500-acre preserve managed by the NCC. (Earlier this year, Nature Manitoba donated its 880-acre portion of the preserve to the larger and better-equipped NCC.)

The funding, released through the Canada Nature Fund, will help the NCC and numerous partner organizations conserve habitat vital to the survival of 26 listed at-risk species that call the tall-grass prairie home, including the western prairie fringed orchid and the monarch and poweshiek skipperling butterflies.

“What it does is expand our ability to work in areas that we haven’t had funding support for before,” Cary Hamel, director of conservation for the NCC’s Manitoba branch, said in a phone interview.

“It’s kind of a vote of confidence in our vision that we have for the area.”

That vision, Hamel said, includes not only protections for endangered species but also a healthy local economy, including a strong agricultural sector.

Hamel explained the funding began a year ago and has already allowed for more weed management, brush control, and grazing to occur at the preserve.

“Prairie can pretty quickly recede into shrub land and forest if there isn’t regular management,” he said.

It also funded a survey sent to every household in the RM of Stuartburn. Hamel said the forthcoming results will gauge local attitudes toward conservation and inform how the NCC works with communities in the years to come.

The NCC also teamed up with the Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District to hold a workshop for farmers.

Going forward, the funds will be used to “improve habitat, reduce threats to species at risk, and engage community members who have cared for these habitats for generations,” a release said.

For Hamel, direct community engagement is the key to ensuring the federal funding fulfils its intended purpose.

“To conserve these species, we have to do it in a way that’s in partnership with private landowners and with local communities,” he said.

He acknowledged “a level of mistrust that needs to be bridged” as the NCC steps up its activities in the Southeast.

“The way to bridge that is going to be through honest communication and openness,” Hamel said.

“We’re actually all a lot closer than we think. People are often surprised when they talk to Nature Conservancy and they realize that we spend large portions of our budget on working with farmers to manage cattle and control weeds.”

New role in Stuartburn

Norm Gregoire will also be working at the local level to foster understanding between landowners and conservation groups.

Gregoire is the new community liaison for species at risk in the RM of Stuartburn. He was hired in August to fill the new federally-funded position.

Raised on a vegetable farm near Marchand, Gregoire graduated from Ste Anne Collegiate then earned a diploma in outdoor education that led to jobs as a guide and naturalist across Canada and beyond.

In an interview at the preserve, Gregoire said his travels helped him see the prairies in a new light.

“I feel lucky to use my skills and give back here to Manitoba.”

Gregoire hopes to renew appreciation for the preserve in a rural municipality with strong agricultural roots. He said some residents have heard of the preserve but don’t know what it’s protecting.

Working out of the municipal office in Vita, he will primarily act as a point of contact for anyone with questions about the local work being done to protect at-risk species.

Currently, he’s compiling photo information packages to help people visualize at-risk species. He also hopes to meet with local tourism operators, farmers, and business owners.

Like Hamel, Gregoire said he wants to combat the “us versus them thinking” that obscures the ways farmers and conservation groups can work together, because nature can’t afford any more acrimony.

“This is our last shot, without sounding dire, of saving the tall grass prairie in Canada,” Gregoire said.

Less than one percent remains of the habitat that once covered the entire Red River Valley.

“The best bit of that is here in the Southeast,” Gregoire said.

Landowner incentives planned

Tensions between conservation efforts and private landowners escalated last December, when a provincial court judge ordered Tobias Hershberger, a 31-year-old Amish farmer, to pay a $1,000 fine for violating the Manitoba Endangered Species and Ecosystems Act.

According to evidence presented in court, Hershberger tilled a part of his property where the western prairie fringed orchid, a globally rare species, grew. Manitoba Conservation officers previously served him with an indefinite stop-work order affecting about six percent of the arable land on Hershberger’s 160-acre farm.

Hershberger pleaded guilty to the charge, but the judge said Manitoba Conservation deserved some blame for failing to share its maps of known orchid locations or proactively mark sites where the flowers grew.

Stuartburn reeve David Kiansky called Hershberger’s fine “totally unfair” and said the province should pay it.

Gregoire said he wonders if the lawsuit prompted the federal government to prioritize community relations.

“Everything that’s happened in the area, it’s really underlined that the key to conservation success is including people and (the) economy,” Hamel said.

To that end, the NCC is developing a landowner incentive pilot program for farmers and other private landowners.

“We really want to be able to provide alternative approaches so that when a landowner has an endangered habitat or endangered species on their land, it’s not seen as a complete barrier to their future,” Hamel said.

Kiansky called for the creation of such a program following the December court verdict.

Hamel said it’s too early to share details of the program, which is still under development.

In the meantime, Gregoire said RM of Stuartburn residents with questions about at-risk species or the tall grass prairie can send an email to sarcommunityliaison@gmail.com.