Lake Erie: Recovery, or requiem?
Aerial view of Point Pelee, ON (Photo by Gerry Kaiser)
Someone recently asked me how I would invest a million dollars to help conserve Lake Erie. My first thoughts were that I would use that money to protect wetlands and other habitats on the coast, or maybe to help farmers create wider buffer strips...
A throwback to working in Backus Woods
Forest canopy in Backus Woods, ON (Photo by Neil Ever Osborne)
I had the pleasure of working for the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) for the summer of 2019 as a conservation technician out of the Norfolk County, Ontario, office. When I first came to Norfolk, I was expecting to see mostly farmland and...
Tackling invasive European common reed
Me on a six-foot ladder amidst European common reed, to illustrate its height and density. (Photo by Courtney Robichaud)
The highs and lows of monitoring the large-scale suppression of Phragmites australis spp. australis My field crew and I are covered in scratches. I’m a PhD student studying the recovery of native vegetation after invasive species control,...
Rooting myself in restoration
All smiles after a full day in the field at the Napanee Plain Alvar Nature Reserve, cutting back sumac and prickly ash to improve the habitat quality for eastern loggerhead shrike. (Photo by Samantha Ceci)
My career in the field of ecosystem restoration has begun to sprout, thanks to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC). It all began with an email last year, where I inquired about volunteering for NCC. I was interested in shifting gears in my...
Opportunities that shaped my view on conservation and the environment
Wetland assessment in Riding Mountain (Photo by NCC)
In June 2018, shortly after graduation from the University of Winnipeg, I began my first internship with the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) Manitoba Region as a stewardship intern. The next year, I was fortunate enough to come...
Conservation on a budget
Lake Erie Farms (Photo by NCC)
This spring, conservation staff from the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) contributed to a study that looked at the most cost-efficient ways to monitor restoration success in Ontario. So what, you may ask? Let me back up a bit and provide some...
Caring for our water is a shared responsibility
Fishing in the lake (Photo by Natasha Overduin)
My partner and I are in a yellow canoe in the cold, dark water, gliding silently as we skirt the lake’s rocky cliff edge. Our canoe is an old, dented tanker, borrowed from a friend for this three-night camping trip on a large lake in the...
Connecting the rivers for our future
Stehelin property, NS (Photo by NCC)
After three years of data collection covering 600,000 kilometres of rivers and streams, and collaboration between two countries and four provinces, Josh Noseworthy, director of conservation science at the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC)...
Success under pressure: Helping landowners succeed with stewardship in southwestern Ontario
Acadian flycatcher (Photo by Bill Hubick)
The Carolinian ecoregion of Canada makes up one per cent of the country’s total land mass and is limited to southwestern Ontario. Many of the region’s 70 tree species — such as tuliptree, pawpaw and sycamore — are found...
Kayaking for conservation: A day in the life of a Nova Scotia conservation biologist
Danielle Horne kayaking (Photo by NCC)
Oh, the winter blues. They make you long for summer’s sunny skies, trilling birdsongs and warm breezes. During the winter and early spring — when I'm sitting in my office — I watch a live stream on my computer of birds at a...
