Saskatchewan environmentalist speaks about urgency of native prairie conservation
For Saskatchewan environmentalist and naturalist Lorne Scott the measure of conservation success has become the prevention of any further decline.
He spoke about his lifelong interest in nature and conservation at a Swift Current Museum Lunch and Learn, Feb. 21. He was asked by an audience member if he is still optimistic after being involved in conservation efforts for many years.
“We don’t measure our success by gains,” he responded. “We measure it by reducing our losses. And I’ve said it’s better to protect a little than lose it all. So if I gave up on it and other people like me, what’s the use of living? It’s been our life, our mission.”
He recalled a conversation he had a few years ago with someone who felt her efforts during a lifelong career with Canadian Wildlife Service did not make a difference, because everything seemed worse off.
“I tried to assure her, because it could have been worse than it is,” he said. “So yes, we can’t give up. Every acre we can secure, somehow or other, is a gain or it’s reducing the losses.”
Scott has been the focus of the recently published book Protecting the Prairies: Lorne Scott and the Politics of Conservation by Saskatchewan born Andrea Olive, who is currently a professor of political science and geography at the University of Toronto, Mississauga.
The book provides a perspective on the history of wildlife and land conservation in Saskatchewan through Scott’s life story as a farmer, environmentalist, naturalist and former provincial minister of environment and resource management. He is currently the Nature Saskatchewan board president and the board co-chair for the South of the Divide Conservation Action Program (SODCAP). He said it is very flattering to be the focus of this book and he was quite surprised when the author approached him.
“I didn’t think there was anything to write about, but the author Andrea Olive did an amazing job,” he mentioned. “Although I’m the focal point in the book, I need to stress that I was surrounded with good people. I was just one person in the whole scheme of things and we’re
only as good in life as the people around us.”
He grew up on a farm at Indian Head and still continues to farm a half section. He began to build bluebird nesting boxes as a teenager on the farm in 1965.
“I still remember the thrill of finding the six blue eggs in the box when I opened it up and kind of got carried away and built about 2,500 nest boxes since then,” he said.
He obtained a federal bird banding permit in 1968 and he has banded about 50,000 birds over the years, including about 10,000 mountain bluebirds and 20,000 tree swallows.
Mountain bluebird numbers have been declining, as with so many other species. There used to be 25 to 30 nesting pairs on his farm in the 1970s and 1980s.
“By the early 1990s their numbers were declining,” he said. “The last pair nested in 2014 and I haven’t seen one since. They’re just not coming back.”
He is still able to find and band mountain bluebirds in the Eastend area, but their declining numbers reflect what has been happening with birds across North America. Fifty years ago, there were 10 billion birds in North America, but their numbers have declined by 30 per cent to seven billion. The average decline of grasslands bird species has been even higher at 53 per cent and species such as burrowing owls, sage grouse, longspurs and Sprague’s pipit have declined by 80 to 90 per cent.
“So we have the moral question,” he said. “Our kids or grandkids will never see a burrowing owl or a sage grouse, and does it really matter? The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.Their flocks used to darken the sky and we’re doing quite OK without the passenger pigeon. But where is the cutoff ? Most of our medicines come from native plants and we don’t know the true value of birds when it comes to eating insects or whatever. We figure we can spray everything and kill everything.”
The native grasslands of Saskatchewan also continue to decline. The native prairie is part of the planet’s temperate grassland biome, which is the most endangered, most altered and least protected biome on the planet.
“Our grasslands are more at risk than the rainforest or the coral reefs,” he said. “So we haven’t done a great job. I guess we are the last generation to have a chance to secure as much as we can.”
He noted that there is about 60 million acres south of the forest fringe in Saskatchewan and between 85-90 per cent of the natural landscape has been lost. Southwest Saskatchewan remains one of areas with most intact grassland, which is where SODCAP’S conservation’s efforts are focused.
“So our main activity, all of the conservation groups, is securing land,” he said. “Conservation easements is an important tool and some older folks, like me, that’s retiring with no kids to pass it on to will actually donate their land to a conservation group, because they want to see their natural area remain.”
SODCAP and other partners have started a research initiative to determine the carbon sequestration potential of natural landscapes.
“Nowadays we all realize, producers and otherwise, how important our natural landscape is,” he said. “A new benefit of native grass and native landscape is carbon sequestration, which we still don’t know a lot about. We’ve got experts determining how much carbon native grass, tame grass, aspen, wetland, and cultivated land store. Hopefully, in a couple of years, we will have a better answer to that, because it appears that society is willing to pay landowners and producers for carbon storage. So we are trying to get that information as quick as we can.”
The economics of cattle production versus wheat and canola production might make it more profitable for landowners to convert their grasslands into ploughed fields.
“So that puts extra stress and risk on our native grasslands,” he said. “We need to find ways to reward producers who preserve grasslands. I was encouraged to see the federal government is finally recognizing this. We in the conservation community got to be hand in hand with the landowners that have grasslands and do what we can to assist them and make an even playing field for them. With 85 to 90 per cent of our grasslands gone, time is running out. Our grassland birds are declining faster than any other group of birds. The clock is ticking, but every acre we can secure is a step forward.”