Removing Invasive Himalayan Blackberry in Colwood Creek Park, Colwood – November 5, 2023
The Greater Victoria Green Team spent the day engaging 24 community members from all over the Greater Victoria region to remove invasive Himalayan blackberry from the riparian zone in Colwood Creek Park! Ecological restoration is a team effort that provides many wonderful opportunities for community engagement. It was a great day with a ton of teamwork, smiles, and new friendships made.
Highlights From The Day
- 24 amazing members of the community who joined us an contributed about 78 volunteer hours!
- Thank you to everyone for participating
- Together our team:
- Removed about 25.4 cubic metres of invasive Himalayan blackberry!
- Revitalized about 84 square metres of the park!
- Scroll down to see before and after photos, as well as some in-action shots!
- All ages, backgrounds, and experience levels were engaged including families, returning Green Team volunteers, and first-timers!
- 8 people removed invasive plants for the first time
- 12 people were introduced to this park through this activity
- Our Community Investment Partner, the City of Colwood, provided direction and funding to make this activity possible!
This was our second time working in this park this year (see our previous activity back in July HERE) and we look forward to returning on December 2 to continue our restoration work together! Sign up for that activity can be found HERE! In this park, we have uncovered a creek behind the huge invasive Himalayan blackberry patch and we have kept tackling this area to expose more and more sections of the creek.
Before & After Photos
This is what the site looked like before we started working in the park back in July….and this is what it looks like now!
Why Do 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!
By being out in nature doing something positive as a team, participants:
- Develop a sense of belonging to community and place
- Have improved mental and physical health
- Connect to nature, which leads to environmentally responsible behaviour
- Learn about local environmental issues and actions they can take
- Learn the value of bringing together people to work towards a common goal
- Become leaders in their communities
- Increase confidence, resilience and perseverance
Community In Action!
Partner For This Activity
A big thank you to the City of Colwood for partnering with our charity, Green Teams of Canada and providing the financial support and direction to make this activity possible!
Thank you for recognizing the importance of collaboration in community engagement and ecological restoration! Together we are restoring habitat and creating connected, healthy and resilient communities engaged in environmental stewardship!
We are so excited to be returning to this park again on December 2 to continue this important work & remove event more invasive Himalayan Blackberry! RSVP and find more details on our Meetup page HERE!
Thank you so much City of Colwood Councillor David Grove (far left) for joining us for this activity! We really appreciate your support!
Planting Trees!
We were so grateful to have 3 propagated maple trees donated to us by a community member, Delanie, for us to plant during this activity! By removing invasive plants, we make space for native plants to flourish, so planting these maple trees made our restoration efforts just that more rewarding!
Our Staff
This activity was run by our Program Coordinator, Severine Tyszewicz (far left) and our Program Manager, Kaitlin Warren (second to the right)
We were also excited to have the rest of our staff join us from the Lower Mainland for this activity!
- Ashton , the Lower Mainland Green Team‘s Program Manager (middle)
- Lyda , Green Teams of Canada‘s founder and Executive Director who also founded the Lower Mainland Green Team in 2011 (second from the left)
- Andrea, the Lower Mainland Green Team‘s new Program Coordinator (far right)