Local litter cleanups; You can help clean up the environment by picking up litter along your neighborhood streets and around paths or shorelines when you’re going on a walk around local parks and nature trails.
Plant native and pollinator friendly plants; Planting trees, shrubs and flowers that are native to where you live, and pollinator-friendly plants without harmful pesticides encourages wildlife that play ecological roles, that you could study, learn about, admire or be inspired by, naturalizing your own area establishes micro habitats that can create havens and lend to wider wildlife corridors.
Help pollinators and invertebrates with local crafts; Insect motel with stems – At a recent Ontario Nature staff retreat we made these great crafts – stem-nesting pollinator hotels; To start, find a bundle of hollow plant stems around your home, backyard, garden, property or friend’s property. Separate the stems into six or seven inch segments, then place bunches of the hollow stems into small pots or tie the bunches of hollow stems, then place in your garden.
Local birdwatching/wildlife; You may be surprised by the diversity of wildlife you might observe in your own yard space, from bumblebees and hummingbirds, to hermit thrushes, white-throated sparrows, black-throated blue warblers, red-tailed hawks, opossums, eastern cottontails, red admiral butterflies, northern brownsnakes, bush katydids, American toads and more. Encouraging wildlife habitat in your own backyard increases your chances of seeing wildlife just steps from your own abode.
Local walks in nature; An abundant variety of wildlife and inspiring landscapes can often be found near your own home or town. Discover local trails near you for quick relaxing and motivating journeys into nature. This can help you more closely familiarize with where you live, reduce stresses, improve health, reduce emissions and form more meaningful relationships with your community, in part by sharing time in nature with others who also enjoy spending time close to nature.
Around the yard nature art; As a creative idea – If sticks have fallen from trees in your frontyard or backyard, perhaps they have some interesting colourful lichen on them, you could arrange these outside to make a decorative natural art piece (you could place the sticks with lichen in your garden to help nature too)
Nature journaling; You could create a journal where you write about your favourite or memorable experiences in nature, for your own interests or to share and perhaps inspire others to appreciate nature too. You could even create blogs about your experiences in nature or dedicated to further helping the environment.
Reduce waste; By driving less you could help reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, you could reduce the amount of consumer plastic and packaged products you buy and be sure to recycle to prevent further leachates, and microplastics from harming watersheds, wildlife, natural surroundings and ultimately from your own intake in foods you eat from the food chain.
Enjoy local foods; Local foods require less fuel to transport resulting in fewer emissions, and by eating local foods you can support local food producers and local farmers, also encouraging more sustainable and healthier farm and rural landscapes.
Report littering, harassment of wildlife or invasive species to local environmental authorities; By reporting littering by calling or emailing local municipalities, conservation authorities, Ontario Provincial Police, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Natural Heritage Information Centre, and Invasive Species Monitors near your home, nearby watersheds, nearby highways or roads if you live rurally, to conservation partners including Toronto Parks and Recreation or the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority for instance…, you can help prevent toxic chemicals from plastics, batteries, rusting metal components, aerosols etc from leaking into the soil and groundwater and from harming wildlife and ultimately harming your own common resources and environment, as well as prevent injury to wildlife, poaching and wildlife trafficking operations, as well as prevent increasingly widespread introduced invasive species that displace and disrupt increasingly diminishing and incredibly significant native wildlife habitat.
Donate to wildlife and environmental organizations; If you can, donating to environmental organizations can support local, provincial, national and worldwide efforts to help, protect, act, advise, lobby for and educate others about the environment and help protect wildlife, protect habitat and enable research and reports too.
Resources:
- Ontario Nature Environmental Footprint Page
- Five Ways to Connect With Nature While Stuck Inside During COVID-19 Blog
- Go #GreenStepByStep Blog
- GreenStepByStep Blog #2: Caring For the Planet By Caring For Yourself
- The Environmental Impacts of Fast Fashion Blog
- A Nature Viewer’s Code of Ethics: Do’s and Don’ts Blog
- The Naturalist’s Travel Dilemma Blog