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| image courtesy of Hamilton Greenwood |
Ok, the vandals in charge of the legislature have delivered another sucker punch to our natural prairie, announcing in the budget that they will be disposing of the 51 provincial community pastures, likely putting them up for sale.
Among our large provinces and territories (i.e. excluding the Maritimes), Saskatchewan already leads the nation in the ratio of private land to public. Across Canada, 11% of land is privately owned. In B.C. 7% of land is private. In Alta, 30%. Saskatchewan is at 40% but south of the boreal forest in this province the figure is 80% and rising. In fact, believe it or not, by 1980 24% of all privately held land in Canada was in Saskatchewan[i]—almost all of it in the Prairie Ecozone. And now we are adding more?
southern Saskatchewan has 24% of all private land in Canada
Canada keeps its forested ecosystems public (94% of forested lands are Crown owned) to ensure they are managed for a mix of private and public interests. What about our grasslands, which have very little protection and are much more endangered than our forests?
Once we privatize Crown land, easements or not, we severely weaken our ability to create and enforce the laws, regulations and policies required to meet any priorities for sustainable grassland management for the wider public interest: climate change mitigation and carbon management, species at risk, biodiversity, soil and water conservation, heritage conservation, access for education and recreation....and so on.
Our Crown lands—so scarce in the south—are the last shadows of the prairies we were entrusted to share and protect together under treaty, the closest thing we have to land held in common for the benefit of all treaty people.
If we stand by and let this government sell them off, we will be abandoning any possible renewal of the spirit in which the treaties were signed, and inviting a new form of colonization taking us even further from any legitimate social contract with the land and its first peoples.
There is no dressing up this kind of decision—when you strip the protection from large expanses of old growth prairie that were listed under the province’s Representative Areas Network (RAN) you are essentially saying that their protection does not matter.
Crown conservation easements on their own cannot protect the habitat and its many rare and threatened species. Saskatchewan Agriculture has neither the staff nor the desire to monitor and prosecute private producers who violate any of its existing regulations—are we to believe they will enforce easements on all of the public lands they are selling off?
Twenty-eight of the provincial pastures totaling 240,000 ha (593,000 acres) are listed as protected areas under RAN, which contributes to Canada’s national totals of protected areas it reports to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Until the Wall government got hold of our Crown lands, Saskatchewan had 2.4 M ha (5.9 M acres) of land in the Prairie Ecozone under RAN protection. You could call that 2.4 M ha a good start but this government is taking the scant RAN protection we had in the prairie ecozone and slashing it by thirds.
First the PFRA federal pastures lose their protection and conservation programming. That subtracts 720,000 ha from RAN. Then they sell another 720,000 ha of Wildlife Habitat Protection Act lands that were also listed under RAN. Add the 230,000 ha portion of the provincial pastures that have been included in RAN and now instead of Saskatchewan protecting 2.4 M ha of the Prairie Ecozone, we are down to a mere 760,000 ha—which is about 3% of the ecozone’s 24 M hectares, and abysmally short of the Canada 2020 target of 17% protection for Canada’s ecozones.
Once we privatize Crown land, easements or not, we severely weaken our ability to create and enforce the laws, regulations and policies required to meet any priorities for sustainable grassland management for the wider public interest: climate change mitigation and carbon management, species at risk, biodiversity, soil and water conservation, heritage conservation, access for education and recreation....and so on.
Our Crown lands—so scarce in the south—are the last shadows of the prairies we were entrusted to share and protect together under treaty, the closest thing we have to land held in common for the benefit of all treaty people.
If we stand by and let this government sell them off, we will be abandoning any possible renewal of the spirit in which the treaties were signed, and inviting a new form of colonization taking us even further from any legitimate social contract with the land and its first peoples.
There is no dressing up this kind of decision—when you strip the protection from large expanses of old growth prairie that were listed under the province’s Representative Areas Network (RAN) you are essentially saying that their protection does not matter.
Crown conservation easements on their own cannot protect the habitat and its many rare and threatened species. Saskatchewan Agriculture has neither the staff nor the desire to monitor and prosecute private producers who violate any of its existing regulations—are we to believe they will enforce easements on all of the public lands they are selling off?
Twenty-eight of the provincial pastures totaling 240,000 ha (593,000 acres) are listed as protected areas under RAN, which contributes to Canada’s national totals of protected areas it reports to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Until the Wall government got hold of our Crown lands, Saskatchewan had 2.4 M ha (5.9 M acres) of land in the Prairie Ecozone under RAN protection. You could call that 2.4 M ha a good start but this government is taking the scant RAN protection we had in the prairie ecozone and slashing it by thirds.
First the PFRA federal pastures lose their protection and conservation programming. That subtracts 720,000 ha from RAN. Then they sell another 720,000 ha of Wildlife Habitat Protection Act lands that were also listed under RAN. Add the 230,000 ha portion of the provincial pastures that have been included in RAN and now instead of Saskatchewan protecting 2.4 M ha of the Prairie Ecozone, we are down to a mere 760,000 ha—which is about 3% of the ecozone’s 24 M hectares, and abysmally short of the Canada 2020 target of 17% protection for Canada’s ecozones.
Stay posted. This land is worth fighting for. On a stage in downtown Regina tonight, I heard Joel Plaskett and his father Bill sing a new song that ends with these words:
The next blue sky is ours.
We're in this fight to win
and we will.
Posts
I was aware that the grasslands were in rough shape but these numbers are staggering. You're right, this land is well worth the fight. But it's not going to be easy. Keep up the great work man!
ReplyDeletethanks Cody.
DeleteI agree that there should be a major fight to retain crown lands, but there should be a plan B where farmers and ranchers are given tax credits/incentives to retain grasslands and wetlands. Due to cities insisting on building homes and businesses on flood plains the money spent on flood mitigation or rebuilding could be better spent keeping the water on the land far from the cities.
ReplyDeletethanks Don--yes we need to make habitat an asset rather than a liability, and on all land, not merely these pastures they want to privatize. However, it has to be done carefully--otherwise payments or incentives can backfire over the long run. Or if an incentive program stops for some reason, producers will destroy the habitat.
DeleteTrue, this is where all political parties have to park the rhetoric and come to a common agreement on this sort of policy so that it continues despite a change in government. Sadly I never see that happening.
DeleteCheers
Don