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Vision
The residents of the Redberry Lake Important
Bird Area seek to implement management strategies and infrastructures to
advance the conservation of birds through maintaining an ecosystem that
nurtures a quality of life for its people and its wildlife, together.
This Community Conservation Plan for Redberry Lake was prepared as part of
Saskatchewan's Important Bird Area (IBA) Program. In this program, special
areas are awarded an Important Bird Area designation for conservation
purposes if the areas are used by large concentrations of birds, if birds
present are at risk, or if the sites represent intact biomes and their
bird inhabitants.
The IBA Program was launched initially by BirdLife International
in the UK. Today there are BirdLife Partners in over 100 countries.
In Canada the national partners are the Canadian Nature Federation and
Bird Studies Canada. In Saskatchewan, the conservation component of this
program is being delivered by Nature Saskatchewan. Funding partners of the
Community Conservation Plan for Redberry Lake include Canadian Adaptation
and Rural Development Saskatchewan (CARDS), the University of Saskatchewan,
and Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management (SERM) and the Canadian
Millennium Partnership Program. The Redberry Lake IBA dedication ceremony
was held on 12 June 1999, as part of the 10 year anniversary celebration of
the Redberry Pelican Project (Canada) Foundation at Redberry Lake Provincial
Park.
Redberry Lake lies in a 55 km² glacial depression that contains
three islands and reached 18 m at its deepest point in 1974. This saline lake lies within a 1181 km2 watershed of glacial moraine landscape in the aspen parkland ecozone of Saskatchewan. Redberry Lake and its shores constitute the IBA, but this conservation plan is focused on both the lake and its watershed. About 1000 people live in the watershed and half of these reside in the town of Hafford. Land use in the area is primarily for crop production with some grazing of livestock and tourism.
Redberry Lake satisfies the IBA 'congregatory' criterion through its
use by over 500 pairs of American White Pelicans that nest on the lake's
island. This makes the lake "globally significant." Redberry Lake
furthermore satisfies the 'threatened' criterion through the use of the
lake's shore by globally vulnerable and nationally endangered Piping
Plovers, making the site "nationally significant." In addition,
hundreds of pairs of Double-crested Cormorants, White-winged Scoters,
California and Ring-billed Gulls use the islands for nesting. Many
shorebirds use the lake for short-stops on migration. Waterfowl use the
site during migration also, and a diverse bird community of at least 187
species has been recorded in the area.
Encouraged by a forward looking human community of mainly Ukrainian
extraction, many conservation measures are in place at Redberry Lake.
Following the traditional wildlife management practiced by aboriginal
peoples of the region, the first formal designation was a Federal Migratory
Bird Sanctuary established in 1925. In 1970, the islands became a Provincial
Wildlife Refuge and today there are at least 13 conventions that aim to
protect the lake and its resources. Most recently, the lake and its
watershed was nominated for UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status.
Education, research and/or conservation measures are carried
out by the Canadian Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited Canada, the National
Water Research Institute, The Redberry Pelican Project (Canada) Foundation,
the Rural Municipality of Redberry, Saskatchewan Environment and Resource
Management, SaskWater and many local residents. This exemplary effort
represents an opportunity for effective and coordinated conservation of
the birds and the ecosystem that supports birds and people. Challenges
include major threats to migratory species that take their effect outside
of the watershed. Locally, management efforts include curbing disturbance
and maintaining habitat. In a fundamentally changed precipitation-
evaporation- erosion- and surface runoff cycle, water levels in the lake
have been receding and salinity has increased correspondingly. One island
has been eliminated as a refuge because of an emergent land bridge.
Given the prevailing crop rotations in the watershed, agrochemicals
including pesticides are used extensively. Judging from a series of studies
in and outside of the Redberry Lake watershed, atmospheric drift and
chemical runoff into the lake, and into surface and ground water supplies
can lead to herbicide accumulation by aquaticinvertebrates and affect human
health. The prevailing agricultural land use in and outside of the watershed
is unlikely to be sustainable in the long-term, and human residents are at a
loss as to how to influence current trends in prairie agriculture.
The objectives that are specified in this plan to facilitate the
conservation of Redberry Lake, its bird resources and its ecosystem include
research, monitoring, organization, education and planning. These are:
- develop a plan for the monitoring of bird numbers and all related
ecosystem processes (e.g. salinity, predation) to be able to detect threats
and to enable an adaptive response.
- create an entity whose role it is to unite food consumers and producers
in sustainable and best possible production and consumption that is
consistent with bird protection. This may be viewed as a pilot project at
Redberry Lake, for refinement here, and possible adoption elsewhere.
- use or modify land use programs that are made available from various
levels of government, to assist local residents in integrating sustainable
production, ecosystem integrity and a quality of life.
- strengthen community/stakeholder co-operation, and re-evaluate successes
and failures of the proposed plan.
- encourage linkages between urban and rural Elementary and High School
students to explore the connections between nature, human populations,
food production and consumption, and sustainability.
The Redberry Pelican Project (Canada) Foundation is the
"champion" of this IBA and thus will take the lead in its
conservation. Assistance will be provided by IBA program participants;
Nature Saskatchewan, the Canadian Nature Federation, and Bird Studies
Canada. Finally, the 16 individuals listed in the appendix can also be
counted on for advice.
INTRODUCTION
Bird conservation is not
'just for the birds'. In
a widely acknowledged and
visionary treatment of the
causes, human uses and state
of decline of diverse life
forms on Earth, E.O. Wilson
(1992) suggests that certain
species will will and should
receive special attention.
Wilson points out that individual
species which may be large
and colourful or otherwise
charismatic, often are conservation
favorites even though they
represent a small fraction
of living things. Such species,
Wilson claims, can motivate
conservation at many levels,
from individual to government.
Since no species exists
in isolation from other
species or its environment,
such conservation efforts
already in the first instance
serve to protect elements
of a fuctioning life support
system. If human economics,
cutural and social values
are adapted in addition
to species and systems concerns,
the conservation efforts
will come 'full circle'
and have gone well beyond
the birds.
The purpose of this report is to provide an impetus for further
conservation. Toward this end, this report tries to;
- explain why Redberry Lake had been chosen as an Important Bird Area,
- describe the lake's ecosystem of which the birds are a part,
- outline opportunities and challenges for conservation,
- list potential stakeholders and contact people,
- provide a conceptual backdrop (biological, social and economic) in
which conservation efforts may operate,
- briefly review appropriate literature and thus suggest other resources,
- consider what is known but, for effective plannning, also speculate as
to the potential impact of the unknown, and
- anticipate opportunities and concerns across as many sectors in society
as possible.
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