A long-term tree removal initiative near Wasagaming in Riding Mountain National Park is pretty much done for the winter, but the project is ongoing.
Reade Tereck, fire technician at RMNP, says the current phase is almost complete but you shouldn't see anybody working until spring-time when they do the final site clean-up.
The project dates back to 1990, with the goal of reducing wildfire risk of Wasagaming and returning the grasslands to their natural state.
The project has seen some increased urgency in the past half-decade.
Tereck says a spruce bug worm outbreak about five years ago in the Lake Audy area killed many trees and high winds uprooted others., causing a lot of problems with the soil.
"The soil layer that's there, because it was grassland, is quite important to us. We want it to remain in good state so that we can restore grasslands on top of these old plantations. We want to restore them back to what they were before."
25 hectares of plantation in the Wasagaming area still need to be managed.
