Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak today on Motion No. 108, which would recognize the contributions of ranchers as stewards of natural landscapes, and would ask the government to establish policies that support and encourage the development of private ranch conservation projects.
I thank the member for Bow River for bringing this forward. It is a subject that is close to my heart, as I worked in conservation biology before entering politics. Much of that work involved ranchlands. I know it is obviously also close to the member for Bow River. His daughter has a hop farm in my riding, in Penticton, so farming runs in their family.
Canada is a big country, with some of the wildest landscapes on earth, vast forests and tundras. As I fly across the country every week or two, I often think of the great song by the Arrogant Worms. Do not worry, as I will not try to sing it. Its chorus is this:
Our mountains are very pointy
Our prairies are not
The rest is kinda bumpy
But, man, do we have a lot!
Yes, we have vast forests and tundras. What we do not have a lot of are native grasslands. It is grasslands that I would like to focus on today. Almost all the native grasslands of the Prairies have vanished under the plow and are now wheat, canola, and other valuable crops. The intermontane grasslands of British Columbia, where I live, are even smaller in area, confined to the valley bottoms of the interior. These have also been impacted by development, as grasslands are easily converted to orchards, vineyards, and urban development.
Grasslands are among the most endangered of Canada's ecosystems. They have always been a relatively small part of Canada. Canada's land mass has played an important part in our country's biodiversity. The prairie ecozone only comprises 5% of Canada's area, and only about a quarter of it remains in its natural state. Only about 3.5% of that is under some conservation status. That compares with 10% or so of Canada as a whole that can be considered to be in conservation.
In 2010, most of the world's nations, including Canada, signed on to a strategic plan for biodiversity as part of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. That plan includes 20 targets for 2020, known as the Aichi targets. One of these calls for 17% of terrestrial areas to be conserved through protected areas and other conservation measures. We need to get to 17%. We have 10 or 12% overall, and only 3.5% of grasslands. We have a ways to go to meet those targets.
Grasslands are home to more than their share of endangered wildlife in Canada. We all know the story of the bison, hunted to near extinction in a few short years in the last half of the 19th century. Other animals have vanished as well, including the black-footed ferret. Birds that are tied to our grasslands are also disappearing. Every species of grassland bird in Canada has declined significantly in population over the past 40 years, every one of them. Even the iconic western meadowlark, which is literally the soundtrack of the western grasslands, has lost over half of its population.
Along with the rarity and endangerment of Canada's grasslands, the other big difference between grasslands and other ecozones in Canada is that grasslands are mostly privately owned. Our forests, rivers, lakes, and tundras are almost all publicly owned. Grasslands are mostly in ranches, because ranchers need large areas to graze their cattle to turn grass into beef and historically have bought large tracts of land to do this. Ranchers need that control over their grass because it is an annual resource that must be stewarded wisely to provide continuing forage for their livestock.
To meet those conservation targets for grasslands, or even come close to them, we will have to work in partnership with ranchers. I think we will find good conservation partners in ranchers. Indeed, there is quite a history of ranchland conservation in Canada. Many ranches have been in the hands of the same families for generations. Ranchers know their land. They know how to keep the land healthy and, in doing so, are conserving hundreds of species at risk across this country.
I have worked with a number of ranchers on conservation projects, from the Douglas Lake Ranch, the biggest spread in Canada, with more than 20,000 head of cattle on 150,000 acres of deeded land and 500,000 acres of grazing leases, down to the smaller operations. One of my roles was as a board member of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, or NCC, the largest land conservancy in the country, and one that is always partnering with ranchers to preserve our natural heritage.
NCC has conserved more than a million acres of land across the country. Most of those conservation lands, the biggest area, are in western Canada, where the need to conserve grasslands coincides with that opportunity to work with ranchers. The NCC works with ranchers in several ways. Some ranchers are looking for a way to retire, to recoup the value of their land, while ensuring that the land they have stewarded for years, or even generations, is maintained in its natural state. Ranchers have a very close relationship to their land, and many do not want to see their property divided up into hobby farms or denser housing developments.
Others want to continue ranching while knowing that their land cannot be developed in the future. Lease-back arrangements or covenant sales can cover these options, while providing capital necessary for equipment purchases or other capital improvements.
Many ranchers are looking for ways to pass their operations on to their children to continue the family ranching tradition. We have heard a lot recently about how the government is making it harder for ranchers and farmers to do that.
This motion specifically asks the government to find ways to support ranchers in conservation projects. I am happy to say that the federal government has been doing that for a number of years, and I hope it continues to do so.
I do not often get the opportunity to say good things about the previous Conservative government, but I think this is one time where I have to say they had the right approach in creating the natural areas conservation program. This program partners the federal government with the Nature Conservancy of Canada and landowners across the country, including many ranchers. NCC administers the program, with the participation of Ducks Unlimited Canada and other land trusts.
More than $277 million has been invested by the federal Ministry of Environment over the past six years, a figure that has been matched two to one, with more than $500 million in funds from private donors, landowners, and other non-federal sources. More than one million acres have been conserved by this program. It needs continued long-term funding and ongoing support to make sure it succeeds in its goal to preserve environmentally priceless lands across Canada.
We know what we can accomplish when we set our minds to it. When science told us that DDT was disrupting the food chains of the world and killing off the top predators, we banned it. In the 40 years since we did that, the populations of our falcons, hawks, and eagles have rebounded in spectacular fashion.
When we realized that ducks, geese, and swans were declining dramatically in the 1900s, we tightened up hunting regulations and began to aggressively preserve wetland habitats. Many of those ponds and marshes were on ranches and farms, and were enhanced by the landowners in co-operation with Ducks Unlimited Canada and other agencies. Since then, their populations have essentially completely recovered.
We can really make a difference if we choose to work with farmers and ranchers, but we also have to preserve valuable habitats on crown lands as well. We cannot rely on ranchers to do all that work. The federal government once owned 780,000 acres of PFRA community pastures in Saskatchewan, land that had been protected from development for decades. These are grasslands that were too dry to farm, and almost all were important for grassland conservation while being leased to ranchers for grazing.
The previous government eliminated the PFRA in an omnibus bill in 2012, and those pastures are now being transferred to the Province of Saskatchewan and sold to private interests. To give an idea of the impact on conservation targets, this transfer reduces Saskatchewan's overall percentage of conservation lands from 8.7% to 6.3%, clearly going in the wrong direction to meet the 17% target. There is still time and opportunity for the federal government to take a role in conserving some of these lands, and I would urge it to do so.
I will close now by simply saying that we must support ranchers and farmers in their important role as stewards of the land, conserving some of our most valuable natural landscapes. I am also happy to say that I will obviously be supporting this motion.