Monday, February 20, 2023

Tree Planting Project at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, New Brunswick (2022)

Replant.ca Environmental started a long-term planting project at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in 2021.  We continued this work in the Fall of 2022.  Hopewell Rocks is located in southeastern New Brunswick.  This work was made possible thanks to a sponsorship from the Trees For Life organization.

Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park is only a 35 minute drive from Moncton, down to the south through Riverview.  The park is situated on the world-famous Bay of Fundy.  The park itself doesn't have camping sites, although there are private campgrounds open to the public only a few minutes away (such as the Ponderosa Pines campground).

 



Here's a graphic (courtesy of Google Earth) showing the location of the park:

 


Hopewell Rocks is famous due to its iconic beach rocks, which tell a story interwoven by time, tides, and the intricacies of nature.  Located on what is officially known as the Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site, these rocks (also known as the Flowerpot Rocks) are composed of sandstone and sedimentary conglomerate rock.  The rock formations were originally part of the shoreline, but over time, water eroded cracks in the cliffs and eventually caused some parts to appear to have become "separated" from the main cliffs.  As tides come in and out, the water gradually erodes the base of the rocks underneath the high tide line, causing the unique shape.  In 2016, part of the Elephant Rock sheared off, as was noted in this CBC article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/hopewell-rocks-new-brunswick-collapse-1.3491431

That article has some good photos, including a photo at the bottom that illustrates the enormous difference in water level between low tide and high tide.  The Bay of Fundy has some of the world's largest tides.

And then in 2022, we lost the Flowerpot Rock (located on the Fundy Trail Parkway, not within Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park):

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/flowerpot-rock-new-brunswick-attraction-1.6362819

If you'd like to learn more about Hopewell Rocks, this website is a great resource:

www.parcsnbparks.info/en/parks/33/hopewell-rocks-provincial-park

 

Unfortunately, some of the seedlings that we planted in 2021 didn't survive.  A few got mowed accidentally, but there was also mortality in the exposed areas (especially throughout and around the parking lot) which initially puzzled us.  We didn't see this same issue with widespread mortality on the numerous other sites that we planted in 2021.  It's possible that the stock that we used on this site was the problem, but we don't think so.  We also examined the possibility of salt in the area contributing to the issue, due to the proximity of the ocean, but three other coastal sites that we planted in 2021 did quite well in comparison.  After some debate, we finally decided that the heat wave of August 2022 was probably the culprit.

The Maritime provinces had a record-breaking heat wave in early August, and we did see evidence of scattered and intermittent recent seedling mortality when we re-visited 2021 sites such as Victoria Park, Murray Beach, and Parlee Beach in September.  But the problem was much more severe in Hopewell Rocks than on those other sites, and perhaps not coincidentally, the seedlings at Hopewell Rocks were also the ones that were the most exposed to sunlight and heat (and pavement adjacent to the seedlings).  Trees in areas that were shaded from the afternoon sun seemed to survive, but exposed trees didn't.  The evidence seems quite strong that the heat wave was the root cause, which is disheartening but not completely unexpected.  Climate change is real, and it's a challenge in many ways.  Until these seedlings have a chance to get established for about three years, they'll continue to be especially susceptible to high temperatures.  But we will not give up.

The Replant.ca Environmental team planted 15,044 new young seedlings within the park in 2022.  We plan to eventually provide more than sixteen different species (six conifers and ten deciduous) to the park.  Most of the seedlings in this year's program were scattered throughout the understory beside the maintenance trails and the new hiking trail, anywhere that the woods were thin and needed reinforcement.  These young trees will all get some intermittent shade and sunshine throughout the day, and shouldn't have any problems with future heat waves.  Meanwhile, for the open areas from 2021 that experienced mortality, we're going to try a different approach in 2024 with larger stock that is already growing now in preparation.



Here are a few photos of the team in action at Hopewell Rocks, although we didn't take as many photos on this site as we did the previous year:

 

 


 

You can see more photos of our 2022 tree planting work in our public 2022 Planting Photos folder on Dropbox.

We'd like to thank Erika (the Park Manager) and her staff for their hospitality and support while we were on site.  We definitely look forward to returning to the park in the future to continue the work that Trees For Life is making possible.


Jonathan "Scooter" 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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