Second Earth Day expo unveils love of trees and hope for healthy environment

Story and photos by Sharon Harrison

With expanded Earth Day events stretching into their second week in the County, activities continued this week with the second annual environmental expo, an all-day event held at the Prince Edward Community Centre in Picton, where the theme this year was ‘stepping up for the climate’.

A celebration of Earth Day and the environment, it included several informative talks through the morning and afternoon with a variety of environmental and sustainable-themed informal and interactive panel talks, from the future of farming to discovering what role trees play, to hearing about a sustainable future where folks could also learn about transitioning to heat pumps.

The day began early as residents were able to get up to 10 free tree seedlings for planting on their County property, available on a first-come, first-choose basis, as part of a giveaway of 2,000 little trees made available at the Wellington and District Community Centre and Ameliasburgh’s Roblin Lake, in addition to the Prince Edward Community Centre location.

However, the demand for trees far outweighed supply as all 2,000 trees were gone in about 15 minutes at all three locations, where the line-up in Picton reportedly began at 8 a.m., an hour before the posted opening time, leaving some unhappy and empty-handed.

“The good news is we’ve got a lot of people in this County interested in trees, and we’re already looking at how we can expand this for next year,” said Jane Lesslie, environmental advisory committee member. “The good news is we know there are 2,000 trees getting planted today.”

Albert Paschkowiak, environmental services and sustainability supervisor with the County, said he was also encouraged by the interest because it showed people were engaged and were aware of the environmental importance of planting trees on their property. While folks could take up to 10 trees (from a good selection that included white birch, red and white pine, red oak, silver and sugar maples, black cherry, among them), he said the majority of people took advantage of claiming the maximum number.

Recognizing the number of tree seedlings sold or given away in the County this spring, Lise Bois, co-chair with the County Garden Club, said in addition to the County’s tree giveaway of 2,000 trees, the County Garden Club sold 1,200 tree seedlings, and the 4-H Club sold around 1,800 in recent weeks.

“That’s about 5,000 new trees that are going to get planted in the County, and that’s been going on now for four years with the County Garden Club, three years with the municipality, and 4-H has been there forever,” said Bois. “A lot of new tree seedlings get planted and all these organizations make sure they are native to the County, so kudos and bravo for all of us.”

Ewa Bednarczuk and Jennifer Gagné, with Nature Conservancy of Canada , talked trees.

Picton ward councillor Kate MacNaughton, also an environmental advisory committee member, is the driving force behind the environmental expo, where tree talk began the day’s line-up of panel discussions as ecology experts Jennifer Gagné and Ewa Bednarczuk (both with the Nature Conservancy of Canada; Bednarczuk is also with the natural cover group, a sub-set of the environmental advisory committee), exchanged a series of questions with each other, and then opened the floor to audience questions.

The pair shared their passion for trees, touching on the necessity of urban forests and why it’s important to care about forest cover, the values of trees as climate superheroes, and the complexity of forest communities, along with carbon sequestration and the importance of ecological restoration.

The useful advice spoke to what individuals can do to help the environment, increase habitat, what native trees and plants are, and the best trees to plant where, as well as getting into the controversial topic of assisted migration (the benefits and dangers) which Gagné described as the human-mediated movement of species.

“When I come up to a tree that I think is incredible, large, beautiful, this is just this stoic beauty to it, and I love the idea that they have so many stories,” said Gagné, “and with oak trees that live hundreds of years, they have been there through so much change and have just persevered so much, yet they are so quiet; they are just listening.”

She also spoke to how important it is not to look at individual trees, but to forests as a whole.

“When we look at single things, we lose focus for the bigger picture,” she said, “and so I think it’s really important to step back and say, what do you have, what do we need, what habitats do we want, rather than getting into the details of single trees.”

Bednarczuk agreed saying she thinks of things as community versus single individuals, saying “you can do and accomplish so much more, and support so much more life as a community of plants.”

They also addressed the ash tree situation in the County regarding the emerald ash borer that has been attacking and killing-off the ash population.

“The forest in Prince Edward County and southern Ontario is in a state of flux,” Bednarczuk said. “I’m sure a lot of people are curious what’s going to happen with the ash, and what happens when the emerald ash borer eats all the ash that are available. Will the ash ever come back?”

Gagné said a similar thing happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s with Dutch elm disease that affected elm species. Bednarczuk noted how forests in eastern North America (including the County) have been undergoing massive changes over the last 200 years or so as clearing has taken place for agriculture, development, etc., where several native tree species have seen significant declines.

“Eventually, the world will figure out its way to keep things in balance, but now with all these invasive species that we have, they are filling in these holes of ash trees.”

She also spoke to lingering ash, and said they thought there was no resistance originally when emerald ash borer came and started killing the ash trees, but there are some ash trees that are showing resistance.

“It might not be perfect resistance, and they could still be attacked, but as the beetle moves through and is killing all the trees, the trees re-sprout as it’s a deciduous tree, so that means if you cut a deciduous tree, often you’ll have sprouts coming out,” Gagné said. “And we will eventually get stronger genetics of these trees and more resistant ash, and after a while, I hope, we can develop stronger genetic diversity of resistant ash trees.”

Bednarczuk also touched on how it is a bad idea to plant just one species to replace lost trees.

“The thing that will save us from every danger is diversity, whether its diversity of species, diversity of different ages, different types of plants (not just trees, but shrubs, flowers, grasses),” she said. “Think of diversity when you are thinking of your own property and doing your part for your little corner of the world: I strongly encourage folks to think of a diversity of species.”

The full day of activities and events also came with the opportunity for the public to test drive an electric vehicle (EV) where several EVs were made available by Plug ‘n Drive for folks to take one of the cars for a quick spin.

County mayor Steve Ferguson is joined by Chris French (Aviva Canada) and Valérie Mallamo (Earth Day Canada) at the official opening of the new EV charging station at the Crystal Palace.

County mayor Steve Ferguson also officially opened the new EV charging station located beside the Crystal Palace, and was joined by Valérie Mallamo (Earth Day Canada executive director), Christine Malik (sustainability manager, Aviva Canada), and Chris French (vice-present broker distribution for greater Ontario, Aviva Canada), along with several other representatives.

The program is an initiative that aims to bring chargers to communities that lack EV infrastructure, and it is one of three new charging stations now installed and open in the County, with the others being at Wellington and District Community Centre parking lot and the Bloomfield Main Street parking lot.

Valérie Mallamo with Earth Day Canada, demonstrates a fill-up on her own EV

The chargers were installed by the municipality through a grant received from the Charged for Change program delivered by Earth Day Canada and funded by Aviva Insurance, and are the first public charging stations to be installed as part of this program, said Chris French.

Valérie Mallamo said she came to celebrate Earth Day, and share some information on environmental action.

“A lot of people don’t understand how much it is important, in the big scope of things, when you think about greenhouse gas emissions, a big culprit in Canada is burning and producing fossil fuels,” said Mallamo. “If we can reduce that dependency on fossil fuels, we are going to make a big dent in our greenhouse gases, which is why Earth day Canada supports electrification.”

She said the Charged for Change program may seem small, but it is important. “It is contributing significantly to filling those gaps [in communities] and making sure everybody gets the chance to join and participate.”

Chris French with Aviva Canada

Ferguson spoke to the importance of the environmental expo event when it comes to awareness of environmental issues.

“We learned through the creation of the community plan, which we undertook a few years ago, that the community of Prince Edward County really wants everybody to work together to find solutions on climate change.”

The scheduled talks continued into the afternoon and covered the future of farming which addressed sustainable agricultural practices and farmland protection measures that are contributing to the fight against climate change and supporting the economic stability and resilience of farming communities.

The panel consisted of Martin Straathof (Ontario Farmland Trust executive director), Jeremy Laurin (Loyalist College, senior VP strategy and transformation), farmer Dee Hazell (Stonefield Eden Alpacas), and Ben van Rijn (Return to Earth farms), where a fascinating conversation ensued about what’s happening with farmland generally, the Farmland Trust’s role, as Hazell and van Rijn spoke to their individual farming experiences.

The afternoon wrapped up with panel discussions on the benefits of switching to a heat pump with two homeowner experiences shared, followed by a chat with County staff changemakers, closing with a talk on a sustainable future.

Councillor Kate MacNaughton with County homeowner Darrel Furlotte, and the County’s Albert Paschkowiak talk heat pumps

Surya Narayan Santhakumar

Grade 9 Eastside Secondary School (Belleville) student, Surya Narayan Santhakumar, this year’s winner of the Quinte Regional Science and Technology Fair also had his project set-up as he engaged with visitors.

Describing his project as “incredibly fascinating and very clever“, councillor MacNaughton said Surya is a “perennial participant in the region’s science fairs, has impact and has had some great successes”.

“I always had a passion for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and coding, and my project is net-zero commute: innovative and sustainable routing platforms,” said Surya.

“Did you know that climate change is expected to cause one million deaths by the end of the century? According to the International Energy Agency, 32 per cent of all carbon emissions come from transportation, so is there any way that’ll help reduce it, carbon emissions, and also positively impact environment, and also promote human well-being?”

He said, yes, his solution to the problem is net-zero, where he explained about his net zero commutes mobile application that will reduce carbon emissions for cities and communities.

Attendance for this second annual free environmental expo, however, was much lower than expected, where free trees, a free lunch and refreshments, free electric vehicle test drives, along with tons of free information and advice from some really neat experts about some really neat stuff, wasn’t enough to entice residents to drop by the arena throughout the day-long event, despite the interesting and varied programming on offer.

A number of local groups and organizations formed part of the set-up, including the County Garden Club and the Ameliasburgh Garden Club, the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, Friends of Sandbanks, the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists, the West Lake Community Association, the South Shore Joint Initiative and Nature Conservancy Canada, among them.