Canadian Cattlemen: Good-news stories for beef producers are beginning to flow out from a massive dataset collected during a three-year carbon benchmarking study done to evaluate the effects of long-term grazing on native grasslands of Alberta.
Some of the findings won’t surprise beef producers who see the positive effects first hand, but this is the first time they have been quantified across Alberta, says Dr. Edward Bork, Mattheis Chair, Rangeland Ecology and Management, University of Alberta. This is also just the start of a much broader effort to define and quantify the benefits society receives from Alberta’s native grasslands. The long-term goal is to encourage development of policies and markets that reward grassland managers for maintaining and improving those benefits. A group of Bork’s colleagues has proposed a similar project on tame forage lands.
When you are out there managing native grassland, know that there is a huge pool of carbon beneath your feet, Bork says. Read the entire article, The Case for Carbon Storage, published in Canadian Cattlemen: The Beef Magazine.