Invest in your planet on Earth Day 2022

This year, Red Deer is also taking part in the Year of the Garden, an initiative of the Canadian Garden Council. Red Deer County and Bowden are also taking part.

“With our garden plot locations, we are providing a water source this year, and there will be resources connecting users to the web, all because we want people to be smart about gardening. We want to be holding moisture in the soil, in the plant roots where it’s needed, and we don’t want soil to sit bare,” Lehman explains. “We want to encourage efficient gardening where people are covering up with mulch and working in organics. You can water every day, but if it’s in the heat, it’s really inefficient.”

The City is also continuing its plant rebate and rain barrel rebate programs, offering residents more incentive to grow and beautify.

The City utilizes its Environmental Master Plan which stipulates that the environment be taken into consideration in most types of projects.

“We want to educate people and trigger their ‘I care’ factor,” Lehman continues. “When people understand how many foxes are denning in the city, and understand how those types of patterns exist, and understand more about the incredible wildlife in the city, people can get energized about the environment.”

The City’s mosquito control program is starting soon, while beaver management also starts this time of year.

“We’re not trying to eliminate them. They’re important to holding water on the landscape. A lot of trees we have adjacent to waterways thrive because of beavers. They get chewed down, then spring up. In a way, the trees need that knock down, regrowth cycle,” says Lehman.” But we also wrap trees we don’t want to be chewed down, for instance if they’re big trees or if we don’t want beaver to back up water onto a trail system. We use a type of flow-through device that allows the beaver to persist.”

Todd Nivens, executive director, Waskasoo Environmental Education Society (WEES) and Kerry Wood Nature Centre, says another great initiative they run for The City is Green Deer, a city-wide litter cleanup.

WEES also facilitates the local Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup event, and is collaborating on work with the Parkland Airshed Management Zone (PAMZ).

“Everything we do out of the Nature Centre, within the parks system, all the initiatives we pursue with partners and government, are about building what we call a population of eco-literate citizens,” says Nivens.

“Investing in the planet for us is about starting really young and encouraging people who are making decisions in their lives to take the planet and nature into account. Whether it’s a decision about their housing, recreation, transportation or career, they should at least be factoring in what the effect their decision may have on the planet. It’s about a mindset that our decisions have implications.”

Nivens believes discussion about the environment and climate change, natural spaces, resources extraction and use, is too often framed as one of extremes.

“It’s too easy to get put into a box, for instance, if you’re making decisions that lean toward being more environmentally conscious. It works the other way as well. We want to educate people about taking small steps that can translate into more enmeshed behaviours in their lives without feeling like they need to be put into a group they don’t want to be in,” says Nivens.

“Go outside. We are tremendously lucky to live where we do, in a city nestled in a fantastic natural environment, with tremendous access to natural places. We can go into the forest, along the river, into streams and creeks and fields, and it’s all accessible.

“While you’re out there, pick up some garbage,” says Nivens. “Think about making a positive impact.”

More information is at earthday.org.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Invest in your planet on Earth Day 2022

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