Nature United, a conservation organization based in Toronto and affiliated with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, is leading an ambitious national initiative known as the Tomorrow’s Prairies project. Funded through the Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund under Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the three-year project brings together researchers, conservationists and partners to deepen the understanding of Canada’s grasslands and model their future under changing environmental and socioeconomic conditions. 
 
The CFGA’s role 
The Canadian Forage and Grassland Association (CFGA) is a core partner in this multiorganization effort, contributing both scientific expertise and national coordination. The project builds on the CFGA’s longstanding work in grassland stewardship, including the National Grassland Inventory and associated tools and data that have now been integrated into the Tomorrow’s Prairies framework. 
 
CFGA-affiliated subject matter experts are supporting biodiversity and socioeconomic research, contributing to the development of indicators and outcomes. A CFGA-led technical team is expanding satellite imagery analysis, conducting additional ground truthing and updating the  
National Grassland Inventory to ensure it reflects the most current and accurate information. Additional CFGA-supported expertise is guiding the development of a Canadian grassland classification crosswalk and map, essential components of the project’s classification system. 
 
Beyond technical contributions, the CFGA’s communications and leadership team continues to engage with national and regional grassland and conservation organizations. This outreach fosters collaboration and dialogue around advancing grassland stewardship and aligns closely with the Grassland Learning and Knowledge Hub, a broad-spectrum initiative examining grassland knowledge and capacity for co-benefits to biodiversity and human wellbeing. 
 
Building the grassland baseline 
During the first two years of the project, the research team has focused on advancing baseline characterization of native and tame grasslands, developing preliminary biodiversity and carbon indicators and initiating scenario modeling. This work complements Nature United’s broader efforts to strengthen nature-based climate solutions and support resilient working landscapes. 
 
More than 39 researchers are contributing to the project, organized into five working groups focused on grassland classification, carbon, biodiversity, socioeconomic drivers and landscape modeling. Together, these teams are expanding the foundational science needed to understand current grassland conditions and to simulate plausible future scenarios for Canada’s temperate grasslands. 
 
One of the early challenges has been the wide variation in how grassland is defined across regions and datasets. To address this, researchers are compiling and comparing more than 20 provincial, regional, national, transnational and global datasets. 
 
A key part of this work involves applying the Canadian National Vegetation Classification system. This framework provides a hierarchy of grassland types and subtypes, allowing the team to map diverse datasets into a unified classification. The resulting baseline map will support not only Tomorrow’s Prairies but also other grassland-related research and conservation initiatives. 
 
Modeling grassland change 
Landscape modelling is examining how grasslands have changed over time by mapping native and tame grasslands alongside areas converted to settlement or annual cropland. By combining historic conversion patterns with drivers such as slope, moisture, land value and proximity to roads, the team is developing predictive models that estimate future grassland loss. These models look to generate heat maps of areas most at risk and will be used to explore several scenarios – zero conversion, business as usual, rapid conversion and restoration – while assessing their implications for biodiversity, carbon stocks and climate-emission pathways. 
 
The project is also developing indicators that help explain how ecological and economic factors shape grassland health. This includes modelling carbon and greenhouse gas emissions using the DAYCENT model, which simulates changes in soil organic carbon and nitrogen, as well as assessing biodiversity indicators such as habitat for grassland birds and overall grassland condition. Socioeconomic factors, including crop and cattle prices and other land-use pressures, are being integrated alongside these ecological measures, allowing the team to spatialize results and tell clear, accessible stories about how environmental and economic drivers interact across the landscape. 
 
Looking ahead 
As the Tomorrow’s Prairies project approaches its third and final year, the project team is building a robust scientific foundation to support grassland conservation, restoration and sustainable management across Canada. With the CFGA’s technical, scientific and communications leadership woven throughout the project, the work is well positioned to support land managers, policy makers, researchers and community partners. 
 
Partners and stakeholders have an opportunity to hear directly from the project team at an update session on March 26 at 11:30 a.m. Mountain / 1:30 p.m. Eastern. The webinar will provide a brief overview of progress to date and outline the work planned for the project’s final year. The session will highlight upcoming priorities, including continued refinement of indicators and expanded modelling to 2050, and will discuss how the project’s outputs will support national climate and biodiversity objectives and inform decision making across the grassland sector. 
 
This webinar is intended for partners and stakeholders across environmental, agricultural, conservation, industry, policy and government sectors who rely on science-based information to guide decisions related to climate resilience, biodiversity and prairie stewardship. For more information, email [email protected].