Students and faculty in Niagara College’s School of Environment and Horticulture are set to take centre stage for their work in protecting and restoring natural habitats around the world.
This past month, the United Nations declared the decade of 2021 to 2030 the decade of ecosystem restoration. The initiative aims to massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems in order to combat climate change and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity. The UN estimates that the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded land between now and 2030 could eliminate up to 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Niagara College has a long history in the ecosystem restoration business, and offers an Ecosystem Restoration graduate certificate program that is preparing students to be leaders in the preservation and reconstruction of the planet’s diverse environments. This means NC grads will be well-positioned to carry out the UN’s objectives.
“It’s certainly important for the planet but fundamentally, also for the graduates of the program knowing that there will be employment for them, and knowing that their skills will be in high demand for the next decade” said Al Unwin, NC’s associate dean of Environment and Horticulture.
Unwin has been involved in ecosystem restoration for many years, and played a key role in the discussions that brought about the UN’s declaration, through his association with the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), an organization of scientists and ecosystem experts that seeks to promote best practices in restoration, and develops goals and targets for organizations and nations seeking to protect and preserve the natural environment.
The SER helped the College the creation of the program, providing information and input that was crucial to the development of the curriculum. It was also through discussions started by the SER and other organizations that motivated the UN to make its declaration. “That declaration provides full-on support for nations to engage in more substantial restoration work to meet some of the global challenges.”
Kandyce Affleck is a student in the Environmental Restoration program, and said the UN’s declaration is great news for her and other students pursing ecosystem restoration. “
Affleck values the experiential learning opportunities she’s gaining through the program, that will give her the skills and knowledge she’ll need to be one of the “boots-on-the-ground” professionals working to carry out the UN’s declaration. “it has given me the experience that I will actually be using in my career. Getting down into the dirt with your muddy boots on and making ecosystems is very cool. It’s nice to actually get those hands-on skills.”
“The restoration program was created 23 years ago, when the industry was still in its infancy,” said Unwin, “23 years later, to see the UN declare that there’s going to be an entire decade committed to restoration work that we’ve been teaching our grads illustrates that our pre-emptive nature really goes back in a substantial way.”
Graduates from the program are having a global effect on the planet’s ecosystems and are contributing to major restorative projects, right here in Niagara working with the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, as well as across Canada. Grads often work with national organizations, as is the case with one grad, now working with Trout Unlimited doing coldwater restoration work across the country. The program even has a global reach, with graduates working on high-profile projects such as restoration work on dry tropical forests in Ecuador.
NC’s Niagara-on-the-Lake Campus is another local example, having been transformed, largely due to the work of NC students, into one of the healthiest wetland ecosystems in the Niagara region.
Following graduation, Affleck hopes to become a restoration biologist, specializing in wetland restoration. “I think it’s very cool to see how fast they snap back from an agricultural field for example to a beautiful natural habitat.”
