Prairies Ecozone
The Prairies Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which spans the southern areas of the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It is a productive agricultural area, and is commonly referred to as "Canada's breadbasket". Farmland covers about 94% of the land, and is the dominant domestic economic activity of the zone, as well as an important factor in Canadian foreign trade. Natural gas and oil are abundant in the area. The corresponding Level II ecoregion of the US Environmental Protection Agency is the Great Plains Ecoregion. Geography Following Alberta's border with British Columbia, this ecozone is adjacent to the Montane Cordillera on the west. The two zones are bifurcated by the Boreal Plains about 70 kilometres southwest of Calgary, which also wraps around the remaining extent of the zone north of the United States border toward the Red River Valley. It is part of the Interior Plains, the Canadian extension of the Great Plains, and covers approximately 520,000 square kilometres of land and water. Establishment of the agricultural industry has had a significant effect on the land, which now retains "little of the natural vegetation" it had before the area was settled. Fewer than half of the original