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In Saskatchewan, most of our prairie is mixed grass, with small pockets of fescue. (The term 'fescue' is derived from the dominant grass in the fescue prairie, rough fescue).
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Saskatchewan's prairie has four major eco-regions: Aspen Parkland, Moist Mixed Grassland, Mixed Grassland, Cypress Upland. Within these ecoregions, 69 distinct ecodistricts or landscape types make up the mosaic of landscapes that form our prairie.
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Saskatchewan contains some of the largest remaining areas of intact, native grassland in Canada
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| How Much Native Prairie is Left? |
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Only about 4% of Saskatchewan's 24 million hectares of original prairie landscape remains in native vegetation in good ecological condition.
- this remaining native prairie occurs in less than 1200 parcels.
- only 192 of these 1200 parcels are good ecological condition.
- only one of these areas in good condition is over 100,000 ha in size 9 (in the Great Sand Hills)
- only 1% is protected.
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| Where is Native Prairie Protected in Saskatchewan? |
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National Parks: Grasslands National Park, 90,650 ha protected in two unconnected blocks.
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Provincial Parks: Saskatchewan's Provincial Parks are small, with the largest, Moose Mountain Provincial Park, at only 40,000 ha. All 14 prairie provincial parks total only 85,000 ha. These parks are not representative, or large enough to provide ongoing ecological integrity and to provide protection of the native biological diversity.
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Community Pastures:
PFRA Pastures (Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Pastures): there are 64 pastures covering approximately 700,000 hectares. The largest is 85,000 ha.
Provincial Pastures: the Province has 56 community pastures, a land base of 250,000 ha, approximately 120,000 ha of which are considered native prairie.
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Provincial Wildlife Habitat Lands: the Saskatchewan Wildlife Habitat Protection Act designates 1.3 million hectares of Crown land for management of wildlife habitat values. About 40% of this area is in parcels large enough to provide ecological representation. However, none of these areas are protected from the one industrial use now threatening them: oil and gas development
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| What Should be Protected in Saskatchewan? |
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Some scientists estimate that the minimum area required to support representative levels of native species is 250 ha. Others would argue that larger landscape areas (>10,000 ha) are needed to ensure internal ecological integrity and ongoing biodiversity. In addition, one needs to consider the effects of climate change.
When we look at the areas remaining that are a minimum of 250 ha in size and in "good" ecological condition, we see the following picture emerge for Saskatchewan:
- Number of areas of native prairie larger than 250 ha = 1172
- Number of areas of native prairie larger than 1,000 ha = 192
- Number of areas of native prairie larger than 10,000 ha = 25
- Number of areas of native prairie larger than 100,000 ha = 1
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| What Biodiversity Values are at Risk? |
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The prairies are one of Canada's most modified large ecosystems. The changes which have occurred in just over a century have had a devastating impact on the land's rich native biodiversity. In Saskatchewan 70% of the plant and animal species that are currently listed as at risk, or under consideration for listing, are prairie species, even though the prairies comprise only 30% of the province by area.
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Two components of biodiversity stand out in the list of species at risk, plants and birds. All 13 of the listed bird species at risk in Saskatchewan occur in the prairie ecozone, while 18 of 29 species of plants at risk are part of the prairie flora.
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