Kids get planting to help reforestation efforts

Tim Yeaman, parks manager for the City of Prince Albert, said he hoped the tree planting would help teach the public about why reforestation work is important.

“We want this to be a great observation point for communities to know what smart wildfire management planning looks like,” he said.

The area for the plant is under the purview of wildfire land management, which agreed to let the event take place on their land.

Volunteers from Parkland Ambulance, Prince Albert Police Service, and Conexus Credit Union, Saskatchewan Public Safety and Wildfire Management also assisted. Volunteers from Save on Foods and Mr. Mikes Steakhouse provided the kids food and drinks after they planted their trees.

Yeaman said the species of trees being planted would make the forest a much healthier place overall.

“The White Spruce are native to the area. Actually they’re fairly disease resistant. Currently right now what we have is a lot of Jack Pine and they’re actually prone to Dwarf Mistletoe,” he said.

The White Spruce trees the kids planted were donated by PRT Growing Service, a company which specializes in producing trees for reforestation efforts. Michelle Folmer, who is with the company said the event is something they are happy to get behind.

“We like our trees and we like growing them and making sure we’ve got future forest going,” she said.

Folmer said she was happy to see the level of participation from kids. She added there could be more awareness about reforestation work and how important it is.

“It’s been awesome seeing how many buses are rolling in with all these kids and they’re excited to go out and plant a tree,” she said.

Prince Albert Police Service members were at the plant Wednesday (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

Josh Dueck, who teaches at St. Louis Public School said the tree plant provided a good opportunity to teach students a number of important lessons on environment and working with a team.

“For them to be able to see different community members in different capacities working together to put on an event is also kind of a byproduct of what we’re doing,” he said.

Dueck, who teaches Grades 1 to 8 and took kids to plant the previous year said he would like to see his students take away a greater appreciation for the country’s forests.

“When they hear news that there’s fires going on in northern Alberta, when they hear about Dwarf Mistletoe Disease they’ll take it serious, because they’re now a part of it,” he said.

Students and teachers line up for food and drinks after finishing their planting work (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn

by Michael Joel-Hansen

Kids get planting to help reforestation efforts

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