Archive for year: 2016
Canadian Federal Sustainable Development Strategy Released
The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, presenting new priorities for 2016–2019 that align with the 2030 Agenda – a set of global sustainable development goals, was released to the public in February 2016 for feedback. It reflects the government’s conviction that a clean environment, a strong economy and a good quality of life support one another.
The federal government is asking for help to improve the draft strategy. They want to hear from the public and stakeholders in order to develop high-level sustainable development goals, clear and measurable targets, and concrete action plans for the next three years. Comments on the draft strategy will be accepted until June 24, 2016.
The document is introduced with the following statement, “Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations.”
Topics in alignment with Denbow’s environmental stewardship business model include targets focused on Green Infrastructure and Sustainable Forest Management.
The draft in it’s entirety can be found at the draft website.
Discussion and feedback on the draft can be made at the http://www.letstalksustainability.ca/ website.
Hazelnut Tree Grinding
Hazelnut Tree Grinding
With orchards of hazelnut trees being pulled out due to the Eastern Filbert Blight, Denbow provided hazelnut tree grinding services onsite, to help remove the fungus trees.
What is Eastern Filbert Blight?
Eastern Filbert Blight is caused by the fungus Anisogramma anomola and is indigenous to the Northeast United States. It is an unimportant parasite causing a small canker on the native American Hazelnut, Corylus americana. However, on the introduced and commercially important European Hazelnut, Corylus avellana, it causes a lethal disease. Early attempts to establish hazelnut orchards in the Northeast U.S. failed because the disease could not be controlled. Hazelnut production in the Pacific Northwest, which was free of the disease, flourished, but in 1973, the fungus was discovered there as well.
Symptoms
The first symptoms to appear on infected trees are elliptical black stromata. They are formed in longitudinal rows on infected branches, and appear only after extended cold periods, usually between Symptoms and Signs Anisogramma anomola May and August. The first stromata to appear erupt from branches 12-18 months after the initial infection. The infected area is known as a canker, and these cankers are perennial, adding both additional rows and more stromata to existing rows each year. On European Hazelnut, these cankers can expand from a few centimeters up to 1 meter annually; on American Hazelnut they increase by only 1-10 centimeters in the same amount of time. Infected branches become girdled. Leaves on these branches die, remain attached, and flag the presence of the disease during the summer months. The tree declines, with many leafless, dead, and dying branches visible in the canopy. If no action is taken, in 5-12 years time the tree will be dead.
Management Strategies
Scouting
Scout trees in the winter for cankers, and in the summer between July and August for flagging branches. Check these for cankers as well.
Pruning
Infected branches should be pruned .6 to .9 meters below the edge of a canker, as the fungus grows ahead of the area in which it produces reproductive structures. The cut branches should be burned or chipped, because the fungus can continue to sporulate in the branch as long as it has moisture.
Full Removal
Sometimes the tree just cannot be saved. This is where Denbow’s onsite grinding services came in to help out. We dispatched or mobile grinder to site to help chip up the diseased hazelnut trees. We feel for the farmer and the loss that this infection has had on their farms. We hopefully helped save other hazelnut trees in the area.
Here is a video from the project.
We would be happy to provide you with a free quote to take care of grinding the tree piles, with an option to haul the ground material out.
Coaching in Haiti
Bill Boesterd, President of Denbow, coaching business owners in Haiti
There’s a saying, ‘give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a life time’. Partners Worldwide understands that opportunity, and engages business owners and professionals to come alongside small and medium business owners in developing countries, to coach and mentor them to grow their businesses, and thereby alleviate poverty.
One of Bill’s passions is coaching and mentoring, within his own business, at Trinity Western University in the School of Business, and now working with Partners Worldwide in Les Cayes Haiti. Together with a group of business owners from the Fraser Valley, Bill has been making 2 trips a year to Haiti for the last 3 years.
Having recently returned from Haiti, Bill was encouraged that this trip was again a step forward as a teaching tool was introduced in the form of a business workbook, Growbook, written in Haitian Creole.
One of Bill’s observations “I see people who were existing from day to day, now having hope for a better tomorrow. Hope is the foundation for a dream, and dreams are being built.”
Sustainable Development is a Masterful Balance
“Sustainable Development is the masterful balance of meeting our needs today without jeopardizing future generations ability to do the same.”
