This past fall Dave Zehnder met the Mayor of Summerland, Toni Boot, at the Garnet Valley Ranch just outside of Summerland to speak about the role healthy grasslands play in fire protection.

Farmland Advantage has been working on grassland sites throughout BC to improve the health of these ecosystems for several years. Much of the work being done on grasslands is funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada. This year, the BC Wildfire Service is providing funding to establish a pilot under the Farmland Advantage program which will implement activities that reduce the fuel load for wildfires on private lands, farms, and ranches in the BC Interior. Wildfire risk reduction treatments generally consist of planning, prescription development, tree stand thinning, pruning, and surface fuel management. The overall expected result of this pilot is to increase the amount of wildfire resilient landscapes within the treatment areas.

The magazine can be access by clicking the photo above, or at this link: https://bcgrasslands.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/bc-grasslands-2022_final.pdf