Nature reserve work parties
By Peter Scholefield
The Islands Trust Conservancy, own three nature reserves in the vicinity of Brigade Bay, and have been funding restoration work in the nature reserves since 2013. This first work was a contract to the site manager of the Sea Ranch to begin eradication of invasive holly trees in the Long Bay Wetland Nature Reserve. The first tree planting restoration work party occurred in February of 2015 which involved planting and caging trees in an abandoned gravel pit in the Long Bay Wetland Nature Reserve. The success of this work is shown in the photo below taken in the gravel pit during this year's work party.
Volunteer Peter Klassen, seen in the photo has participated in all 4 tree planting work parties in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2020 and is a regular participant in the annual nature reserves monitoring visits.
These one-day work parties start off with a chartered water taxi carrying volunteers and supplies from Horseshoe Bay to the Brigade Bay marina. The supplies include seedling Douglas Fir trees, 4-foot wide, 50-foot long rolls of stucco mesh,4 -foot sharpened 2x2 cedar posts and plastic zap straps to tie the cages to the cedar posts. Getting the material to the planting sites would be difficult without the use of a pick-up truck, volunteered by part time resident Paul Kadota.
This year, there were 10 of us volunteering in the work party. We planted 90 Douglas-fir nursery seedlings, of which 70 were protected with stucco wire. Twenty were left un-protected as a trial to see if they would survive without protective caging. We also protected approximately 20 naturally growing cedar seedlings and approximately 10 of the planted seedlings were used to replace seedlings from previous years that had died.
Professional forester, Doug Hopwood, has led all four work parties. Doug prepared the management plan for the Mount Artaban Nature Reserve in 2009 while he was a consultant for the Islands Trust Conservancy. He was paid by the Islands Trust Conservancy for his work in leading the first two work parties just before he retired. Since retiring, Doug has volunteered to lead the tree planting and caging work parties in 2018 and 2020. In his report of the 2020 work party, he prepared the following map showing areas within the Brigade Bay Bluff Nature Reserve that have been planted and caged during the last three work parties:
