Lower Trent Conservation

Volunteers for Conservation

i_volunteers.jpgInterested in planting trees or wildflowers, monitoring trails or local streams, establishing a shoreline buffer or helping children learn more about the outdoors? We may have a project for anyone wishing to give nature a helping hand.

Through the Volunteers for Conservation Program, we work with many volunteers throughout the year to help restore and enhance our watershed region.   Your interest in volunteering may be to gain work experience, working for a cause, improving the quality of community life, making new friends, or obtaining new skills.

Some very exciting volunteer opportunities exist with Lower Trent Conservation including the Quinte Children’s Water Festival and Caring For Our Watersheds. There are also habitat restoration projects periodically planned on our Conservation Lands which may involve planting native trees, wildlife shrubs, grasses or wildflowers. Check out a complete list of volunteer opportunities below!

Register with us to get involved and give nature a helping hand!  Let us know about your general interests, or whether you are interested is some of our 2014 projects listed below!


2014 Volunteer Projects

Quinte Children’s Water Festival

The Quinte Children’s Water Festival, scheduled for May 21 & 22, 2014 at the Batawa Ski Hill, helps shape children’s attitudes about respecting and conserving valuable water resources so they can ensure a reliable water supply for the future. There are 30 to 35 hands-on activities to challenge students to consider the importance of water to themselves as individuals and to society. The activities follow five themes: water conservation, water protection, water science, water technology and changing attitudes.

About 40 volunteers are needed each day to staff the activity centres. Volunteers will help with running activities, directing groups through the site, and helping staff keep the grounds safe and tidy. A minimum one-day commitment is necessary, from 8 AM to approximately 3 PM. If you would like to volunteer for more than just one day, please do!  We need help the day before as well for set up.

Caring For Our Watersheds

Caring For Our Watersheds™ is an education program that engages students in preserving and improving their local watersheds. Through the Caring for our Watersheds contest, students are asked to research their local watershed, identify an environmental concern and come up with a realistic solution. Mentors from industry, education and conservation help student's learn, innovate and above all take action to protect our land, air and water. Cash prizes are awarded to students and the schools who submit the most creative, thought-provoking and innovative ideas.

There are opportunities for individuals to help with both the pre-judging of the student essay submissions during the week of March 24, 2014 (daytime) or judging the six finalist presentation at the finale event on April 10, 2014 (late afternoon & early evening).

Benthic Monitoring & ID

Benthic macroinvertebrates are the small but visible invertebrates which live at the bottom of streams and rivers.  Species have varying sensitivities to pollution in the water, and these sensitivities can be used to score and assess the composition of the benthic community.  Following  provincial protocols (Ontario Benthic Biomonitoring Network protocols), LTC collects benthics from a number of stream sites each year in order to assess and detect any changes in water quality. 

Benthics samples which were collected in the summer of 2013 must now be processed (ie. the "bugs" must be found and picked out of the sample, which also contains sediment and organic matter).  The volunteer will become familiar with how this processing works and what the benthics look like.  If they wish, they can also take some time to practice identifying benthics using taxonomic keys and a microscope.

Murray Marsh Monitoring

This spring we are looking for volunteer citizen scientists to help carry out a Marsh Monitoring Program in the Murray Marsh Natural Habitat Area owned and managed by Lower Trent Conservation.  Information on species living in the wetland will be used to help protect this ecosystem in the long-term.

Murray Marsh is the largest and most complete tract of undisturbed marsh and swamp forest remaining in southeastern Ontario.  It is classified as a provincially significant wetland and is of regional significance for wildlife. 
To participate you should be:

  • well experienced in both amphibian and marsh bird identification by ear
  • have a vehicle that you can drive on dirt roads
  • in good physical condition to conduct field work
  • willing to survey up to 8 survey stations
  • willing to survey on 3-4 occasions from mid April to late June