| To All Haliburton County Lake Associations:
Environment Haliburton is hosting two summer events of special interest to lake associations:
The first is a lakefront wood lot travelling tour, co-sponsored with the Haliburton Highlands Stewardship Council and the Municipality of Dysart et.al. It is specially designed to help people who own waterfront property with small, adjoining wood lots decide how to best look after their forests. This small wood lot management workshop is planned for Saturday Aug. 9 and includes a tour of a few different lakefront wood lots in Haliburton County. Bill Beatty, a local maple syrup producer, is arranging the tour with perks like bus transportation and boxed lunches. Leading the tour will be one of Ontario’s most respected forestry experts. Dave Chapeskie is a Registered Professional Forester as well as an Agri-Forestry Advisor with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. He’s coming from Kemptville, Ontario to give small wood lot owners advice and answer questions. This event should prove popular and attendance will likely be limited to 40 adults so advance registration is required. If you’d like to get your name in early, either call: email him at wabeatty@sympatico.ca. A price for the event has not yet been confirmed
but it will in the near future. If you give Bill your name, he can call
or email you with updated information.
The second event is a public forum on land trusts, scheduled for Saturday Sept. 6 at the Stanhope Firefighters Hall near Carnarvon. Land trusts are a unique and increasingly popular way to preserve undeveloped property. Topics will include how land trusts have worked to protect areas of environmental significance in various parts of Ontario; the benefits of land trusts to local residents; financial advantages to land donors; and what it takes to form and operate a land trust. Confirmed guest speakers include Chris Baines of the Ontario Land Trust Alliance; Ian Attridge of the Kawartha Heritage Conservancy; and Ron Reid of the Couchiching Conservancy. Cost for the day is only $12 and includes morning coffee/tea with muffins; sandwich and salad lunch; and afternoon coffee/tea with cookies and fruit. Advance registration is required and can be done by sending a $12 cheque payable to Environment Haliburton. The mailing address is Environment Haliburton Land
Trust Event, Box 824, Minden, Ont., K0M 2K0. For more information, call
Cathy Olliffe at 705-489-1977 or Ian Daniel at 416-223-2495. You can also
email your question or comment to info@environment.haliburton.on.ca.
Environment Haliburton (or EH! for short) is a new non-governmental organization in the County . A public meeting was held on a Saturday, in January 2003, in the basement of the Anglican Church in Haliburton and the 30 or so people who attended decided to form EH! Our mission is to take a comprehensive view of environmental issues, providing a strong voice to encourage positive initiatives and oppose those that could have an adverse effect on the environment. EHs membership is a varied one with people of all different backgrounds and skills. Our interim chairperson, Heather Ross, brings planning to the table. We also have a lawyer, an anthropologist, biologists, environmental scientists and many other people with all kinds of different professional and life experience, all of whom care deeply about the Haliburton Highlands specifically and the environment in general. In our few months of operation EH! has been busy. We’ve provided support to two lake associations, one in support of a ban on gas motor boats (Bat Lake) and another in support of an OMB appeal regarding boat houses (Redstone Lake). We’ve provided the Township of Dysart et al with advice on nuisance geese in Head Lake Park. We’ve reviewed draft Official Plans for the townships of Minden Hills, Dysart et al and Highlands East as well as the County of Haliburton. We’ve also made public comments on the Dysart and County draft OPs. These important events aside, EH! wants to hear from lake associations and keep you posted on local environmental hot topics and committee activities. For those with email, it’s as simple as adding your email address to our mailing list. For those who want snail mail, well, we’re happy to lick stamps, too. And if you want to join the group, membership costs only $10. Our meetings are held once a month on Saturday mornings: the next one is June 21, 10 a.m., at Sir Sandford Fleming College in Haliburton village. To get on EH!’s mailing list, drop us a line at either Environment Haliburton, Box 824, Minden, Ont., K0M 2K0 or email us at the following address:. info@environment.haliburton.on.ca. You can also call Cathy Olliffe at 705-489-1977. We really want to work with lake associations and everyone else who loves Haliburton because we know you are just as interested in preserving the environment as we are. Heather Ross, interim chair |