The CFGA is excited to be working with Nature United on a three-year research project aimed at understanding trends in the condition and extent of Canadian grasslands. The data will inform strategies to help mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. 
 
Funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund, the Tomorrow’s Prairies project will study historical baselines and projections of Canadian grasslands, foster collaboration among scientists and practitioners, develop key indicators and model future scenarios of change. 
 
The project builds on the CFGA’s previous work on inventories and biodiversity through projects such as the Canada Grassland Protocol, the Habitat Biodiversity Assessment Tool (HBAT) and the National Grassland Inventory. 
 
The CFGA was pleased to participate in a webinar that discussed the launch of the Tomorrow’s Prairies project in late November. Titled Tomorrow’s Prairies: Baselines and projections for grasslands change in Canada, the webinar included opening remarks from Guillaume Peterson St. Laurent, a senior policy advisor with the Canadian Wildlife Service, and ?ikaatius (Tyson Atleo), Natural Climate Solutions program director, at Nature United. Cedric MacLeod, CFGA’s executive director, then discussed the work to date and Ronnie Driver, a senior conservation Scientist at Nature United, outlined the proposed project before opening the session up for a Q&A. 
 
During his talk, MacLeod explained that the CFGA is a project-based team that focuses on outreach, building tools and taking those tools out to landowners and managers. 
 
“We are excited to partner with Nature United on this to drop in a program and policy exploration lens to the work that we’ve done and really look at how these tools can be used and/or evolved to best service the ag industry as a whole,” he said. “We’re excited to see how this work can really help us to tell the tale of the valuable contributions of farmers and ranchers, dairymen, sheep flock owners, beef growers, contributing largely to carbon storage and biodiversity protection and enhancement across the country.” 
 
The CFGA’s contribution to the project will continue work done primarily on the National Grassland Inventory. This includes building on previous satellite imagery work, doing additional ground truthing, updating the National Grassland Inventory tool and conducting further work on a grassland classification system in Canada. 
 
A recording of the webinar is available here.