Oil companies are buying land to revert it to natural state and offset damage they have done in other parts of the province
Alberta ranchers in the Fawcett and Flatbush area are angry that oil money is being used to buy pastureland that is sitting idle while they scramble to find other land to graze their animals.
Shell and Suncor have bought 15 quarters of land in the area through the Alberta Conservation Association as part of a program designed to offset damage the companies have done to wildlife and biodiversity in other parts of the province.
“The pasture is sitting idle and slowly it will grow back to trees,” said Fred vandeLigt, who tried to buy a quarter section he had originally been renting from a neighbour.
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“They’re paying top dollar. It’s like an oil company going into a little town and buying all the houses.”
VandeLigt originally bid $180,000 for the quarter near Flatbush, the top value he believed it was worth. The land was assessed and sold to the Alberta Conservation Association for $199,000.
In a year in which grazing is scarce because of drought, vandeLigt believes the land should be grazed.
He started feeding yearlings July 20.
Ted Ford of Jarvie doesn’t object to the price paid for the land, but doesn’t think good grazing land should be left to sit idle.
“The issue to me is, they are taking land out of production that is very good land,” said Ford, who ranches in the area.
“They say they don’t pay over the appraised value. They may only pay the appraised value, but it is more than most people in the area would pay for land.… It is not prime land, but it is good land. If nothing happens it will slowly revert to trees.”
Letting it revert to trees and sloughs is exactly what is going to happen to the 15 quarters of land in the area, said Todd Zimmerling, president of the Alberta Conservation Association.
Over the past decade, the association has bought land in the area on behalf of Suncor and Shell as part of the company’s terrestrial conservation offsets.
Unlike carbon offsets for emissions made elsewhere, terrestrial conservation offsets are designed to offset the impacts to wildlife and plants that have occurred somewhere else.
Most of the property that the conservation association bought in the Fawcett and Flatbush area was bought with money from Shell.
“As part of one of their developments in the Fort McMurray area, they agreed they would offset the terrestrial impacts by purchasing land they can restore across the boreal forest,” said Zimmerling.
Working with other conservation groups, the association will replant the land to trees, native grasses and shrubs or install ditch plugs to restore wetlands.
“Part of the management plan was to restore wetland and forested land on some of those properties,” Zimmerling said.
“That is the reason it has changed from having grazing regime to no grazing regime. The plan is to restore it to native habitat instead.”
Shell is in the ninth year of a 10-year agreement to donate $200,000 a year to the association to buy land for offsets specifically in the Athabasca River drainage area. Next year is expected to be the last year that land will be bought with the help of Shell in the Flatbush and Fawcett area.
Suncor has also donated money to the association for the last decade to buy terrestrial conservation credits. Last year it donated $600,000 for land purchases, especially treed and forested properties.
“In the case of Suncor, the properties we look for are forested properties,” ” said Zimmerling.
“The more trees on the property the better to try to maintain the forest cover. In some cases, if it is not completely forested, we will reforest them,” said Zimmerling.
The Alberta Conservation Association has title to 122 parcels of land across the province, which it owns in whole or in part. It also manages about 200,000 acres of crown land.
