Grasslands are among the richest, most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, and they are crucial in the fight against climate change. Unfortunately, since 1970 Canada has lost more than 40 percent of its grasslands, and less than 15 percent of Saskatchewan’s grasslands exist today. The province has some of the highest CO2 and methane emissions per capita and virtually no environmental regulations. How did we allow the grasslands to become one of the most endangered ecosystems on Earth?

In some sense, the story of Saskatchewan fits rather neatly into the larger story of Western Canada, where politicians often care more about extraction and growing the economy while destroying the very things the economy depends on. But that isn’t the whole story.

Much like Canada’s universal health care, Saskatchewan is also the birthplace of some of the first provincial and national conservation laws, and home to an unsung and unlikely champion for the environment: a farmer with a twelfth-grade education and a really old van…

In Protecting the Prairies, Andrea Olive provides a history of wildlife and land conservation in Saskatchewan told through the life story of environmentalist, naturalist, farmer, and former Minister of Environment and Resource Management Lorne Scott. This is a book that challenges and inspires us to be stewards of the environment in our own backyards and communities, and above all, to never be complacent when it comes to protecting the natural world.

Andrea Olive is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Geography at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Olive completed her PhD at Purdue University in 2009 where she taught courses in environmental policy and was assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Dearborn before coming to the University of Toronto, Mississauga in the summer of 2012. She is the author of Land, Stewardship, and Legitimacy: Endangered Species Policy in Canada and the United States (UTP, 2014).

Andrea Olive's profile page

• Short-listed, The Hill Times Best Books of the Year

"Protecting the Prairies gives the reader an inside look at how conservation policy has been shaped by humans willing to make compromises to achieve their goals...this book fills in a gap about Saskatchewan’s history of conservation politics. And the details of Lorne Scott’s lifelong contributions bring those politics to life.”—The Otter (Network in Canadian History & Environment)

"...brings humanity and warmth to the politics of conservation." —Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood
"A compelling, eloquent, and wise book." —Daniel Macfarlane, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Western Michigan University

"A wonderful story of a man who has given most of his life to protecting Saskatchewan's natural environment." —Ken Ludwig, president of Nature Saskatchewan