NEEPAWA, Man. – The wild, rolling land here gives the cattle scattered across it a heroic territory to spend their summers.
The ground hosts a wide range of native prairie plants and the Langford Community Pasture has the feeling of a nature preserve.
But give the ground a good kick and you’ll easily boot away the thin cover of vegetation and create a small cloud of dust and shower of sand.
This sandy, dusty soil is the reason local municipalities, the federal agriculture department and the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corp. came together Oct. 1 to lock up most of the almost 10,000 acre pasture so that it can never be broken.
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“A guy could come in and break this up to grow potatoes, but if the market went down he’d walk away, and all this land would blow right into Lake Manitoba,” said William Pottinger, a councillor in the Rural Municipality of Lansdowne, one of the two local governments that signed away their control of the land that day.
RM of Langford reeve Kathy Jasienczyk said the infertile soil wasn’t broken because dryland farmers couldn’t use it. Then the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration began managing it.
“Under PFRA management … the pasture has remained as a heavy repository of native animals and plants,” said Jasienczyk.
“The sandy soil was never, ever suitable for settlement under past agricultural practices.”
But recently the potato industry has expanded and sandy soil above a rich aquifer is ideal for that type of farming.
Potato producers have requested permission to break up some of the land and that’s what local municipalities, cattle producers, habitat conservation authorities and water resource organizations are trying to avoid.
By preserving land in conservation easements “(the land) can be protected and we have one large tract of land here, showcasing pre-settlement prairie, with all of its intact elements and water beneath for all Canadians in perpetuity.”
The federal and provincial portions of the pasture are not yet locked-up, but local people hope to achieve that too.
Tim Sopuck, chief executive officer of the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corp., said everyone hopes nothing changes with the pasture.
“We’re celebrating business as usual,” said Sopuck.
“The excellent way in which PFRA has managed this environmentally sensitive area is the way we want things to continue in the future.”
