The City of Calgary is hoping to improve the health and resilience of some local parks and green spaces by conducting so-called habitat restoration.
The restorations help local landscapes become better adept at dealing with climate change and also help reduce long-term maintenance costs for the city by cutting down on the need for mowing, fertilizing, pesticides and irrigation.
“Currently we have over 100 hectares of habitat restoration work that’s taking place,” Tim Walls with the City of Calgary told Global News. “Some communities are very much for this type of work – happy to see it happening. Others are less thrilled with it.”
The primary reason some community members may dislike the restorations is that part of the process involves allowing grasses that are native to the area to grow without being cut.
“As city people, we have this mentality of mowed grass that is very unsustainable, very un-ecological,” Bridgeland-Riverside Community Association (BRCA) beautification committee lead Deb Lee said.
“While it is nice … It takes a lot to maintain,” Lee explained. “It takes chemicals, spraying, mowing.”
Along with allowing grass to grow, Walls said the restoration process includes “managing regulated weeds, planting native plants … And maintaining those sites over time so that that vegetation establishes.”
Lee is so supportive of the restoration that she and other volunteers are informally helping out in Bridgeland, heading to green spaces and removing weeds and invasive species.
“We need to take responsibility for our natural areas if we want to see them continue,” Lee said. “Invasive species — like Canada thistle, burdock – are rampant, and they really can take over before you know it.”
“Some of our volunteers have said, ‘I never saw the weeds before we started doing this – now I see them all the time, and I see how important it is that we get them out of there.’”
Benefits of habitat restorations, according to Walls, include biodiversity, climate resilience and stormwater conveyance – as natural, taller grass collects more water, acting as a buffer for stream systems.
The City of Calgary’s website states its “key biodiversity target” is to restore 20 per cent of Calgary’s open space by 2025.
“Restoration takes time,” the city website explains. “A project can take three or more years to implement. It can take several years after that to reach the full benefits of the restored area.
“By investing in our parks and green spaces now, we are helping to ensure these spaces remain healthy so that they continue to be enjoyed in the future by Calgarians, and the wildlife that call our city home.”
– With files from Matthew Conrod
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