Petro-Canada

Background
Grassland conservation and sustaining the species, ecosystems, cultures and economies that depend on them is of common interest to wildlife and land management agencies in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Montana. It is of increasing interest as well to energy sector companies who operate in these regions and are committed to doing so in an environmentally responsible manner. Petro-Canada, together with the Alberta Conservation Association (ACA) and the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary, has developed a program focusing on innovations in sustainable land use in Alberta’s Grassland Natural Region. The program is based on the concepts of ecosystem restoration and management, including biodiversity conservation, social, and economic values, and associated innovations in mitigation and post-operational reclamation practices.

The scope of the Sustainable Grasslands Program Projects developed under this three-year initiative will focus on ecologically functioning landscapes and their restoration within the grasslands of Alberta. Guidelines for program development include:

• Strong overlap within the scope of ACA’s wildlife program;
• Support for existing landscape-scale environmental management initiatives in the Grasslands Natural Region;
• Increased understanding of conservation issues facing the grasslands of Alberta’s southwestern foothills and/ or Alberta’s southeast arid grasslands;
• Contribution to wildlife habitat conservation and restoration;
• Advanced science in support of land use planning for wildlife habitat and population management relative to the activities and impacts of the energy sector.

Program Development
Programs in progress include:

• Sage Grouse Recovery in Southeastern Alberta In support of a Government of Alberta interagency working group developing conservation design options for land use consistent with Sage Grouse recovery in southeastern Alberta.
• Reclamation and Restoration of Silver Sagebrush Communities Development of beneficial management practices for the reclamation and restoration of silver sagebrush communities in the Northern Great Plains for the energy sector and wildlife habitat conservation.
• Pronghorn Antelope as an Indicator for Conservation Design in the Northern Great Plains Examination of pronghorn antelope ecology and conservation planning in the international transboundary region of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and northern Montana, focusing on population and habitat ecology, and assessing impacts of habitat fragmentation, human infrastructures and activities on pronghorn antelope ecology.
• Forest Encroachment onto Foothills Fescue Grasslands Documentation of the level and spatial extent of changes to vegetative cover and composition in the Foothills Fescue Grasslands in southwestern Alberta, through evaluation of historic and current factors influencing vegetative change and an assessment of local ecological knowledge.

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