Author Archives: Anca Pascalau

6th Annual Prairie Day at the Alderville Black Oak Savanna

Join Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC) and the Alderville First Nation at the 6th annual Prairie Day on Saturday, September 7th, to celebrate the land, its people and their achievements in the Rice Lake Plains Natural Area. Everyone is welcome at this family-oriented eco-event Saturday September 7th from 10am-4pm at the Alderville Black Oak Savanna west of Roseneath, Ontario.

We invite everyone to come out and join us for a day of family fun, says Todd Farrell, conservation biologist with NCC. We will showcase the Alderville Black Oak Savanna and NCC properties and help you learn more about the habitat and the natural beauty of Canada’s easternmost prairie.

The Rice Lake Plains is a spectacular tallgrass prairie landscape perched on the top of the Oak Ridges Moraine. The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has worked for more than a decade with its conservation friends and partners to protect and restore this rare ecosystem.

The whole family will enjoy a variety of activities and live entertainment, including tallgrass prairie tours, music by Ken Whiteley and other artists, Sciensational Sssnakes, bird banding, nature workshops, traditional foods, demonstrations of Indigenous practices, storytelling, face painting, kids activities and more!

For more information go to RiceLakePlains.ca or call 905-352-1008.

Condos, Cartage and Cleaning Products – Local Sustainability In Action

The Sustainable Business Initiative, a program of the Sustainable Peterborough Economic Development Working group is pleased to present: “Condos, Cartage and Cleaning Products – Local Sustainability In Action”, Thursday, September 19th, 2013 7:30am – 9:00am in the GPAEDC Boardroom – 210 Wolfe St., Peterborough

Come learn 10 Easy Business Sustainability Initiatives and listen to a panel discussion of local businesses talking about how they have put sustainability into action in their facilities.

Registration is free and available online or by calling Brigid Ayotte 705-743-0777 ext. 2160 or by e-mail at

Peterborough Climate Change Rally

For Our Grandchildren in Peterborough is organizing a Climate Change Rally on Sunday, September 22, from 11 AM to 12 NOON at Millennium Park to kick off the Purple Onion Festival.  We are aiming at attendance of over 1,000 people, the biggest such rally in Peterborough’s history, to bring to the attention of our politicians the need for action NOW on climate change.  We know it is happening already, but we have to do everything in our power to minimize it, For Our Grandchildren! Wear purple for a photograph at noon to set the Guinness book of records for people wearing purple. Read about the Rally event on the 4RG web site. Visit the Rally Event on Facebook and share it with your friends.

The world’s atmosphere is almost at the concentration of CO2 to cause a 2 oC increase in the average global temperature.  At this point, climate change could spiral out of control.  Yet the amount of known fossil-fuel reserves would produce about FIVE TIMES the amount of CO2 required to reach this 2 oC critical point. We cannot let this extra carbon get burnt!

We will get 1,000 people to the rally if each of the 40 of us in the Peterborough section of For Our Grandchildren will commit to find 10 others who will commit to come to the rally, AND persuade each of them to commit to bring 2 MORE.  That is 40×10 = 400, and 400 + 800 =1200.  We can do it!  Better get started … we have less than a month to get there. Your personal contacts are going to get us there.

There are posters for the event at the Peterborough Resources link on the 4RG web site.  Please print and distribute them, or let Alan or Linda know if you need copies for posting; we have plenty of printed copies of the one with the purple background (for the Purple Onion Festival), but you can use the one with the white background if you want to print your own and save printer ink.  PLEASE advertise with every group you know, such as faith communities, service clubs, book clubs, ….

Visit the Rally Event on Facebook where people can indicate they are coming, to give us some idea of the number committed. Share the event with your friends. Like the event. Add links to it on your own Facebook page. Here is the Facebook Page Link all spelled out.
https://www.facebook.com/events/206767822823797/
Please put this link on your Facebook page and share it with everyone you know.

Also on the Peterborough Resources link there is a sheet of “tear-off” announcements of the rally that you can print, cut out, and give to everyone you meet.  Take some to the market with you; take them to your faith community, carry them with you everywhere.

Please let Alan or Linda know if you can help on September 22.  We need you for crowd assistance (tell people to stay off the road and where the benches are for the elderly), to hand out purple headbands, etc.

Thanks for your commitment.  We need to change policies in Peterborough, Ontario, and Canada and, together, we will!

City Achieved E-Waste Milestone in 2012

For the second year in a row, the City of Peterborough has achieved a milestone in the collection of used electronics. A total of 270,753 kilograms of e-waste was collected at our two facilities in 2012:

  • the Household Hazardous Waste Depot (Pido Road)
  • the Landfill Site (Bensfort Road)

Ontario Electronics Stewardship (OES), which the City partners with for this program, diverted 75,702 tonnes of this material province-wide last year.

OES sends congratulations to the residents of Peterborough for their obvious commitment to sustainability and a green economy.

Keep up the good work Peterborough and continue to recycle your used computers, televisions, cell phones and other electronics, for free, at one of the City’s facilities.

Call 705-742-7777 ext. 1657 for more information or go to the City of Peterborough’s website at www.peterborough.ca/waste.

Emerald Ash Borer

As part of its pro-active Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Management Plan and working partnership with Peterborough County, the City of Peterborough has installed the first of its road signs (on The Parkway near Sir Sandford Fleming Drive) to remind visitors and the community about the danger of moving firewood.

“Monitoring the insect and public awareness of the dangers of moving firewood around the region are at the forefront of our management plan” said Paul Hambidge, Urban Forestry Specialist with the City.

Working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the City has deployed 19 insect traps at high risk locations throughout the City.

“Early detection of the insect in Peterborough allows us to manage the impact of the EAB in an efficient and cost-effective way as outlined in the City’s EAB Management Plan” Paul Hambidge said. “Monitoring in this way allows us to detect the insect and act before it reaches damaging levels”.

Public awareness, with an exchange of information, is also high on the agenda with public information centers planned across the community throughout the summer.