285 : Migration of Vegetation Post Glaciation in Southern Ontario

I have been out with my students in the past month and a half and it seems that every time we go out we are looking to the trees and shrubs that are growing in disturbed areas and likening these disrupted habitats to post glacial landscapes.
I still don’t know much and wanted to go a little bit deeper, as always. For this show I share some of what I am learning about the migration of trees and different flora through southern Ontario after the glaciers receded. On top of this, I wanted to note how these development sites also hold hope, and set examples for wild rejuvenation through random ecological assemblages and novel ecosystems in the face of uncertain futures of changing climates and infrastructure degradation.

Ep. 177 : Greenbelt Foundation with Shelley Petrie

2,100,000 acres protected within not only the most populous area in Canada, but one of the most important economic areas, the struggle between development and sprawl vs protection and conservation of farms, forests and fragile wetlands is a very real undertaking, and one very much beyond me. Getting to talk to Shelley Petrie of The Greenbelt Foundation was helpful in understanding some of the details of what exactly the Greenbelt is and who the Greenbelt Foundation are.
With a local council North of Toronto recently voting in favour of a developer’s request to redesignate 1,400 acres of Greenbelt farmland into developable lands I got to wondering if the Greenbelt can hold up against this and possible future impingements? Where do folks allow development and where do folks protect lands?