Feds fund grassland restoration projects

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This article was published 24/07/2021 (1741 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government is giving the Nature Conservancy of Canada a more than $4-million boost to enhance the management of Prairie wetlands and grasslands.

Cary Hamel, NCC’s director of conservation for Manitoba, told the Sun that one of the first projects they are going to spearhead with this money involves restoring 140 hectares of grassland near St. Lazare, a community located 40 kilometres south of Russell.

“We’re looking to restore a really sandy area that is prone to erosion back to grassland, and work with local livestock producers to turn that into a grazing system,” Hamel said on Friday morning.

“We’re also going to be working to restore riparian areas along the Assiniboine River up there as well, helping to slow down flooding in years when we are wet and helping to create good habitats.”

Hamel said he believes that his team will be able to get started on this project later this summer, with the entire restoration process expected to take a couple of years to complete.

This kind of project is especially needed at a time when Manitoba is experiencing record-breaking heat and dry conditions, which Hamel said threatens to eliminate these ecosystems and the benefits they provide.

“We all depend on nature for drinking water, slowing down floods, oxygen, grazing lands and livestock,” he said. “And, of course, nature pumps carbon into the ground. So I really think the timing of this announcement has really underlined the current weather situation in Manitoba.”

On top of protecting residents from extreme weather events, Hamel said he believes the grassland restoration project near St. Lazare will also help spur the local economy, since his team will rely on Westman communities for support.

“We have to buy resources locally, we have to rent equipment, food producers get business out of it,” he said. “It’s a pretty intensive amount of work to restore a grassland.”

Hamel also clarified that the $4.05 million in funding will not be solely dedicated to this one Westman project, and will be used for a variety of restoration initiatives throughout the Prairies.

And even though this recent trend of extreme weather is threatening Manitoba’s biodiversity, Hamel is remaining optimistic about the future, since he is seeing a lot more interest from donors in finding nature-based solutions to climate change.

“You’re going to see a lot more restoration work happening,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot more businesses tied into that and a lot more jobs for youth. And I’m really, really excited about what’s coming.”

The $4.05 million in funding was announced during a virtual press conference on Friday morning, where Agriculture and Agri-Food Marie-Claude Bibeau earmarked a total of $25 million to help support various Prairie conservation projects.

Outside of NCC’s funding, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation will also receive $19.28 million and $2.4 million, respectively, over the next three years to better manage grasslands and wetlands.

These initiatives are among fourteen projects to receive funding from the federal government’s Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund throughout 2021–2022.

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