Courtesy of Richard Hinton and the Bismarck Tribune

---

Saving the Wetlands

By RICHARD HINTON, Bismarck Tribune

A new conservation program in Canada could turn around its sagging duck population.

Canadian agriculture ministers have approved testing a new federal policy on Alternate Land Use Services, which was designed and promoted by Bismarck-based Delta Waterfowl and Keystone Agricultural Producers of Manitoba.

"We are extremely excited," said Delta Waterfowl president Rob Olson. "It's our big chance to do something significant for the Canadian prairie."

The decision paves the way for ALUS pilot projects across Canada in which farmers and ranchers will receive annual incentives for conserving or restoring wetlands and for planning and managing vast tracts of upland cover for nesting birds such as waterfowl.

In Manitoba, one pilot project in Blanchard is almost funded, said Bob Sopuck, Delta Waferfowl's vice president of policy for prairie Canada.

"It's heavily agriculture in the middle of pothole country," Sopuck said last week by telephone from Manitoba.

But the testing will cover far more than returning farm land to duck habitat.

"We will test prices, communications. Conservation will be of lesser interest than how to make the program go," Sopuck said.

He used the implementation of Canadian health care as an example.

"They didn't test how to fix broken legs but how to deliver the program."

With the increase in Canadian farm land, duck production there has suffered.

Duck numbers on the U.S. side of the Prairie Pothole Region exceeded Canadian production in recent years, and CRP and the U.S. federal duck stamp program are credited for the 1990s explosion in U.S. duck numbers.

"We had excellent water on the Canadian prairies in the mid-1990s, but very limited cover because there are no large-scale programs like CRP to put nesting cover on the ground in Canada," Delta executive vice president Jonathan Scarth said in a statement. "The 330,000 acres of permanently secured habitat in prairie Canada is dwarfed by the nearly 5 million acres of CRP on the U.S. side of the border, and as a result duck production here has fallen off dramatically."

Once the pilot projects work out how the program is delivered, how it's priced and how it's administered at the municipality - or county - level in Canada, the work can get down to the nuts and bolts of money and acres.

"I think the goal is about $900 million annually, which surpasses anything ever done in the past," Olson said by phone last week. "How many acres? That's the question. We need lots of habitat for ducks to hatch. We need millions of acres, not hundreds of thousands."

Five million acres is achievable, Olson said, but the Canadian government must pick up much of the tab.

"Farmers in Canada are relatively unsubsidized compared to most G-8 countries," Olson said. "Farmers need a way to subsidize their income.

"We've got farmers fighting for something. Society in Canada is demanding improved water and air quality. One of the best ways to restore water and air quality in Canada is to change the way the landscape looks. Take it from farms back to grass.

"The farmers want it, the city folks need it. The groundswell from the urban majority makes it easier for politicians to support it."

The conservation program has broad support throughout the Canadian farm community, Sopuck said.

"We have been working with farmers since day one with ALUS," he said.

Delta Waterfowl has been asked to join the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, he said.

"Delta Waterfowl understands the issues facing producers in Canada and has worked in good faith with the farm community to achieve positive change for producers and the environment," said Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen in a statement.

Sopuck said broad public testing for the ALUS concept is still to come.

"Whether the rest of Canada will accept it? I am extremely confident. We are eager to start talking to city folks about pilot projects."

Another key issue is the trade aspect of ALUS.

"It's not a subsidy," Sopuck stressed. "It's an agriculture environment program. We have checked with the trade people and have been assured as far as they see it, ALUS will be trade neutral, just as your CRP is."

Olson expects other conservation groups to join in the effort to help restore Canada's grasslands.

"The idea is too good not to happen," he said.

But there is still a lot of work ahead, Olson added.

"We've taken the first steps down a road to a brighter future for ducks and duck hunting, but now begins the process of implementing and testing ALUS as a policy option."

The Canadian government wants to understand how ALUS will work and what it will cost, and duck hunters need to provide the answers, Olson said.

"We have to work out the details to make sure the money gets to the right places where the ducks are," Olson said. "We have to make sure at the end that the landscape on the ground is good for ducks."

---

Copyright 2005 Bismarck Tribune. Republished here with the permission of Bismarck Tribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the Bismarck Tribune.