THUNDER BAY- Confederation College held a tree planting event in celebration of project to rehabilitate the lands near the rivers around the college’s Thunder Bay Campus.
“Today we’re celebrating our Riparian Habitat Rehabilitation Project that we’ve established here on our main campus in Thunder Bay, and really, to become stewards of the land and encourage the protection of our environment,” said college president Kathleen Lynch.
“When you look around, the students have really been part and parcel of this whole project, they’ve been involved in planting the trees and designing the pathways and restoring the habitats.”
The project was made possible through funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada through the Great Lakes Protection Initiative with the objective to restore the water quality and aquatic ecosystem health of Canadian Great Lakes Areas of Concern.
The federal initiative awarded Confederation College a total of $75,000 over two years for the project. Confederation College and the City of Thunder Bay also provided financial and in-kind support.
“Confederation College has done incredible work to restore and protect one of the natural spaces we are fortunate to find throughout the city of Thunder Bay,” said MP Patty Hajdu.
“In Northwestern Ontario we work and play within our natural environment and appreciate the importance of these spaces. It is an honour to be here to see the completion of such an inclusive and environmentally conscious project,”
Students in the Environmental Technician Program played an instrumental role in this endeavour, during which, they gaining hands-on environmental restoration, rehabilitation and sustainability experience.
“The more naturalized spaces that we have, we have better infiltration of the water into the ground water instead of it running off and becoming more flooding events, and so, these are the kinds of things you’re seeing around town, a lot of these projects, and this is a big one we’ve completed at the college,” said Sandra Stiles, Confederation College Environmental Technician program coordinator.
“This entire space is a part of the project and in encompasses about 10 hectares, so, all the way through the campus where the river is, we’ve extended the riparian zones, we planted shrubs and trees allowing it to re- naturalize, and also included a pollinator garden and an Indigenous themed garden as well.”
Lynch also announced that single-use water bottles have been replaced entirely with water refill stations located throughout the College effective this fall.
Additionally, there are no more plastic bottles of any beverage being sold on campus now.
For more on Confederation College’s Sustainability efforts, please visit: https://www.confederationcollege.ca/sustainability
