The germination of a restoration and climate leader

A tree is planted at Golden Ranches (Photo by Project Forest)

Restoring natural ecosystems takes a lot of time and planning, but fortunately new experts in the field are helping lead the charge.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has partnered with Project Forest, an Alberta-based non-profit focused on rewilding landscapes to capture carbon naturally, to kickstart some of our restoration work.

Together, we are working to restore Golden Ranches, a conservation area east of Edmonton protected in partnership between multiple conservation groups, including NCC that was once used for agriculture but is now being returned to a boreal mixedwood forest environment.

A budding leader

Project Forest is a relatively new initiative, having started in October 2020. Its success has grown rapidly since.

“In our first year, my number one aspiration was to be fully funded at Golden Ranches, a 55-hectare site slated to receive just over 110,000 trees,” says Mike Toffan, founder and executive director of Project Forest.

But that year, Project Forest far exceeded its goal, by funding three projects that totalled over 89 hectares and planting over 162,000 trees.

 “I would have been super pumped if just the one was fully funded and fully executed,” he says.

Those projects were funded through close to 20 corporate partners, with two sites receiving funding through the Government of Canada’s 2 Billion Trees Commitment.

Project Forest is looking to solve three main challenges for its partners, explains Mike. “We’re looking to help their environmental, social and governance goals, we’re looking to help them solve corporate social responsibility commitments and we’re looking to help them reduce their corporate carbon footprint. We can’t make a company net-zero, but we can help them get past the finish line.”

Bénévoles au travail, Activité de plantation d'arbres, Alb. (Photo by Project Forest)

Shovels in the ground

Partner companies also help realize these projects, through planting events attended by the partners’ employees. These events make an impact not only on the environment, but also on those lending a hand.

“A lot of these folks don’t have cars and they take the bus to work. Some of them are new to Canada and others have just never been exposed to nature before,” says Mike. “While it’s not our main goal, we’re also impacting people’s lives by helping them experience and advance our projects.”

The company has also been forging connections with Indigenous communities, including by establishing its Swan River Ecological Restoration Project, an effort to rewild the landscape of Swan River First Nation in north-central Alberta and reintroduce culturally significant species, such as traditional food sources.

One of Project Forest’s goals is to not only to plant forests but also grow diverse ones.

“We want to make sure we’re creating a lot of biodiversity,” says Mike. “For example, at Golden Ranches, we planted 11 species. If this was a typical forestry or reclamation project, you’d be lucky to get four — two or three would be more common.”

Besides providing habitat, these trees will also help store over 65,000 metric tonnes of carbon over their lifespan.

Ramping up restoration

Having a partner like Project Forest can help NCC restore more natural areas faster, explains Delaney Schlemko, NCC natural area manager for northeast Alberta.

“Restoration projects can be complex and expensive to undertake, especially at larger scales, so we would not have been able move forward with implementing the Golden Ranches restoration project as quickly as we did without this partnership,” says Delaney.

They also helped tackled challenges as they arise.

“Having a partner to work on an ambitious project like this together makes the project less daunting to undertake,” says Delaney. “It also helps having different folks at the table to problem solve as the project progresses.”

If you would like to help the restoration of sites such as Golden Ranches, consider signing up for an NCC conservation volunteers event.