Displaying items by tag: tree planting

May 7, 2019 – Your mother gave you the gift of life, and now you can return the favour.

Thanks to the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation’s special occasions tree planting program, you can skip the grocery store bouquet and plant an environmental legacy in your mom’s honour, instead.

The trees are planted across the Rideau Valley watershed, from Frontenac to Smiths Falls to downtown Ottawa, helping to fight erosion, manage floods and keep contaminants out of our rivers and lakes. Staff tend to the new trees, helping them grow into maturity so they can thrive for decades – much like your mother did for you.

A single tree costs $25, while a small grove of five is only $100. Ten trees costs $150 and a family grove of 25 trees costs $250 – just $10 a tree.

Online ordering makes it easy and fast. Under the RVCF’s Special Occasion Trees program, simply enter your donation amount and your information, and you’ll receive a charitable tax receipt to your inbox right away. You can even send your mom an e-card right from the foundation site.

The foundation is a registered charity that supports the work of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, which monitors more than 4,000 km² of waterways across 18 municipalities in Eastern Ontario.

The authority is responsible for monitoring water quality, flood risks and other hazards to keep people, property and the environment safe. Planting trees is an important part of the authority’s efforts to promote biodiversity, protect our drinking water and reduce the risk of flooding.

The RVCF plants a combination of white cedar, white pine, red oak and sugar maple.

To order your Mother’s Day trees or make another donation, visit www.canadahelps.org. 

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May 7, 2019 – As thousands of Canadian students walked out of class to protest climate policies on May 3, a group of Nepean High School students were taking their protest back to basics.

Shovels in hand, the 14-person crew braved wet weather to plant 500 trees at MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre in Cumberland. Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) provided the seedlings and taught the students how and where to plant them.

“I like that we’re taking real action, we’re out here actually planting trees,” said Emily Drummond, a Grade 9 environment club member. The club had planned to join the #FridaysForFuture climate strike at Parliament Hill, but decided they could have a more immediate impact reforesting an abandoned field.

Most of the students were in Grade 11 or 12 and part of the school’s environmental Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program. They take courses in habitat ecology, resource management and environmental science as part of their core curriculum. Most said they would pursue careers in an environmental field.

SHSM director and environment club leader Chris Drummond said he has worked with the RVCA before, planting endangered butternut seedlings in another part of the outdoor education centre and installing several turtle habitat sites.

The trees were paid for by the RVCA’s charitable arm, the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation.

The RVCA manages the Rideau River watershed. It monitors flood risks and other hazards, regulates development around waterways and supports stewardship activities like tree planting and shoreline naturalization to make the watershed more resilient. It also maintains 11 conservation areas and 42 kilometres of public trails.

You can support the RVCA’s work through a charitable donation to the foundation (www.rvcf.ca), purchasing a tree for a special occasion or donating private land for preservation. 

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May 16, 2019 – The cancellation of the provincial 50 Million Trees program has generated a lot of conversation – and with good reason. As Ontario residents mop up from record flooding, and as climate change promises more intense weather to come, we need to be adding tree programs, not chopping them.

Trees are a vital part of a healthy environment: they clean our air, they create habitat, they capture carbon and they reduce runoff and erosion. They also help us fight floods like the one Ottawa saw this spring.

At the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA), we’ve relied on the 50 Million Trees Program since 2007 to help us plant +200,000 seedlings every spring. Without it, we may find ourselves planting 20,000 trees instead of 200,000 – unless our generous community, corporate and individual supporters can help.

Under the program, landowners currently pay as low as $0.15 per tree, or $120 per acre, to reforest their retired farm fields and marginal lands. But without the provincial funding, tree planting will becoming unaffordable for many landowners and that will drastically reduce the number of trees being planted in the Rideau Valley watershed.

It will also mean local job losses. Our seedlings are grown at Ferguson Forestry Centre in Kemptville, which will face layoffs and financial losses because of the program cuts.

But all is not lost. We know there is an appetite in this community to work together to fight floods, combat climate change and make our community liveable now and in the future.

Donations, corporate sponsorships and community partnerships can save this cost-effective and successful tree planting program and continue growing a living legacy right here in our backyards.

And if we can do that, everybody wins.

To support the program, visit canadahelps.org or contact Diane Downey, executive director of the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation, a registered charity which supports the RVCA’s conservation and watershed management goals. She can be reached at or 613-692-3571 ext. 1126.

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June 19, 2019 – Our hardworking forestry team has wrapped up another successful tree planting season, and they’re already looking ahead to next year.

The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) is now booking site visits with landowners wishing to reforest their retired farm fields or otherwise empty and idle lands.

The low-cost, full-service program includes free site visits, custom planting plans, site preparation, tree planting, follow-up assessments and maintenance to give the seedlings the best chance of survival. All of this is available for only $0.15 per tree, or $120 an acre!

“Increasing forest cover is critical to watershed health, but so much of the land is privately owned,” said forestry program manager Scott Danford. “This program offers landowners easy and affordable tree planting services while helping us meet our larger watershed management goals.” 

This year Danford’s team planted about 200,000 trees across the region. The RVCA has planted 6.4 million trees since 1984 and aims to hit 6.5 million in 2020.

“The RVCA staff have been a pleasure to work with since we started in 2014,” said Maberly landowner Peter Ginsberg. “I'm very happy with this program that made it possible for us to help support the planting of almost 12,000 trees on our property.”

The forestry team is booking site visits this summer to plan for the 2020 spring planting season. The planting area must be at least one acre in size, suitable for tree planting and the landowner must be willing to plant 1,000 trees or more.

Typical costs are $0.15/tree ($120/acre). The RVCA and its planting partners cover all other costs.

“We have several community-minded partners who support our tree planting program,” said Danford.

Planting partners include the City of Ottawa’s Green Acres program and Forests Ontario, Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, Eastern Ontario Model Forest, Pratt & Whitney Canada, McGarry Funeral Homes, Stingray LiVE 88.5, Carleton Refrigeration, Pratt & Whitney Canada and the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation also contribute to the forestry program to keep costs low for landowners.

Tree planting is one of the most practical ways to take care of our watershed and the wider environment. RVCA’s reforestation programs are a great way for landowners to improve their property by:

• Protecting soil from erosion
• Improving water quality
• Reducing the risk of flooding
• Carbon sequestration
• Improving wildlife habitat
• Increasing biodiversity
• Water conservation and so much more!

If you want to plant trees, book a site visit or to get more information, call Scott Danford at 613-692-3571 or 1-800-267-3504 ext. 1175 or email .

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Aug. 15, 2019 – Ottawa Greek Fest is one of the capital’s hottest summer festivals, but this year it’s keeping it cool with a pledge to go carbon neutral through the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation.

The charitable foundation helped the festival calculate its estimated carbon footprint from the gas, propane, diesel and electricity used over the course of its 11-day food, music and art extravaganza at the Hellenic Centre near Hog’s Back Falls. That calculation will translate into 120 trees planted locally across the Rideau Valley watershed, adding to Eastern Ontario’s forests and natural spaces and offsetting the event’s carbon footprint over the next 40 years.

So, how does planting trees make a festival like GreekFest carbon neutral? Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and capture it in their wood cells as part of their life cycle. Once we know how much carbon an event creates, we know how many trees are needed to offset it. It’s as easy as that!

The foundation supports the watershed protection work of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. Its staff plant and care for the trees over time to make sure they grow into a thriving forest that will not only capture carbon but also reduce runoff and flood risks, create vital wildlife habitat and improve soil quality.

Want to make your own home, business or event carbon neutral? Visit our website for more information: https://www.rvcf.ca/ways-to-give/carbon-neutral-program.

To support Ottawa’s latest carbon neutral event, visit www.ottawagreekfest.com.

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