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14.07.2023 - 17:13 / theprovince.com
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Over 50 per cent of the world’s population now lives in urban areas and, according to the World Health Organization, that number will continue to grow.
Away from green fields, mountains and grasslands, because of high density building and massive networks of paved surfaces, urban neighbourhoods can be anywhere from two-to-four Celsius warmer than surrounding rural settings.
In order to make urban locations more livable, cooler in summer, more people-friendly and more accommodating to wildlife with the inclusion of adequate green spaces, urban forestry has become the focus of many cities around the world.
I was delighted to speak with Dr. Andrew Almas, assistant professor of teaching at the Faculty of Forestry at the University of B.C. Almas is a leading urban forestry authority, and it was great to get his perspective on just where this field of study is going.
I was surprised to learn that while there are courses on urban forestry available at other schools and universities across Canada, UBC offers the only bachelor’s degree program.
When I asked about the evolution of the concept in Canada, Almas said it really began at the University of Toronto in the 1960s. By the early ‘90s, and into the new century, there were conferences being held in Canada where the visualization of the context of urban forestry continued to be refined and broadened.
Forestry is a provincial mandate. But Almas believes both forestry and urban forestry need to be looked at from a national perspective. Each province has a different approach to forests and forest fire
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The box tree moth, Cydalima perspectalis, is a non-native moth that has recently been found in a nursery in South Carolina. Native to eastern Asia, the box tree moth has been present in Canada since November 2018. From August 2020 through May 2021, infested boxwood (Buxus sp.) plants were inadvertently shipped from a grower in Canada to several nurseries in the U.S.; a retail nursery in South Carolina received infested plants in May 2021. As of June 1, 2021, the South Carolina detection is being treated as a regulatory incident, and this pest is not thought to have escaped into the landscape. Clemson’s Department of Plant Industry is investigating plant shipments into and out of the South Carolina nursery to determine if infested material may have been inadvertently sold to homeowners and will be monitoring in and around the nursery to ensure this moth has not escaped. If populations are found, a survey and eradication effort will follow.
(Note on Gallery: Clicking on a thumbnail gives you a large, higher-quality image.)Winterberry hollies are native to swampy areas from Canada south to Florida, from Wisconsin and Missouri east. Despite their heritage in wetlands, I grow my plants in normal to dry soil, at the edges of my hilly outer fields. I just don’t have wet lowland to offer on my windy hillside.Though they’ll fruit much better in a moist year than a dry one (as with all fruiting plant
I sat in wait, determined to find out. The answer was a bit of a surprise:It was a blue jay. And a few feet away, watching from a branch as the first bird chipped paint off a column on the porch, three companions cheered her on, as if awaiting their turns at bat.But why? Maybe Google will know.Though the original articles it refers to—from “Bird Watcher’s Digest” and Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s former me
“They’re related to crows,” I said on the phone one morning to a friend, who was noting both the large numbers of Cyanocitta cristata this winter—and how much loud-mouth behavior that’s amounting to at his feeders.“Really?” he said, and then I thought what I often do when a “fact
LOOKING FOR ME THIS LONG WEEKEND? I’ll be counting birds (and I hope that Mr. Ruffed Grouse of last week, like the one above, will come calling again). The Great Backyard Bird Count began at 7 o’clock this morning for a four-day run through the 20th. Here’s how you can help give researchers a better snapshot of this year’s winter birds in this important “citizen science” project:
ALONG came a spider the other afternoon, specifically an impressive female garden orb weaver, Argiope aurantia—an extremely widespread species, from southern Canada down to Costa Rica and most of the lower 48 between.And I say female with a degree of confidence, because of her size (a female of this species can be up to three times a male’s) and also because of the big web she had made.See th
Today’s guest, the leader of Cornell Lab’s Project FeederWatch, will tell us more about changing bird populations–including not just rare birds but among some of our most familiar backyard species, like blue jays and juncos–and also about how data from birdwatchers helps, plus best practices for feeding birds this winter and more. Emma Grieg is the leader of Project FeederWatch at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, which for more than 30 years has fostered connections between people and birds, and also between birdwatchers and scientists, who benefit from all those extra sets of eyes to help them get a closer look at bird population changes over time. That’s Emma below, o
Who better to get schooled in the world of fireflies by than Lynn Frierson Faust, author of “Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs” from the University of Georgia Press, a guide to the natural history and identification of fireflies of the Eastern and Central U.S. and Canada.Read along as you listen to the May 14, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Plus: Enter to win a copy of the firefly field guide by commenting in the box at the very bottom of this page.firefly q&a with lynn frierson faustQ.
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Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Among the great joys of summer living are the colours and perfumes of garden beds and containers. But there is another important consideration when it comes to our garden plantings: the attraction of pollinators.