Category: Sustainable Communities

Sustainable Communities

Green Communities: 576: 31 March 2008

REAL MOVES.
Rideau Environmental
Action League – REAL (formerly LL Green) has moved into a former
municipal works warehouse in Smith Falls, across the Railway Museum.
The building sits on the Rideau River “with canoe access”, says
Susan Brandum, and houses REAL’s office and reuse store. The
new location will allow shoreline restoration, community gardens and
native plants gardening. Renovations are expected to be completed in
May.

WELL DONE!
Police had to be brought in to manage the traffic at a
record-breaking Well Wise forum
last week in Orono, which attracted 350 well owners. Well Wise
staffers Lindsay Conboy and Brenda Ibey said the event was so
crowded “people were sitting on the floor.” Another Well Wise well
forum held last week in Greenbank drew 95 participants. Well Wise,
which delivers Well Aware in
Durham Region, is holding a series of community forums in
partnership with the Region of Durham and local conservation
authorities.

PRAISE. “Green
pioneers deserve thanks, support,” opined an editorial
in the Waterloo Record, heaping high praise on REEP Waterloo for
developing a demonstration house to help lead the way to a greener
future.

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR.
Green Communities
Canada seeks an Associate Director as a senior member of the
management team. Requires project management and program development
skills. See Good Work
listing. Due: 18 April.

ELORA ED. With the
impending retirement of Don Eaton as Executive Director of the Elora Centre for Environmental
Excellence, the search for a new ED is under way. See posting. Due: 17
April.

LOW-INCOME. Clean Nova Scotia and ACAP Cape Breton are among the
organizations delivering a new $1.6 million low-income
energy efficiency program in Nova Scotia. The program, being
delivered as a bundled service, includes training and hiring of
crews to carry out retrofits of 200 homes. Based on an earlier
pilot, the Government of Nova Scotia decided on a system of local
delivery agents with exclusivity in each region.

PESTICIDE FREE? OUI!
A new report by Équiterre and
The David Suzuki Foundation
recommends measures to strengthen Quebec’s Pesticides Management
Code and encourages other provinces (e.g., Ontario, planning its own
legislation) to follow Quebec’s lead in banning certain cosmetic
lawn and garden pesticides. See the media release (English
and French
) and the report (English
and French).

Continue reading “Green Communities: 576: 31 March 2008”

Sustainable Communities

Guelph Environmental Leadership – Partnering Toward Environmental Sustainability

The Guelph-Wellington community is well known across Canada as an
environmental leader. Accordingly, citizens have made great strides to
protect ecological habitat, ensure safe and careful water use, reduce
air pollution and uphold recycling excellence among other actions.

Current
accomplishments show that progress is being made, however, there remain
significant gaps. Most efforts have a low profile, are volunteer-based,
met with funding shortfalls and not well planned amongst environmental
activities and organizations. Ultimately, environmental progress relies
on an educated and engaged community.

For
these reasons a group of citizens incorporated Guelph Environmental
Leadership (GEL) in 2002. The Board of GEL comes from diverse
professions to stimulate activities at the community level and heighten
support for the groups, businesses, schools and citizens making a
difference. GEL’s approach encourages progress toward resilient
ecology, healthy people, reduced costs and lasting resource use.

Continue reading “Guelph Environmental Leadership – Partnering Toward Environmental Sustainability”