Our organization did some more tree planting work in Caribou-Munroes Island Provincial Park this past September (of 2021). This work was funded by the Trees For Life organization. You can learn more about them from their website at: www.treesforlife.ca
This provincial park is located on the north shore of Nova Scotia, near Pictou. Here's an overview graphic of eastern Canada, courtesy of Google Earth, which shows the location of the park:
This project was put together to repair some of the extensive damage that happened in the park in 2019 due to Hurricane Dorian.
Here's an aerial photo of the park, taken before the hurricane:
The hurricane hit on September 7th, 2019. Here's another aerial photo, taken after the hurricane:
Damage within the park was extensive. The park staff did an excellent job of cleaning up the mess, but the open spaces then invited some restoration work.
In 2020, we discussed our desire to assist with this work, and the park staff were very happy to accommodate. The park foresters estimated that approximately fifteen acres (six hectares) of the core camping area within the park had been hit the hardest, with lesser damages elsewhere. We decided that this project would be approached in multiple phases. We would plant several thousand trees in the fall of 2020, and follow that up with a second larger phase of planting in the fall of 2021.
We commenced our work that fall (2020), initially funded by public donations. We certainly got off to a good start that year, planting almost five thousand seedlings. However, we knew that more trees still needed to be added, and the project really began to have a major impact in 2021 with the support of the Trees For Life organization. The support that we received from them funded the planting of 9,458 more trees in 2021!!
The following graphic shows approximately where new seedlings have been added so far. Some of the seedlings were planted in open areas where trees were lost to the hurricane, and others were scattered as an underplant under various sections of existing partial canopy:
Our species mix to date for this project has included a total of ten species. We've planted four types of conifers (red spruce, eastern white pine, eastern larch, and a handful of black spruce seedlings). We've also planted six species of deciduous hardwoods to date (white birch, yellow birch, sugar maple, red maple, mountain ash, and red oak). When we return in 2022, we hope to have a few additional hardwood species that were not available to us in 2020 or 2021. Our plan is to sprinkle those trees throughout the already-planted areas, to enhance the diversity.
Here's are a few photos from our work at Caribou in 2021:
The second phase of planting on this project went very smoothly. We're looking forward to returning next year to wrap up the final phase of the restoration work. The project is getting close to completion now, and the addition of a few more hardwood species will finish this project in 2022.
You can see more photos of our 2021 tree planting work in our public 2021 Planting Photos folder on Dropbox.
We'd like to thank the staff at the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry for helping organize this project, and again to the Trees For Life organization for making this work possible.
You can see more photos of our 2021 tree planting work in our public 2021 Planting Photos folder on Dropbox.
If you'd like to learn more about Caribou-Munroes Island Provincial Park, visit their website:
parks.novascotia.ca/park/caribou-munroes-island
Thanks for reading!
- Jonathan Clark
Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests. We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases. We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world. If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page. Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!
To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website. Thanks so much for your interest!
Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects. Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.
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