Community Stories
Nature Activities and Climate Solutions Resources for Busy Parents, Educators and Nature Lovers
This free downloadable e-book for parents of children age 0 – 12, is filled with creative activities, practical tips, nature activities and climate friendly solutions. It will spark environmental awareness, foster nature stewardship and make sustainable habits a part…
National Food Security? Not Without a Healthy Diet
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization describes an agri-food system as encompassing everything from “field to fork.” Unfortunately, Canada’s new National Food Security Strategy fails to pay much attention to either the field or the fork end of the system.
Send a Wake-up Call to the Forest Practices Board
The BC Forest Practices Board calls itself “BC’s independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices”. The Board is the BC public’s only avenue for holding logging companies and the government accountable when either transgress a narrow range of forest-related…
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Art, Poetry & Prose Exposed
Eileen Curteis, a Sister of Saint Ann and Victoria resident, has just released her 12th book, Exposed, featuring 58 original works of art and divinely inspired poetry and prose addressing a journey of spiritual healing and enlightenment for our time. Sister Eileen has…
Hardest Working Community Members
At the last council meeting I brought my shovel. Tonight I have my bell, to sound the alarm. We are in a climate crisis! And yet engineers and planners working for the city continue to destroy and remove trees to make sidewalks, sewer pipe lines, roads and other infrastructure. Why is so little value put on trees, our hardest working community members?
Remembering City of Victoria Election Promises
With mayors and councils making important budget decisions now, these questions are more relevant now than ever. For example, Lisa Helps sent out a campaign news release saying we could celebrate Tree Appreciation Day by planting trees in neighbourhoods all over the city, up to 1000. However, only four were planted this year, about a quarter of the number that was planted last year.
Gonzales and the Urban Forest Master Plan
We need to remind mayor and council, that in the March 15, 2018 Council Motion, Council agreed that the new Gonzales Neighbourhood Plan needed to strengthen the language with regard to green space and tree preservation, anticipating forthcoming updates to the Tree Preservation Bylaw and implementation of the Urban Forest Master Plan.
Health Benefits of Trees
Can you imagine a world where a walk in the forest is prescribed by medical doctors to reduce stress? Japan began studying the benefits of ‘forest bathing’ in the early 1980s. Their scientific research has shown that 20 minutes in the forest reduces blood pressure, lowers heart rate and increases the number of cancer-fighting cells in the body by as much as 40%.
Save Trees From Removal on Finnerty Road
There has been a development sign posted on Finnerty Road (between the roundabout at McKenzie and Arbutus Rd.). There are plans to put in bike lanes and upgrades. This sign has been up for quite some time (at least since the summer) and I have not paid much attention…
Master Forester Ray Travers Honoured by Distrist of Saanich
What a delight to see master forester Ray Travers honoured by the District of Saanich for his work on bringing attention to Shelbourne Street’s heritage trees planted in honour of 600 local Victorians killed during the First World War. Members of Creatively…
A Simple Yet Profound Story & Message
The importance of education around trees and their beneficial impact and interconnectivity with the environment became obvious decades ago while driving past productive green farmer’s fields in North America, and recalling having lived through drought in Zimbabwe in…
Clubs & Recurring Community Events
Want your club or recurring events here? Let us know! All Month CRD Parks hikes , explorations and events for all ages. Change the World on Shaw TV , with Guy Dauncey. Interviews with local people who have big bold ideas and positive solutions for the future. Shaw TV…
Habitat and Housing in Harmony
I recently stood before the Victoria City council and mayor to urge them to implement the Recommended Actions of the URBAN FOREST MASTER PLAN of 2013 and that leaders of the local Indigenous Nations of Esquimalt and Songhees be invited to participate in this work. Affordable HOUSING a green and livable HABITAT must be part of Victoria’s Strategic Plan.
The Environment Should Be Front Page News
‘Good evening. And now, here is the environment news.” Well, that is a daily news segment we won’t be coming across soon — although we should. But we do hear or see the business news on a daily basis, in fact many times a day.
The Human Benefit of Trees
Kudos to Michael Meagher for this Letter to the Editor in the Nov. 22nd Times Colonist. “Anyone for a tax reduction on properties that contain trees?”
