Province provides funding for land conservation
LETHBRIDGE – Three non-profit groups are getting provincial funding to help preserve land and water in southern Alberta.
The Alberta Land Trust Grant Program is putting nearly $9 million into six projects to protect wildlife habitats and watersheds, keeping ranchland from being developed for other uses. Each dollar the government puts in must result in two dollars in value from the applicant.
A combined 6,000 acres of working ranchland in the Castle-Crowsnest watershed and in the Bow area will be protected by the Nature Conservance of Canada, which is getting $5.1 million.
The Southern Alberta Land Trust Society is getting $3.2 million for projects in the Pekisko Valley near Longview (a nearly 4,000-acre ranch), the Porcupine Hills, and near Waterton Lakes National Park. And nearly $500,000 will protect roughly 300 acres of land northeast of Priddis through the Foothills Land Trust.