The Nature Conservancy of Canada is offering a workshop next week in Swift Current to help grazing lands and native grasslands thrive.

Shrub encroachment is becoming a larger issue locally according to the non-profit and they're hoping to provide solutions to ranchers and farmers.

Krista Ellingson, the manager of the Working Landscapes Program for Nature Conservancy of Canada, said there are a few different options to combat the shrub expansion.

"We want to get together and see what other people are doing," she said. "What types of control options being used in different parts of the province and how we can use these tools to achieve the management objectives that we're all looking for."

The majority of shrubs species are native to the area but their population in some parts can be detrimental if not dealt with. The repercussions can be felt in the ecosystem and on wildlife like the grassland's songbird, which are already a species at-risk.

"There's part of a tipping point where they become very dominant and can exclude grazing and also start to shift the plant community in a way that our native wildlife is left able to use those habitats," she said.

Ellingson believes the issue has been in the making for about 150 years but due to it developing slowly they're only now becoming aware of it.

"I think that there's been a suppression of fire on the prairies," she said. "There's also been shift in some of our grazing species where now what was once bison dominant system without fence lines is now cattle grazed system."

The workshop is next Wednesday hosted at the Coast Hotel and begins at 10 a.m. with registration required.