by Jonathan Davies

There has been a lot of focus recently on the crisis faced by honeybees, but for people outside of the conservationist loop, tallgrass is probably not a top-of-mind issue. Where pollinators, as well as birds and a host of other animals are concerned, grasslands are a vital habitat, one whose preservation requires more than passing attention.

Kyle Breault, former coordinator with Tallgrass Ontario, and currently involved in tallgrass planting projects throughout Ontario, was in Marysville on March 26 to talk about the importance of preserving what little native tallgrass habitat is left, while introducing news tracts, including in places where tallgrass may not be native to the landscape. Wolfe Island is one such place, and Breault has being working on projects there for the past three years.

The presentation was the first in the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation's 2015 seminar series. The foundation has been engaged on a number of issues since its founding in 2008, including watershed preservation, invasive species management, and habitat preservation and restoration.

Breault focused on the importance of both birds and bees, and on the misconception that creating habitat for one ignores the other. "Bird habitat and bee habitat are actually the same," he explained to a group of about 30 gathered at Wolfe Island United Church. And while he noted the importance of the Ontario government's plans to curb neonicotinoid use (pesticides in this category have been linked to bee deaths, and where they were previously used as a seed treatment for isolated use by farmers, they have now become a standard coating on the vast majority of corn and soybean seed) he stressed that this was only one part of the solution - the other being that bees simply need more habitat.

In the past two years, working with Ducks Unlimited as the organization's go-to for tallgrass planting, Breault has put about 600 acres back on the ground in the province. While this sounds impressive, he lamented that he is engaged in an uphill battle. "About 100 times as much habitat is ruined in a week as all our efforts combined have put back,” he said.

Breault noted that in Chatham-Kent, where he resides, abundant Carolinian forest is being cut down at such a rate that the forest cover has been reduced to around 2%. To put that in perspective, Environment Canada considers 30% to be the minimum forest cover threshold to ensure marginal species richness and adequate aquatic system health.

As for tallgrass, some of the best in the province would have been found in parts of western Ontario, where one could ride horseback almost unseen because the grasses were so tall. But because these grasses were easier to plow than woodlands, they were the first to go to agriculture, a little under a century ago. Development accelerated as agriculture became industrialized in the 1950s. There was no concerted effort to preserve grassland in Ontario until the 1990s, when Ontario conservationist Allen Woodliffe recognized their importance and began working to keep them alive.

Most of the tallgrass that remains today, according to Breault, are on steep, unworkable land or along railway lines. "We're basically at nothing now." Breault said. There are a few spots, particularly on First Nations, where grassland management - which includes periodic burning - have been a cultural practice. But there are also little fragments that will keep disappearing, regardless of efforts to preserve them, because they have become so brittle.

This is where the next best thing to a natural, native grassland is created. "We mimic. That's all we can do," said Breault. In southern Ontario, most land is privately owned, and when space is made available for a planting, usually by a landowner, Breault is ready to seed it and begin transforming it into habitat.

"You can't turn that down. You either replace it here, or you don't replace it anywhere," he said.

All of the three projects on Wolfe Island that Breault has so far planted were paid for by private companies. The Endangered Species Act in Ontario stipulates that development projects, such as solar or wind farms, have to replace habitat that they have displaced. "The companies that I've dealt with, they're happy to do it, " he said.

Breault's concern is that the Ministry of Natural Resources, which is responsible for enforcing these policies, pushed hard early on to ensure that companies carried through with their responsibilities, but has become slack more recently. This means habitat is being removed but not replaced in a timely manner. Breault noted, "We went from having a dozen projects a year three years ago, to this year where we're still waiting to hear if we're going to have our first one."

It is interesting to examine the letter (Re: Addington Highlands Wind Project, Mar 26/15) written by Mr. Parker Gallant, a well known anti-wind proponent, about the proposed wind project. You also published a letter (Re: Addington Highlands Wind Project, Mar 26/15) from Helen Forsey on this topic. While Ms. Forsey's letter was thoughtful and balanced, Mr. Gallant's letter was one-sided and used loaded language to skew the argument in his favour. He says windmills blot the landscape and are unreliable while some people feel that windmills are beautiful and they are as reliable as any other source of electricity. He mentions the fact that windmills kill birds but does not mention that we are learning more about taking measures to mitigate this problem. He also does not mention that cats kill many, many more birds than windmills. I often wonder why anti-wind crusaders who are concerned about birds aren't advocating for neutering programs for cats and by-laws that would force cat owners to keep their pets indoors. Mr. Gallant claims that Ontario taxpayers will be subsidizing windmill developers for 20 years. Under the new program for large renewable projects, subsidies are being eliminated. Mr. Gallant also raises the question of property values when windmills appear. Studies have shown that property values may go down before the windmills are built but they rebound once they are built. Finally, Mr. Gallant advises municipalities to drive a hard bargain with wind developers when it comes to revenue and taxes and I agree with him on that score.

The bottom line is that we need clean, renewable, safe energy and if we want it at a reasonable price, we will get it from renewables such as wind and solar because we are making great strides in lowering the price of wind and solar while nuclear power will be more expensive, in part due to security concerns. North Frontenac and Addington Highlands should take advantage of the opportunity to receive additional revenue while being part of our clean energy future.

Wolfe Erlichman

Addington Highlands council (Addington Highlands Council, Mar 19/15) is wise to take a go-slow response in respect to NextEra Energy's effort to gain support for a huge wind power project that will see 100 turbines blotting the local landscape. Those turbines will each need as much as 400 tons of cement to secure them, will tower 400 to 450 feet high and generate intermittent unreliable power which Ontario ratepayers will be forced to subsidize for 20 years. Those turbines will surely kill birds, bats and other animal life. The audible and infrasound noise may also affect a small portion of the local population creating health problems! Property values may be effected.

The prospect of a portion of the Florida-based NextEra's revenue going to the township needs to be looked at carefully. The 200 MW capacity of the project will, on average generate power at about 30% of rated capacity and produce about 525,000 megawatt hours that will be fed to the Ontario grid. NextEra will be paid about $60 million for that annual production. A 20 year contract means $1.2 billion for the developer. So what is the township's portion of this?

Even though the capital cost of a wind turbine is approximately $1 million per MW, they are assessed at only $40 thousand per MW; this 200-MW proposed project would be assessed at only $4 million, when the actual capital cost is over $400 million. That $4 million assessment means the township will be entitled to only about $70,000 in annual realty taxes based on the current industrial rate. NextEra has also held out the carrot of a $350,000 “annual payment” to the township; that sounds impressive, but in the context of what NextEra will remove from electricity consumers' pockets, it's small change.

Over 20 years the township will receive $8.4 million ($350,000 + $70,000 X 20 years) which is equivalent to less than 1% of the revenue that NextEra will export to Florida.

Something for Addington's Council to consider.

- Parker Gallant, Bloomfield

Prince Edward County  

Thank you for your extensive report (Addington Highlands Council, Mar 19/15) and commentary (What it is about Wind, Editorial, Mar 19/15) on the possible wind energy project in North Frontenac and Addington Highlands. It is very important to have a full and informed discussion of this possibility, and you are helping to make sure that happens.
I hope we will all consider the proposal context of our love for this area - this part of Creation - and the gifts it offers us as human inhabitants. One of those gifts is the wind.

For myself, I wouldn't mind seeing turbines in the distance, as long as they're placed well away from homes, cottages and businesses, and as long as the infrastructure involved - access roads and power lines - is properly regulated so as to minimize effects on wildlife and the environment.

We already have plenty of power lines and communications towers, much closer to us than the turbines would be. Those lines and towers aren't pretty, and they can definitely have health effects on people nearby, but we accept them as providing things we feel we need. And we sure need to shift from fossil fuels to energy conservation and renewables, as the drastic weather events of recent years have shown us.

This question involves all of us - year-round and seasonal residents, Algonquins and settlers, local and provincial governments, as well as the company making the proposal. I don't much trust big companies, but some of them can play a role in enabling us to shift off oil to more sustainable energy sources, and at the same time contributing money and local jobs. I hope all of us will stay open to learning more, and will work with our Township Councils to develop the best ways for us to participate in that necessary shift.

Helen Forsey

Coincidentally, two power projects are being discussed this month at local councils. One is at the bottom edge of Frontenac County, near the border with the City of Kingston.

Since it is a solar power field, little controversy is expected. The 106 acre site will end up being shielded from view by some vegetation and will silently produce up to 15 megawatts of power.

By contrast, another project is being proposed at the far north western edge of Frontenac County and neighbouring Lennox and Addington County. Instead of being located in the fertile, sunny south, it is in the highlands of Vennachar and Denbigh. The population is a fraction of that in the south. There are a few dozen dwellings within a 20 km radius of the site and a couple of hundred people at most.

Yet, a proposed 300 megawatt wind project that is proposed for the region is already starting to generate the first vestiges of protest. Stories about the impact of wind turbines on bats and migrating birds are common. Turbines can be seen, and heard, from long distances, etc.

The controversy that came with the wind project on Wolfe Island and the proposed project on Amherst Island may not exactly be duplicated in North Frontenac and Addington Highlands, but there are and will be people who wish the whole thing would go away.

This is understandable. No one wants their way of life to be challenged, and no one wants their property to lose any of its advantages. Property owners like to control their surroundings. They buy the land surrounding their house when it becomes available.

While it is very much a fact that wind power has huge environmental advantages over coal-fired stations or nuclear power plants, that is easier to say when the turbines are not located within shouting range of our own back yards.

Renewable energy is still a small player in the energy generation market. Wind projects, although small on a global scale, are a measure larger than solar projects, but both are necessary to start turning the tide from the dead end of non-renewable energy to a long-term future that will have to come from renewable resources if the human species is to survive the next 500 to 1000 years.

So, we need to look at them, and in some cases that means applying utilitarian logic to individual landowner interests. A certain amount of inconvenience to a few in the interest of the many has to be accepted.

But we need to be careful, and that is where public processes and honest evaluations of projects is required, so that the balance is not tipped to the point where people are forced from their homes.

There is a proposed wind project off Cape Cod that has generated complaints. One of them, levied by Robert Kennedy Jr. no less, is that “people want to look out and see the same sight the pilgrims saw”.

Well, the original occupants of North America might say the same thing about the entire continent, but that never stopped the industrialisation of North America.

It would take 15,000 wind projects the size of the one proposed for North Frontenac and Addington Highlands to cover the world's energy needs, and even then only when the wind is up.

A 300 mw project is still a huge project, given that each of the six active nuclear reactors at the Pickering nuclear plant produce 500 mw of power each. The environmental implications of wind power certainly pale in comparison to the problem of nuclear waste, not to mention the small, but not inconceivable, potential for a nuclear accident should a nuclear plant fail. Renewables will not replace nuclear energy any time soon, but power production is a long term process, and a wind project in Frontenac and Lennox & Addington could be part of the solution.

They may not have cycled to the town hall on a cold February night, but the 18 South Frontenac residents who came out to talk about cycling in the township on Monday, February 16, certainly had less snowy roads on their minds.

Rookie Loughborough District Councilor, Ross Sutherland, called the meeting, and he was surprised by the numbers.

“I didn't have expectations of more than 10 people coming out, so I was really pleased with the turn out and with the discussion,” he said.

The cyclists talked about their favourite routes in the township, and a wide range of ideas were discussed on ways to promote bicycling in the township. They decided to form a group, which they are calling South Frontenac Rides.

Three co-chairs came forward to get things underway quickly. They are Leslie Kirby-Olcet from Perth Road Village, and Scott Gordon and Alastair Lamb from Sydenham.

Among those at the meeting was a representative from Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington Public Health, who said that the group's goals tie in nicely with Public Health's priority on active transportation, and that money was available to help promote activities.

Cycling also fits in to Frontenac County's trail initiative, which is slated for completion next year, and the Cataraqui Trail is another option for cyclists.

Three particular routes will be featured at South Frontenac Rides' first bike promotion day, which will take place in early June. Maps of the routes are already in the planning stages and other information for the novice cyclists will be available as well on that day. The group hopes to be able to create maps of numerous bike routes as they roll into the summer and fall biking season.

“The South Frontenac roads department has been widening roads by 2 feet whenever they have been doing repaving, which is a benefit for cyclists,” said Ross Sutherland, who cycled many of the roads in his own Loughborough District last summer during the municipal election campaign.

The next meeting of South Frontenac Bikes is set for March 9 at the township office/hall. For more information call 613-532-7846

Unlike a number of people being profiled for the Frontenac County 50 stories/150 years project, Gray Merriam does not have deep family roots in Frontenac County.

He first came to Kennebec Lake, with his wife Aileen, because they were starting to look for a place to move to after Gray had retired from Carleton University, and they happened to be headed to Toronto for a conference.

“There was a property on Kennebec Lake, and it was on the way so we stopped in,” he recalls.

It was early March and they could not take the road all the way in to the property for fear of not getting back out, so they left their car behind and walked in.

“I wanted to live within two canoe lengths of the water, which this property had since the house is right on the Salmon River, where it flows from Kennebec Lake. To tell the truth even before we got to the house I was sold on the property because of the snow fleas that made it look like the snow was moving in waves.”

Gray began his academic career as a population ecologist and was one of the people who developed landscape ecology as an academic pursuit.

“I began my career as a population ecologist and developed landscape ecology, with others, during my time at Carleton,” he said.

Landscape ecology was different at that time because it was based in Europe and was urban-based. It was connected to urban planning.

“When we started looking at it here it was more about large mosaics of various habitat types. It was farmland so you had little sugar bushes at the back of the farm, farm fence rows, crop field, hay fields, little creeks with some brush along them, and that entire mosaic was what the organisms were living with so we tried to study that entire mosaic. Previously ecologists tried to narrow things down to one little homogeneous bit, but it was clear to us that everything around it was the driving variable for how it all worked.”

This approach was used at first to determine, for example, how populations of bird species could survive in farmlands where there are only small pockets of suitable habitat.

“It turned out, that while small populations were vulnerable because they did not always breed, other populations would migrate to the habitat if it was not being used. So this tells you that the fate of a population in a single woodlot goes on and off like a little neon light but the fate of population in the region has a very high level of security. What that led to is a realisation that the organisms located between different patches of habitat are very important for the species to be able to migrate from one patch to another. It's the nature of the movements between patches of habitat that determine the success rate. So we did a lot of work on farm fence rows as a connectivity."

This kind of academic pursuit brought Merriam into contact with ecologists and other academics from across North America and elsewhere. When he retired he took on the goal of seeing if the principles of landscape ecology could be applied in his new community.

“The first thing was to bring the idea of ecological processes in lakes to try to engage the folks on the lakes about water quality sampling, shoreline surveys, and that led eventually to the lake planning that has become popular everywhere. Lake plans are based on the ideas of landscape ecology, especially when they extend to looking at watersheds as a whole,” he said.

One thing that Merriam did was to start writing articles for the Frontenac News, and writing books. He also founded the Friends of the Salmon River, and became instrumental in the work of the Frontenac Stewardship Council, which is now the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation. When Frontenac County began to set out an Official Plan, he began pushing for a Stewardship Plan for Frontenac County, a goal that he is still pursuing.

“The Friends of the Salmon came about when I met some neighbours downriver and we started talking about the health of the river and how we could monitor it. So I held a meeting at my house and a number of people came and they became the Friends of the Salmon.”

He expected he would find hot spots and complaints about the state of the river. “There weren't any, which makes it more difficult to organize people but there you have it.”

If there is a single issue that is most important about the future of the lakes along the Salmon River watersheds and all the watersheds in Frontenac County, he says it is phosphorous. Most of the phosphorous affecting lakes here is coming from faulty septic systems.

“We understand the role of septics, but the problem is the people, who resist being told what to do, and the potential cost is an issue as well. But by focussing on waterfront properties the people who own them tend to have more money available. The properties on the hillsides don't have the same problem because the runoff from the septics is taken up by vegetation, trees, etc.” he said.

On all the groups he has been involved with he sometimes comes into conflict over what he calls his “insistence that projects that get done make ecological sense.”

Another thing that he has pushed over the years is the interest of the north end of the county over what he sees as a bias towards the south.

“When I first was introduced to the Stewardship Council it was known as the South Frontenac Stewardship Council and it did not consider that it would ever extend north of Highway 7. We had to convince them there was life up here,” he said.

One of the things that he has been able to focus people's attention on is the two different geological regions in Frontenac County, the Limestone substrate in the South and the Canadian Shield landscape to the north.

These issues will be discussed in the extended version of this article, which will be published on February 26, in the 50 articles / 150 years supplement that will be a monthly feature of the Frontenac News for the rest of the year.

Crowded into a tiny office tacked onto the north end of the Barrie hall in Cloyne are the small offices of the six staff members who make up Mazinaw-Lanark Forest Inc. (MLFI), a private company that works year round managing the Crown land forest in Lanark and Mazinaw.

The land they manage covers a huge swath totaling 305,000 hectares in an area that stretches west to Marmora, east to Carleton Place, north to the Madawaska River and south to Tamworth.

The company, which started up in 1998, is owned and funded by local shareholders including 13 independent logging companies, seven sawmills and one pulp mill. The company operates under a sustainable forest license and its primary role is to prepare forest management plans, site-specific prescriptions and annual work schedules, while simultaneously meeting forest renewal obligations, plus all government reporting requirements, and ensuring that all operations comply with the Crown Forest Sustainability Act. The act aims to “manage Crown forests to meet the social, economic and environmental needs of future and present generations”.

Prior to the late 1990s the management of Crown land forests was performed by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), after which time and under the Harris government that management was transferred to the private sector. The MNR still retains the overall responsibility of making sure companies operating in the Crown forests comply with current legislation, which the MNR achieves by requiring management companies (like MLFI) to provide them with regular audits, inspections and reviews. They also are required to seek MNR approval for forest management plans.

Because these local forests have for generations been logged by small family businesses, it was deemed in their best interest to hire a small team of professionals to carry out the management side of their businesses. Trying to manage the boots on the ground and the blades to the bark is enough to keep these small companies busy year round, so the shareholders hired MLFI to do the management side of their business.

A big part of that management deals with in-depth immediate, short and long-term planning. Jan Smigielski has been working as a silvicultural forester with MFLI since 2000 and his job is to develop site-specific forest operation prescriptions showing exactly how particular blocks are to be prepared for harvesting. Smigielski said that the most challenging part of his work is also what makes it the most exciting: dealing with the natural complexity of the area. “The natural bio-diversity of this area challenges you in such a way that you can not do anything uniformly. You have to develop prescriptions on a very small scale. First you have to identify the different patches of eco-systems and address them accordingly,” he said.

The companies working with the MLFI supply mostly maple, oak and poplar to a variety of local buyers within a 100-150 km radius and they primarily sell pulpwood, firewood, and saw logs.

Matthew Mertins, who is planning and operations forester with MLFI, said that he is currently working on a forest plan for April 1, 2016 through to March 31, 2021, a plan that will detail all of the operations that will happen during that period including the locations of the harvesting blocks and renewal areas, and that will also include the various types of protections put in place for wildlife and other natural features, which the public want to see protected. “The whole idea behind the planning is to make sure that we know where we are doing the forestry operations while having the appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that the operations have no negative impacts on human activity and enjoyment and wildlife. The whole idea behind forest management is that you can run sustainable forestry operations while other things are going on around it. Cottaging and wild life can occur simultaneously as long as you strike the right balance,” Mertins said.

According to recent statistics put out by the MNR, 450 people are directly employed by forest operations on the MLFI's management area, proving that the industry is a large employer in the area.

Staff said that in an effort to keep the public informed about the current MLFI plans and operations, they are in the process of launching a new website that should be up and running by the end of this week. The site will include information about the business, its staff, its operations, along with profiles about the shareholders, and information about the local businesses working with MLFI with links to their websites as well as links to the MNR's forest management plans for the area. You can find the new website by googling Mazinaw Lanark Forest Inc.

Much like some of the animals, plants and watersheds that it is devoted to protecting and fostering, the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation (FSF) has had to evolve quickly in order to survive in a changing environment.

In its case that environment has not been a natural one, but a bureaucratic and financial one.

The foundation began its life in the 1990s as the Frontenac Stewardship Council, a creation of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). The ministry was pulling its own staff out of some of the educational and stewardship work it had been involved with, and turning that over to volunteers from local communities. The stewardship councils, which were established in rural counties throughout Southern Ontario, were funded to the tune of $25,000 each year as seed money for stewardship projects, plus they had access to a full-time stewardship co-ordinator, an MNR employee who provided administrative support, access to ministry resources, and knowledge about and skills in obtaining grants from a variety of government and non-government sources.

Over time, the Frontenac Stewardship Council became a meeting ground for enthusiasts from all four Frontenac townships, and sponsored workshops and various projects throughout the county, supporting lake associations as they developed lake plans, and supporting property owners interested in maintaining and improving their lands as habitat for a variety of species.

About three years ago, the Ministry of Natural Resources, facing cuts to their own budget, cut its ties with the stewardship councils, pulling funding as well as staffing. The Frontenac Stewardship Council had set up a not-for profit charitable foundation years earlier in order to attract more funding and to be able to offer tax receipts, and when the ministry pulled out the Council morphed into the FSF.

In the post-ministry era the FSF has continued to operate, and after its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on November 27, its president, Gord Rodgers, said he is more optimistic about the future of the foundation than he has been over the past 18 months.

He points to a successful grant application for $5,000 towards public events from the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area, and the possibility of a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, as well as an improving relationship with Frontenac County as reasons for optimism.

He was also buoyed by the outcome of the AGM, which was a day-long event attended by representatives from a number of local and regional organizations that the FSF has been working with on stewardship project. Groups such as the Centre for Sustainable Watersheds, the Frontenac Arch Biosphere, stewardship council reps from across the region, as well as Frontenac County, represented by Warden Dennis Doyle, all talked about work they have been doing over the last few months.

The foundation is planning to sponsor seminars in 2015 on the Cameron Bog, the Cataraqui wetland, and the Kennebec watershed, among others, and is hoping to embark on a major project on invasive species in Frontenac County.

Also in the spring of 2015 a tall grass project, funded by Shell Canada, will get underway on a property on Wolfe Island. The project is aimed at improving habitat for Bobolinks on the island by re-introducing native grasses.

The foundation has enough money to maintain a part-time employee, Bret Colman, who provides administrative support and fundraising and grant-writing expertise. Colman was at one-time a stewardship co-ordinator with the MNR and later was a resort owner in Frontenac County, which gives him a background in stewardship and commerce.

At the AGM, a proposal was put forward for the foundation to undertake a comprehensive invasive species strategy in Frontenac County. The idea behind the strategy is to apply provincial strategies at a local level, always using communication and education as tools instead of calling for new regulations and restrictions.

The foundation plans to engage a range of groups, in particular Frontenac County, to bring this about.

An application has gone in to the MNR for a grant to use the Elbow Lake Environmental Centre in South Frontenac as the location of a pilot study for the strategy.

Much like some of the animals, plants and watersheds that it is devoted to protecting and fostering, the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation (FSF) has had to evolve quickly in order to survive in a changing environment.

In its case that environment has not been a natural one, but a bureaucratic and financial one.

The foundation began its life in the 1990s as the Frontenac Stewardship Council, a creation of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). The ministry was pulling its own staff out of some of the educational and stewardship work it had been involved with, and turning that over to volunteers from local communities. The stewardship councils, which were established in rural counties throughout Southern Ontario, were funded to the tune of $25,000 each year as seed money for stewardship projects, plus they had access to a full-time stewardship co-ordinator, an MNR employee who provided administrative support, access to ministry resources, and knowledge about and skills in obtaining grants from a variety of government and non-government sources.

Over time, the Frontenac Stewardship Council became a meeting ground for enthusiasts from all four Frontenac townships, and sponsored workshops and various projects throughout the county, supporting lake associations as they developed lake plans, and supporting property owners interested in maintaining and improving their lands as habitat for a variety of species.

About three years ago, the Ministry of Natural Resources, facing cuts to their own budget, cut its ties with the stewardship councils, pulling funding as well as staffing. The Frontenac Stewardship Council had set up a not-for profit charitable foundation years earlier in order to attract more funding and to be able to offer tax receipts, and when the ministry pulled out the Council morphed into the FSF.

In the post-ministry era the FSF has continued to operate, and after its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on November 27, its president, Gord Rodgers, said he is more optimistic about the future of the foundation than he has been over the past 18 months.

He points to a successful grant application for $5,000 towards public events from the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area, and the possibility of a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, as well as an improving relationship with Frontenac County as reasons for optimism.

He was also buoyed by the outcome of the AGM, which was a day-long event attended by representatives from a number of local and regional organizations that the FSF has been working with on stewardship project. Groups such as the Centre for Sustainable Watersheds, the Frontenac Arch Biosphere, stewardship council reps from across the region, as well as Frontenac County, represented by Warden Dennis Doyle, all talked about work they have been doing over the last few months.

The foundation is planning to sponsor seminars in 2015 on the Cameron Bog, the Cataraqui wetland, and the Kennebec watershed, among others, and is hoping to embark on a major project on invasive species in Frontenac County.

Also in the spring of 2015 a tall grass project, funded by Shell Canada, will get underway on a property on Wolfe Island. The project is aimed at improving habitat for Bobolinks on the island by re-introducing native grasses.

The foundation has enough money to maintain a part-time employee, Bret Colman, who provides administrative support and fundraising and grant-writing expertise. Colman was at one-time a stewardship co-ordinator with the MNR and later was a resort owner in Frontenac County, which gives him a background in stewardship and commerce.

At the AGM, a proposal was put forward for the foundation to undertake a comprehensive invasive species strategy in Frontenac County. The idea behind the strategy is to apply provincial strategies at a local level, always using communication and education as tools instead of calling for new regulations and restrictions.

The foundation plans to engage a range of groups, in particular Frontenac County, to bring this about.

An application has gone in to the MNR for a grant to use the Elbow Lake Environmental Centre in South Frontenac as the location of a pilot study for the strategy.

Meeting with Kelly Pender Anne Marie Joe Alison, areas of mutual interest – sustainablity adivisory committee.

Foundation -

Meeting send list of attendees, same sort of thing as Elbow Lake, Senior guy from Nature Conservancy, Vickie Shlomka, Gwyneth, Leslie Rudy

Kingston Foundation of Greater Kingston

Given the discussions we hade. If we get grant from Trillium for invaxive species. A few dollars to run seminar serivce, feeling goos about it.

We continue to get littl ebit of exposure, people sitting around table, still going . Dennis Doyle there for the whole day. Only one CA, RVCA. CSW Barb King, if we get money from Trillium get them going on invasive species. We want to set out an overall strategy for hte couty, work with otehr groups to get htem to deliver on the grouns stufd, signage and edsucationla material, material abailable from OFAH, work with lake associations delivering stuff on the ground. Will want to zero in on species that are relevant.

Bret put together a strategy paper that he used to put our grant request to Trillium. The idea is money to support individual enough money to keep him with us.

I don't know, he found out that we had put in a trillium grant for an invasive species thing, had discussions at three of our meetings.

He's happy with the way Bret put invasive species together, happy about us pushing money for seminar series.

ALICE idea, we need something to reach agricultural community.

County-wide stewardship plan we gt to have smoethingont he grouns trhat we can show that we are doing things, asking for a million dollars in the bank for us.

Work plan set up seminars and workshops with county, februar and aoril, Barry has a piece of property ion the island, iff trillium, pushing forward with the county. In kind, maybe GIS work.

Invasive species, on behalf of Frontenac County, seminar series more formal Cataraqui wetland in the south. Cameron Bog. Kennebec wetlands, naturally signifigant, natural history, a major presentation north and south.

Likely, three seminars. Agenda to be worked.

Trillium. Lanark is hanging. Lennox and addington still around. Getting a few retired MNR people.