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b"Less than five percent of Alberta is comprised of native prairie on public lands. The 7000-year-old remnants of native prairie are of immeasurable value in preserving biodiversity, maintaining healthy watersheds, sequestering carbon, sustaining livestock production and providing outdoor recreation opportunities for a rapidly growing human population in southern Alberta. Albertans value native prairie and their public lands.\\n\\nThe speaker will suggest current law and policy regarding public land sale reflects an outdated ideology that defines progress as turning the prairie into a human enterprise, such as tame pasture, cultivated fields or industrial development. The taking of public land by individuals or corporations willing to pay for it is secretly sanctioned by Cabinet on an ad hoc basis without public input. Proposals to change this situation have fallen on deaf ears.\\n\\nThe storm over the recent application to Alberta\\u2019s Minister of Sustainable Resource Development that would see 25 sections of native prairie on public land near Bow Island turned into potato fields has been brewing for many years. Conservation interests appear to have been shut out. That Cabinet is surprised by the public outrage suggests they are disturbingly out of touch.\\n\\nSpeaker: \\tCheryl Bradley P. Biol.\\n\\nCheryl Bradley is a professional biologist who has worked in conservation biology and development of environmental law and policy for three decades. She is a long-standing and active member of Alberta\\u2019s Prairie Conservation Forum, the Alberta Native Plant Council, the Southern Alberta Group for Environment, and the Urban Team of the Oldman Watershed Council. She has served on the Board of the Environmental Law Centre and is a founding Board member of Water Matters. Cheryl has received several awards, including an Emerald Award, for her volunteer work in nature conservation.\\n\\n\\n\\nNOTE correction to one of Cheryl's answer:\\n\\nHere is a list of facts from an article about public lands by Joyce Hildebrand written in the December 2007 Wildlands Advocate:\\n\\nTotal Area of Alberta \\u2013 662,583 km2\\n\\nPublic Land - 60% of Alberta (397,550 km2)\\n\\nPrivate Land - 28.5% of Alberta (virtually all in the White Area of southern Alberta) (188,836 km2)\\n\\nGreen Area (unsettled) - 47% of Alberta (311,414 km2)\\n\\nPublic Land in Green Area \\u2013 47% of Alberta (311,414 km2)\\n\\nWhite Area (settled) \\u2013 31% of Alberta (205,400 km2)\\n\\nPublic Land in White Area - 2.5% (16,564)\\n\\n(excludes federal land (10% of Alberta), provincial protected areas (4.2% of Alberta), tax recovery lands and areas covered by water (2.5% of Alberta)"