“I noticed that there were a lot of younger girls with a general interest in science and I thought introducing them to what science-based careers could look like was important,” says David Gordon, Science and Cooperative Education Teacher at Dunbarton High School.

On Saturday, Toronto-Danforth MPP Peter Tabuns presented EcoSpark with a plaque to mark the work done as a result of receiving a $45,700 grant from OTF in 2018. Over 30 volunteers were on site at Beechwood Wetland in East York testing an innovative technique to manage the invasive Phragmites plant with EcoSpark.

Over 80 students from Milliken Mills High School (MMHS) became environmental champions today, acting as citizen scientists and stewards for Bruce Creek and Toogood Pond in the historic village of Unionville for Earth Month.

A partnership of Indigenous and environmental groups commended the Canadian government for tabling the best federal budget for biodiversity conservation in decades. The budget creates hope that Canada will meet its commitment to protect at least 17 percent of lands and inland waters by 2020.

About 20 students from Milliken Mills High School became citizen scientists today, learning about and monitoring the health of Bruce Creek, a tributary of the Rouge River watershed. This stream study marks the launch of the GREEN program in Markham, a collaboration between General Motors of Canada, EcoSpark and Milliken Mills High School.

EcoSpark and Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) connects Peel youth to their local watershed through water quality monitoring and tree planting in Fletcher’s Creek. Forty grade 9 and 10 students from St. Paul Catholic Secondary School transformed into citizen scientists and stewards, as they learned how to protect and care for their local environment.

Community members in Simcoe County are working hard to achieve greater protection for vulnerable water and natural systems in Simcoe County and the Nottawasaga watershed. During a sold-out event at the Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery, Ontario Nature, EcoSpark, STORM Coalition, Earthroots and the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition stressed the importance of meaningful community engagement to protect the region’s natural areas and the priceless benefits they provide to all who live there.

This afternoon the Province took an important step towards better protecting nature and farming across the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) with the release of regional plans for a Natural Heritage System and Agricultural System. The plans are an important step towards protecting and recovering biodiversity and supporting healthy, thriving rural communities, especially in an era of climate change.

After a 26 month review, the Government of Ontario is generally heading in the right direction with updated policies that govern the Oak Ridges Moraine, Greenbelt, Niagara Escarpment and growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH), but some key missteps indicate a questionable commitment to the long-term protection of the region’s water, nature and communities.

A new Neptis Foundation report raises the alarm that major loopholes in the Government of Ontario’s proposed Growth Plan would make rural communities a focus of growth, wreaking havoc on the water, nature and communities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH). These changes would allow decades-old style of sprawl in over 400 rural towns, villages and hamlets.

The Ontario government released its draft amendments to the plans that protect the Greenbelt, Oak Ridges Moraine, and Niagara Escarpment, and guide growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH). These amendments are a promising move towards building ecological resiliency and healthy communities in an area under tremendous pressure from sprawling urban development.

Growing the Greenbelt into areas of critical ecological and hydrological significance were among key recommendations put forward by David Crombie, Chair of the Coordinated Land Use Planning Review Advisory Panel, this afternoon in their report “Planning for Health, Prosperity and Growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe: 2015-2041.”

Over 100 community groups, including the Oak Ridges Moraine Partnership and Ontario Greenbelt Alliance, are requesting that the provincial government grow the Greenbelt to protect 1.5 million acres of land containing vital water resources.