Publications

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter

Volume 7 Winter 2019

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter Volume 6 Spring 2019

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter Volume 4 Spring 2018

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter Volume 3 Fall/Winter 2017

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter Volume 2 Fall/Winter 2016/2017

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter Volume 1 Fall/Winter 2015/2016

Wondering how to measure the health of your riparian area? This 4-page fact sheet will give you some ideas on why you may want to look at the health of your riparian area, and how you can use the information to make management decisions. It also describes the differences between riparian health assessment and inventory, the benefits of both, and how Cows and Fish can help.

What does riparian health look like? What makes a site healthy or less than healthy? See Riparian Areas: A User’s Guide to Health for a colourful, image based, 46-page booklet to help you tune your eye to what makes up riparian health.

To answer the question “Is this riparian area healthy?”, consider doing a Riparian Health Assessment, and request one of our landowner’s guides to riparian health, better known as Riparian Health Assessment Field Workbooks. These are pocket guides for landowners to easily determine the health of their riparian area and as an education and awareness aid for resource managers:

In the tension between land and water, water always wins. Healthy, well vegetated riparian areas slow the rate of erosion and balance erosion in one spot with bank or shoreline increases through deposition elsewhere. It is extremely difficult to solve erosion problems overnight but once the threat of erosion becomes obvious we tend to want a quick fix. Regaining streambank and shoreline stability may require the temporary use of erosion control structures, especially where insufficient riparian vegetation exists. Solutions may also require a watershed view to see all of the things that contribute to instability.

For streambanks and shorelines that are experiencing accelerated erosion, returning those banks to natural vegetation is generally the best approach. This fact sheet introduces readers to the concept of soil bioengineering, using live woody vegetation that will ‘sprout and grow’. Once the cause of the vegetation loss has been addressed, these techniques may be used to restore eroding banks, knitting banks together and reducing further loss.

Caring for the Green Zone Newsletter

Volume 5 Winter 2018

Demonstration, profile and reference sites are cost effective methods of displaying and testing riparian management options using local producers. Other producers and community members are given the opportunity to educate themselves about riparian management options as well as to discuss and evaluate the benefits and applicability to their region by touching, seeing and examining the site. Demonstration, profile and reference sites are valuable and practical tools for producers and communities. Learn how to select effective demonstration, profile and reference sites.

Demonstration sites test and display riparian management options. They are places where existing riparian management is modified and new techniques are incorporated. Examples include changes in livestock management such as: implementing a rotational grazing or riparian pasture system, adding new water sources, or applying new technology.

Cows and Fish Report No. 020.  2003.  Classification and Management of Riparian and Wetland Sites in Alberta’s Parkland Natural Region and Dry Mixedwood Natural Subregion.  Printed copies available for $60.  For use in Alberta’s Parkland Natural Region, portions of the Boreal Natural Region (Dry Mixedwood Subregion) and adjacent subregions.

Cows and Fish Report #018.  2020. Classification and Management of Riparian and Wetland Sites of Alberta’s Grassland Natural Region.  For use in Alberta’s Grassland Natural Region and adjacent subregions.  Printed copies available for $60.

The Municipal District of Ranchland is located in the foothills of south-western Alberta. This area includes numerous creeks that form the headwaters of part of the Oldman River drainage. We are a community group made up of ranchers, municipal representatives, agricultural service board members, and agricultural fieldmen that represent the 103 people living in the M.D. After a severe flood in 1995, we saw the need to work together more, and also saw our community as part of the bigger area. The flood helped us recognise that neighbours could work together to manage our riparian areas.

Our group consists of several dozen agricultural families, forming a community-based association of landowners along the lower section of Mosquito Creek. Our approach has been a take-charge, proactive one. We feel that it is in the best interest of our community to become involved in the proactive restoration of water quality in the creek.