The future of the PFRA (Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration) pastures the Federal Government recently returned to the Province of Saskatchewan may be in jeopardy, says a new group of rural and urban citizens who are throwing their support behind the growing number of people who want to see these lands retained under the Crown and managed professionally both for the long term benefit of livestock producers and for grassland conservation.
Public Pastures - Public Interest (PPPI) is a group of conservation-minded Saskatchewan residents who are urging the Government of Saskatchewan to ensure that these irreplaceable grasslands will continue to serve the broader public interests of all Saskatchewan people.
"We support the position taken by many producers, PFRA pasture patrons, and farm people around the province," says naturalist Trevor Herriot, spokesperson for PPPI. "The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and Agriculture Producers of Saskatchewan both passed strong resolutions requesting the Government of Saskatchewan retain ownership of the PFRA Pastures. We agree and hope we can work with others to ensure the pastures will be managed well for local agriculture and for conserving soil, water, and biodiversity."
PPPI members are concerned that if this transition for the 62 PFRA pastures in Saskatchewan is not handled well, the lands could end up in the hands of corporations or groups who for any variety of reasons are unable or unwilling to continue managing them in ways that balance short term profit with the wider, long term interests of conservation.
"Right now, these pastures still belong to all Saskatchewan people," adds Herriot. "They are ecological, historical, and cultural resources that we should treasure and steward carefully for our children and grandchildren. They contain critical wildlife habitat, but also important archaeological sites in landscapes that evoke our history as prairie people: the natural prairie that supported our First Nations for millennia, the stories of the early open range ranching outfits, and finally our survival of the Dirty Thirties when the PFRA pastures were founded as a conservation initiative."
PPPI maintains that this conservation work is, if anything, even more important today, because the province is down to less than twenty per cent of its original native grassland. This loss of habitat, among the most extensive on the continent, is the reason why the Great Plains Region of western Canada contains more Species at Risk than any other part of Canada. Well managed native grass sequesters carbon and conserves biodiversity, and soil and water quality in ways that cultivated landscapes cannot match.
PPPI is part of a growing community of urban and rural people in the province - farmers, ranchers, First Nations people, scientists, hunters, naturalists, and prairie enthusiasts of all kinds - who believe that the security of these pasture lands for livestock producers, conservation values and the people of Saskatchewan can best be served by the province retaining ownership of these last large vestiges of native grasslands.
