By Staff
June 17th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
On the Bruce Trail this summer, you’ll see a few new faces helping with onsite education.
The Bruce Trail Conservancy has hired six Trail Ambassadors to perform visitor outreach and litter clean-ups at popular places in three regions: Hamilton/Halton, Beaver Valley, and the Bruce Peninsula.
As more people seek the physical and mental benefits of walking in nature, some areas of the Niagara Escarpment have become hot spots, seeing more human-caused impact than the environment can handle. The high volumes of trail users include those who may not be familiar with trail etiquette.
Litter, trespassing, and other poor behaviours are impacting the trail, the environment, other trail users, and landowners whose property the Bruce Trail crosses.
So together with Bruce Trail Club volunteers, these summer staff will visit busy trail destinations to promote leave-no-trace practices and safe trail use. They’ll even be distributing “Hike it. Love it. Keep it Clean” badges to those who join them in picking up litter or who are demonstrating low impact hiking.
“More people using the Bruce Trail is not a bad thing in itself. It is wonderful that people have discovered the Bruce Trail as a way to connect with nature,” explains Adam Brylowski, Manager of Conservation and Trail. “For these trails and protected areas to continue to thrive, the Bruce Trail Conservancy, its partners, and all its supporters must work together to ensure that the cumulative impact of all our visits is minimized”.