Alberta conservationist says he was fired after speaking up about threatened habitat

By Brett McKay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Investigative Journalism Foundation

May 31, 2026

As Jacob Fercho walked through native prairie in an Alberta conservation area, he saw that the site he had been tasked with mapping to make way for a tree planting project was home to a more delicate ecosystem than the marginal land described in public-facing plans.

Roughly 40-acres of land in a northern section of the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area (ASCCA) is slated to be converted into a memorial forest in partnership with Calgary-based McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes where people can opt to have a tree planted in memory of a loved one. An information page for the project plan stated that the areas “chosen as memorial forest sites are not especially ecologically sensitive.”

But the same location overlaps with a range of native grassland previously identified in ASCCA research and planning documents as “by far the most threatened environment” on the property.

Fercho, who had worked as the land and habitat coordinator for ASCCA for the last four years, said he began raising the issue of the memorial forest location with the conservation area’s CEO Ryan Caswell in September 2025, but his concerns were brushed aside.

“I had expressed to Ryan in very clear terms that me having been requested to map out the site without there having been any ground-truthing performed or any environmental assessment of the ecology of the site led to me having quite serious internal moral and professional conflict — and I would say mental distress — due to having felt like I was roped into mapping an environmentally harmful project,” Fercho said.

Grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems globally, and the Alberta Prairie Conservation Forum estimates that only about 37 per cent of the province’s once-vast grasslands remain intact. Less than two per cent of Alberta grasslands are located in parks or other legally protected areas.

Between four and eight per cent of the land in the ASCCA is native grassland, according to the organization. Around half of the land in the conservation area consists of pastures of introduced grasses, which Fercho said could be used for the memorial forest to avoid impacting threatened ecosystems.

Locations of memorial forest and native grassland

“In fact, if we were to put the memorial forest in one of the old, historic hay fields that are now just degraded . . . it would actually improve the area somewhat,” he said.

There is already one McInnis & Holloway memorial forest located in the conservation area, which was planted in 2020 and 2021 in pastureland a few kilometres south of the new site.

After Fercho raised concerns about the chosen location, the ASCCA website was updated to remove reference to the memorial forest site not being especially ecologically sensitive and a section was added providing a rationale for planting trees in the open prairie pockets. The plans for the memorial forest itself weren’t changed.

Fercho says he was fired without cause on April 13.

“It’s very difficult to ignore the timing regarding me having escalated concerns with this project,” he said.

The conservation area’s website states that in the coming months, “the area will be developed to include a walking path, sheltered rest area and signage to direct visitors, all with as minimal an impact on the land and habitat as possible.”

Caswell told the IJF that the project details and approvals haven’t been finalized, and they “are undertaking due diligence with subject matter experts as part of the planning and evaluation process for the proposed memorial forest project.”

Caswell did not directly respond to questions about why the location for the new memorial forest was chosen or the change to the conservation area’s website regarding the location not being ecologically sensitive.

“As part of our review process, we are consulting with qualified professionals and subject matter experts with education and experience in this field before any decisions are made or work is completed. We recognize and respect that individuals may hold differing opinions regarding land management priorities, including questions related to habitat, restoration, and cultural use of landscapes,” he said.

Caswell did not respond to questions about details of the arrangement with the funeral home including what revenue the project is expected to generate for the conservation area.

Caswell said that as a matter of policy, the ASCCA does not comment on employee or personnel matters.

On May 26, Caswell notified Fercho that he had been formally prohibited from entering the conservation area and that law enforcement would be called if he stepped foot on the grounds.

The ASCCA operates on 4,800 acres of public lands leased under Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, and the organization has authority as the leaseholder to restrict access to lands and buildings under its control.

Habitat destruction or natural process?

A frequently asked questions section of the memorial forest webpage acknowledges concerns about planting trees in grasslands and says that these areas were historically maintained “by natural fire and Indigenous stewardship,” which are less common today, and that interventions like controlled burning required to manage open grasslands aren’t feasible near communities.

“As a result, grasslands naturally transition to shrubs and trees over time, a well-established ecological process across Alberta and North America,” the ASCCA website states.

The grasslands are unique among the world’s major biomes, said Eric Lamb, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies plant and fire ecology and grassland conservation. While you can reliably predict the location of a rainforest or arctic tundra by looking at average temperature and precipitation, the places you find prairies could just as easily be woodland, shrubland, forest or desert.

“The thing that keeps them grasslands is recurring disturbance,” such as regular grazing or fire, Lamb explained. And if one or both of these factors are absent, there is a risk that the plains will be taken over by shrubland or forest.

“I would not describe this as a natural process, because grasslands naturally have large herbivores on them, and grasslands naturally burn on a fairly regular basis,” he said. “The reason why these sites are reverting to forest is because we as humans have removed a natural process from the landscape.”

Practices like using cattle grazing to mimic these natural processes have been effectively adopted by conservation agencies in Canada to keep prairies healthy, Lamb said. But in general, grasslands and the species that rely on them are threatened by encroachment. Lamb is currently researching the population decline of rough fescue — the official grass of Alberta and one of the species found in the ASCCA grasslands — which he and his colleagues suspect now meets the criteria of the Species at Risk Act.

“There’s lots of grassland species that are very vulnerable. And so, any piece of grassland habitat is of value. And if it’s never been plowed, it may be of extremely high value,” he said.

The ASCCA adaptive management plan for 2015–2040 recommends that strategic rotational grazing be used for vegetation management, with care taken to protect native grasses and the land from erosion. As early as 2005, strategy documents show the conservation area had considered controlled burning to mimic wildfires but ruled the technique was “too fraught with public relation issues” to be feasible and opted to focus on grazing and active weed control to preserve grasslands.

Jeff Hagel, president of McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, said the company’s tree planting program is an important part of how they support families, and site selection has always been done with environmental considerations front of mind.