We hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. But even though the holidays are upon us, Nature still needs our voice!
The Quinte Bird Friendly City will be presenting to Belleville Council on Monday Jan 12th at 4 PM. Our own Dan Guenther will be giving a 10 min presentation to council in hopes that council will pass a Motion supporting our initiative to have Belleville become a Bird Friendly City. Councillor Garnet Thompson has been invaluable in moving this project forward and Councillor Barb Enright-Miller as chair of the Green Task Force has also been helpful in bringing this project to council. We very much would like to have some Quinte Field Naturalists in the gallery at City Hall for this presentation so that council is aware that people care about our local birds. In addition, we would love it if you can spare a few minutes to email the local council and mayor about how important it is to support nature in our community. See sample email attached.
Of course, QFN is also active in planting as many native trees, shrubs and pollinator plants on the landscape as we can. Unfortunately, with budgets tight throughout Ontario municipalities we hear that the funds for Tree Planting in Belleville have been greatly reduced. Our Tree Planting Committee led by Greg Parsons has been working hard together with the Quinte Urban Forest Network and Quinte Conservation to apply for a large Green Municipalities Grant. This grant (soon to disappear but still has funds to disperse this year) matches money from municipalities, nonprofits and charities to support the tree planting across Canada. Lindsay Nash through Quinte Conservation is doing the legwork to apply for this grant and did speak with Belleville municipal staff about having them participate in the grant application. In essence it would double the amount of money the city has for tree planting. Unfortunately, the answer from staff was that they were uninterested in collaborating with us on the grant.
If you feel, as I do, that we need to plant as many native trees on the landscape as quickly as we can, I hope you might consider writing a letter to our local councillors asking them to consider doing more tree planting and working with Quinte Conservation to facilitate this endeavor.
Thank you for your time. I hope you might find a few minutes to advocate on behalf of nature!
Wishing a very Happy New Year,
Lori Borthwick
Advocacy,
QFN
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