Showing posts with label Forest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forest. Show all posts

Monday, March 30, 2015

Robinson Tract Town Whitchurch-Stouffville

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 312 - 365













Spending time in nature can relieve stress and improve your memory performance and attention span.


The York Regional Forest Ontario Canada is open to the public 365 days per year with no cost to enter. The York Regional Forest is made up of 2,300 hectares of protected land, located in different parts of the Region. Eighteen properties with more than 120 kilometres of trail are available to the public


Robinson Tract  Address: 14989 Warden Ave, Whitchurch-Stouffville, ON L4A 7X5


Maps of the tracts available for the public are available free of charge at the entrance of the tracts and on the internet


The York Regional Forest is our legacy for future generations.


Nature appreciation including wildlife watching is a welcome activity in the York Regional Forest. In the forest people can see red squirrels and chipmunks, woodpeckers, nuthatches and warblers, garter snakes toads and frogs, deer fox and raccoons.


Red pine plantations make up part of the York Regional Forest.
Environment conditions have led to the roots of red pine trees becoming infected with root rotting fungi. Over the past several years, this infection has caused the death and decline of plantations in the region.
York Region is:

  • Monitoring the condition’s status
  • Removing dead or declining red pine trees that pose a hazard to trails
  • Planting new trees in infected plantations
  • Changing tree removal operations to reduce the impact on infected areas and reduce the spread into other areas
  • Converting heavily infected areas to young hardwood forests

York Region organize events for the public.


Here are some sample events in the forest for 2015

Saturday, April 25, 2015 | 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
North Tract, 17054 Hwy. 48, Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville
Celebrate Earth Week and discover the many health benefits of walking in the forest. Learn tips to decrease your impact on the wild places you love.  Registration required.

Migratory Bird Day

Saturday, May 9, 2015 | 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Happy Valley Forest Tract, 15430 7th Concession, Township of King
Site is challenging to find. In Pottageville, turn south from Lloydtown-Aurora Rd. onto 7th Concession, drive for 2.4 kilometres, location on west side.
Celebrate Migratory Bird Day in the rolling hills of the Happy Valley Forest. Learn bird calls and identification tips from bird experts and staff from the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Registration required.

Spring Forest Festival and Tree Planting

Saturday, May 30, 2015 | 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
North Tract, 17054 Hwy. 48, Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville
Celebrate spring by planting trees! Take a horse-drawn wagon ride, hold slithering snakes, see birds of prey, take home a tree seedling to plant and much more. Learn about the Region’s Greening Strategy and our forest partners. Don’t forget your work gloves and shovel! Open to all.

Learn-to-Hike

Saturday, June 6, 2015 | 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Porritt Tract, 15470 Kennedy Road, Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville
Learn how to stay safe and comfortable while hiking in the forest. Find out how easy and fun a hike can be for the whole family. Meet hike leaders from the Oak Ridges Trail Association. Registration required.

Native Plants Walk

Saturday, July 11, 2015 | 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Bendor and Graves Tract, 17689 Kennedy Road, Town of East Gwillimbury
Learn how to identify common native and invasive plants found in our forest. Discover beautiful native plants you can grow in your garden and learn what plants to avoid. Registration required.

Links

http://www.york.ca/wps/portal/yorkhome/environment/yr/forests/outdooreducation/yorkregionalforestwalksandevents

http://www.york.ca/wps/portal/yorkhome/environment/yr/environmentresources

http://www.york.ca/wps/portal/yorkhome/environment/yr/forests/yorkregionalforest

https://youtu.be/0cq7o08INTo

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Forest Caribou in Alberta and Habitat Reclamation

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 274-365












Caribou are one of Canada’s most recognizable national symbols, but their populations are under threat in Alberta for a number of reasons, including the effects of industrial development on habitat, the effects of global warming and because they’re increasingly being hunted by wolves which have increased in population and range in response to an increase in numbers of deer and moose, their primary prey.

During oil and gas exploration activities over the past 40 years, fragmentation occurred in the boreal forest as corridors were cut to accommodate seismic exploration and access routes for exploration drilling. 

The Algar Project takes an integrated regional approach, with six companies working together to repair fragmented habitat across an area of land outside of their actual license areas. The project includes a five-year program to replant trees and shrubs along the linear footprint within the Algar Region, covering an area approximately 570 square kilometers (km2) southwest of Fort McMurray.

No much have been done to reclaim the oil land
Scientists studying the ravaged caribou habitat of Alberta's northwestern foothills say they have found so much disturbance from decades of industrial use that restoration of the terrain will have to be selective.

Loss of Bisons on the plane.
Alberta is still selling of the forest. It is possible to do something about it?

Alberta is looking as a post apocalyptic war zone.

Can we do something about it? It is too late?

Deforestation in Alberta is worse than in Brazil

There are more than 16,000 kilometres of seismic lines, cut by the energy industry through the forest, within the study area's 13,000 square kilometres.
About five per cent of range for the Little Smoky and a la Peche caribou herds remains undisturbed — a long way from the federal government's 65 per cent target.
Wolves normally prefer to prey on deer and moose, but seismic lines allow them to penetrate into the deep woods where caribou hide.
Caribou also normally avoid coming within 500 metres of a seismic line, making every line, in effect, a kilometre wide.
In 2012 The oil companies paid 1 billion dollars in rights to drill for oil and leases of land.
Who is going to protect those that cannot protect themselves.
The ministry of the environment is promoting the lease of the lands.
Canada needs to consider a better solutions. It is not only the responsibility of the government to protect the environment.
We can live a prosperous life without destroying the forest and the land and the caribou.
If you look at the attached Environment Canada map (above) of boreal woodland caribou across Canada, it’s Alberta where most of the herds are at highest risk of dying out under current policies. This affects the genetic diversity and viability of neighbouring B.C., the North West Territories and Saskatchewan caribou populations. 
Beyond that, caribou are indicators of whether the boreal and foothills forests are healthy. If we change how these forests are managed so that caribou populations can recover (which Alberta states is its policy goal), then our northern Mackenzie watershed will be healthier, and many other species will benefit too, such as migratory birds that depend on old growth forest and intact wetlands.” 

Links