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It’s a very busy year for the reclamation team at De Beers Victor Mine. During 2017 alone, more than 166,000 trees are being planted, heavy equipment is sculpting land around the land to its natural contour, and youth from nearby Attawapiskat are collecting seeds to be used to grow plants that will be used for future reclamation at the mine.
The numbers are staggering:
50,000 live willow stakes have been planted along South Granny Creek and more are coming this fall
116,000 black spruce seedlings are being planted in a number of areas around site
93,000 native plant seedlings collected by Attawapiskat youth over the past three years are being grown at an Aboriginal-owned nursery in B.C. for planting in 2018
246,000 Black Spruce, Jack Pine and Tamarack tree seedlings are being grown by a Timmins, ON nursery this summer for planting in 2018
“Nobody has ever done anything like this in the James Bay Lowlands,” said Stephen Monninger, Reclamation Manager at Victor Mine. “One of the advantages of getting this work started while we are still in operation is that we will be able to monitor how the trees are growing, allowing us to adapt our plans as required before the mine eventually goes into full-scale closure and reclamation.”
CLICK HERE to see a short video about the Victor Mine reclamation program.
Katherine Garrah, a reclamation ecologist at Victor Mine, said eight Attawapiskat youth started work July 3 for the fourth year of a successful seed-collection program.
“We’re collecting all the seeds that we can because we don’t want to overlook any species,” explained Katherine, who said the youth really enjoy the work. “They really love being outside in nature and they are looking at the plants in a way they have never done.”
The exact number of seeds that will be collected is difficult to determine, however the 36 kg of seeds Katherine expects to collect may add up to millions of seeds. “For example, alder seeds can be anywhere between 30,000 and 70,000 seeds per gram.”
All seeds collected by the youth are sent to Victor Mine where a team cleans, dries, sorts and weighs seeds in preparation for planting.
The budget for this year’s reclamation program is $4.2 million.