E-Newsletter dsfsfa An update from MBP June 9, 2023
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World Environment Day: Saving nature’s unsung heroes Mobilizing Canadians to conserve and care for vanishing Prairie grasslands (June 5, 2023, NCC News Release) On World Environment
Day, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) unveiled a bold and unprecedented plan to rally people and communities to conserve and care for one of the world’s most endangered and least protected ecosystems: Canada’s iconic Prairie grasslands. The Prairie Grasslands Action Plan will conserve more than 500,000 hectares by 2030 — an area six times the size of Calgary.
Grasslands are nature’s unsung heroes. Think of them as upside down forests, with 90 per cent of their biomass hidden underground in vast and deep root systems. But therein lies their secret powers: • Grasslands absorb carbon dioxide and store billions of tonnes of carbon, keeping it fixed in the soil and helping to counter the effects of climate change. • They trap and filter precious water resources on the Prairies, mitigating both floods and droughts, and providing drinking water for thousands of communities. • Grasslands are an economic driver of local economies and essential to food security. • They host an astonishing variety of plants and wildlife, which are increasingly threatened by habitat loss. In fact, bird populations that rely on native grasslands have declined by 90 per cent since 1970. • Western grasslands are the ancestral homes of many Indigenous communities, whose culture and history are entwined with the natural cycles of the Great Plains.
Too often grasslands are overlooked and undervalued. Without them, we lose our resilience in the face of natural disasters. But they are being lost at an alarming rate — more than 80 per cent of our Prairie grasslands are already gone. In the time it takes to watch your favourite television show, the equivalent of 12 CFL football fields will be lost to grassland conversion and human activity. By the end of the day, another 260 football fields will be gone. Every year 60,000 hectares, or 100,000 football fields, disappear. NCC’s Prairie Grasslands Action Plan will work to conserve 500,000 hectares by the end of the decade; equivalent to what we will lose if we don’t act now to protect the grasslands that remain. Partnership is at the heart of the plan. Only with a whole-of-society approach can we hope to slow the loss. NCC is working with local communities and in collaboration with Indigenous Nations on a multitude of projects. We are partnering with industry, government and other conservation organizations to complete conservation projects on the ground. And we are advancing stewardship with ranchers, livestock producers and grazing groups to deliver solutions that ensure that grasslands remain a foundation for thriving communities. continued on page 5