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The Northern Grove Ecosystem Restoration Community is a 40-acre permaculture homestead and business providing holistic tree care and permaculture design, consultation, and education. They are located in rural southeastern Manitoba, where Canada’s vast boreal forest meets its prairie grasslands. The site and much of the surrounding area was deforested in the 1800s and has been farmed since.
When this land was purchased, the team observed a noticeable absence of wildlife. However, over the course of just a few years, they have seen that the implementation of water and perennial food systems has nurtured the emergence of a thriving and abundant ecosystem. Now, a wide variety of creatures can be regularly spotted, including dragonflies, native bees, butterflies, fireflies, frogs, songbirds, ducks, geese, swans, rodents, rabbits, birds of prey, deer, coyotes, and more.
The objectives for the land and surrounding area are:
– to provide a model of regenerative silvopasture (a practice of integrating trees, perennial food production, forage, and rotational grazing), and water harvesting methods through the installation of swales, ponds, earth tanks, wetlands etc.
– to cultivate enthusiasm about what is possible as a human’s beneficial impact on the earth – through farm tours, workshops, and collaboration with the community and government to benefit the region as a whole.
To date, the fields have been seeded with a perennial hay mix and the neighbor’s cattle have been introduced to their land for grazing. Additionally, they have implemented 2,500 feet of swales and planted approximately 1,200 trees and shrubs along these swales, as well as for windbreak purposes along the property’s southern and northern boundaries.
Other projects have included:
-rewilding
-small-scale tree nursery
-vegetable and pollinator gardens
-composting systems
-chicken coop, run, and tractor
In just a few short years, Northern Grove has seen a marked increase in biodiversity on the land that was, until recently, degraded through monoculture cropping. They also documented that their crops (hay, trees, and shrubs) have required no irrigation even during extremely dry years due to water harvesting efforts.
Please select one skill and explain in the message field why you would like to volunteer at this ERC.
