Invasive Ivy & Blackberry Removal – Portage Park East, View Royal

July 20, 2024

Thank you so much Greater Victoria Green Team participants for your hard work and enthusiasm:

Ali, Asher, Asia, Brian, Bruce, Chloe, Emily, Erica, Fiona, Hannah, Ian, Ida, Jasmine, Jenn, Jennifer & her son Addy, Jonathan, Karen, Katie, Laura, Leia, Maria, Matte, Peter, Peyton, Ray, Robbi, Terry, Thesali, and Yumi!

What a fun day we had connecting people to one another and nature, all while restoring habitat! Keep on reading to find impacts, highlights and more from the day…

Impacts

31 community members engaged
84 hours contributed to habitat restoration
12 people removed invasive English ivy and Himalayan blackberry for the first time
16 people visited this area for the first time
15 cubic metres (almost 94 bathtubs full) of ivy and blackberry removed
200 square metres of habitat revitalized

Highlights

This was an exciting day for us as this park has been stewarded by local residents who have taken great care to keep invasive species at bay in this area. We came together as a team to help create a huge impact in the park to open up space for native plants to grow!
Habitat restoration is a very satisfying and empowering aspect of environmental stewardship in which to involve the local community and is a great way to connect people with neighbours and new friends.
Everyone loved the homemade muffins and rice krispy squares, fresh watermelon, veggies, and granola bars to help keep energy levels up!
Community members Jasmine and Matt helped out with set up and ensured community members were able to find our site and Asher, Leia, and Matte helped us out at the end with packing up: thank you for your help!
Community members enjoyed the additional education provided by the plant signs, learning about identification in a fun, creative way!
We also had many passersby interact with the work we were doing! We even had neighbours showing each other the impressive difference made in the park after we finished up!
It was great to have a mix of first timers, newcomers to the community and local longtime residents together! Everyone learned more about local native and invasive species together as a community!
Portage Park East is part of an important habitat zone containing many rare and at-risk native species, making it a critically important one to protect! We will be returning to this park this fall to plant native trees and shrubs to further improve ecosystem health and community involvement!
All ages, backgrounds, and experience levels were engaged including students, nearby residents, newcomers to Victoria, returning Green Team members, and first-timers!

What Community Members are Saying

"The impact of the program is very impressive! We gave the native plants a chance to thrive and helped restore the ecosystem again by removing invasive plants. It's great to see so many people come together to make this happen. Everyone was friendly, hardworking, and willing to help! It felt great to be a part of such a positive and supportive community effort. Thank you to the Green Team for organizing this and making it all possible!"

"It brought so many of my neighbours together, and the park looks great. Love it."

"Welcoming, organized, well equipped with great leadership. We can clearly see by the amount of invasive species we removed from really just a small section of our beautiful park that this is a very important group of volunteers. I look forward to joining other work parties in the future. Great job to everyone involved."

"Everyone is happy and helpful. I had a great time today."

"Great turnout at Portage Park! Super gratifying to see the mix of neighbours from the area and folks from "afar" (other parts of the Greater Victoria area) coming together. Very positive, welcoming, and inclusive vibe. This program is important on so many levels. At the broadest level it is good for the environment in terms of promoting biodiversity. It is also an important responsibility of being treaty people living in the areas covered by the Vancouver Island treaties of the 1850s whereby First Nations and settlers sought to coexist respectfully, insofar as removing invasive species can help restore the ecologies that were and are important to Indigenous communities and families.

Community Investment Partner

A huge THANK YOU to the Town of View Royal for partnering with our charity, Green Teams of Canada, and making this activity possible with their financial support and direction!

Thank you to Chris, View Royal’s Habitat Restoration Volunteer Coordinator, for helping facilitate this activity!

Together we are achieving our common goals and creating connected, healthy and resilient communities engaged in environmental stewardship.

In-Kind Support

Thank you to the fantastic Canadian eco-friendly businesses Green Beaver, If You Care, Nature Bee, and Honey Candles that donated In-kind for our hard-working community members to take home!

Please contact Kaitlin Warren if you are interested in providing in-kind.

Chloe & Leia with If You Care products

Matte with Nature Bee product

Yumi, Thesali & Robbi with Green Beaver products

Why We Do This Work

The Greater Victoria Green Team organizes hands-on educational activities that have a positive environmental impact to empower people. Through activities such as invasive plant removals, plantings, litter cleanups and more, we are fostering connections with others and nature so that health and well-being is prioritized, lifelong environmental stewardship is promoted, and community members are enabled to take care of themselves, each other and the places they live. We all have the power to make a difference!

We all experience mental and physical health benefits from spending time in nature, including reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mood, focus, memory and more. While doing so, we can also have a positive impact on the environment as demonstrated through this activity!

Staff Who Made This Activity Possible

Greater Victoria Green Team Program Manager, Kaitlin Warren and Partnerships Manager, Viloka Luna work hard behind the scenes to bring these high-quality activities to you.

This was Viloka’s first activity with us! Viloka looks forward to maintaining and building partnerships with the Greater Victoria Green Team in the newly created role of GVGT Partnerships Manager. She will be focusing on the building of current and potential partnerships, as well as media relations for our team. Kaitlin is continuing in the role of Program Manager, focusing on leading activities.