Native Prairie Threatened by Potato Production
10/27/2010
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| White potatoes by Julep67 via flickr |
The Alberta Cabinet is considering a proposal to sell 13,600 acres of public native prairie rangeland in the Bow Island Provincial Grazing Reserve (BIPGR) to SLM Spud Farms for conversion into irrigated cropland for potato production.
This plan is absolutely shocking.
The central grasslands of North America are considered one of North America’s most endangered ecosystems.In this International Year of Biodiversity and as governments from around the world are gathered in Nagoya, Japan to work towards addressing alarming biodiversity loss, entertaining a proposal to convert endangered native prairie lands to potato production should be out of the question.
We wrote last week to Alberta’s Premier to urge him to reject this proposal and prevent the significant impacts this conversion would have on Canada’s biodiversity. Read our letter.
