Blogs

Being a young adult is a time of tremendous growth, both personally and professionally, as people move into “the real world.” Navigating this transition can be difficult, particularly for underrepresented individuals looking to enter a field dominated by other demographic groups. LEAF developed the Young Urban Forest Leaders (YUFL) program to support underrepresented young folks who are at the beginning of their careers in urban forestry. Funded in part by the City of Toronto through an Urban Forestry Grant, this program sets participants up to be in the driver’s seat of their own career.

This fall, with support from Ontario Power Generation’s Regional Biodiversity Program, we launched a new project to increase biodiversity on public lands in York and Durham Regions by the year 2022. We’re happy to announce a great start to this project! This fall alone, we planted 1,617 native trees and shrubs in and hosted a virtual tree tour, attended by 90 people.

A little girl named Sophia, along with her community, needs to raise $430,000 to rescue and preserve a heritage red oak tree that is estimated to be over 250-years-old by December 12, 2020.

Throughout the month of October, LEAF staff and volunteers worked together to naturalize 5,650 square meters of public land in the City of Richmond Hill. Together, we planted over 1,600 native trees and shrubs! It’s a great start to our bigger goal of planting 6,000 native trees and shrubs by 2022 with support from Ontario Power Generation’s Regional Biodiversity Program. Sites will be selected across York and Durham Regions. Below, we share information on our naturalization efforts and photos capturing our activities.