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Staff Feature – The Meadoway Field Team

September 21, 2020

Since the pilot project in 2012,  TRCA has been working in partnership with City of Toronto, Hydro One Network Inc, Infrastructure Ontario and The W. Garfield Weston Foundation to convert 115 hectares of primarily barren mown grass to a functional native meadow supporting a variety of native flora and fauna species including Species at Risk (Monarch). The Meadoway, located in Scarborough, will revitalize 16 linear kilometres of hydro corridor between the Don River Ravine and the Rouge National Urban Park, transforming it into a vibrant stretch of urban greenspace with multi-use trails and meadowlands. The Meadoway engages teams from Restoration and Resource Management, The Project Management Office, and Education who work collaboratively to deliver what will become one of Canada’s largest linear urban parks

The Meadoway project is a huge success in large part to the tireless efforts of our restoration field staff.  In 2020, restoration staff completed an unprecedented amount of work within The Meadoway. A regular day could consist of site prep (mow, till and cover crop using tractors); adaptive management (invasive species control and general maintenance);  testing out new trials on seed types to maximize yields; collaborating with academics on soil infiltration tests; promoting The Meadoway through Facebook Live events or Instagram videos. Their professionalism, great attitude, adaptability; and team effort play a huge role in the success of this project. Our field teams work closely with other internal groups such as “Terrestrial Inventories and Monitoring” staff to document flora and fauna changes in The Meadoway. Field staff also worked closely with our “Forestry Services and Nursery Production” staff on our invasive species management this year. Both collaborations played a large role in reaching our adaptive management targets for this year.  By the end of 2020 from April to November, The Meadoway Restoration field team will have completed:

  • 35 ha of native meadow seeding (Bringing our native meadow restored to date to 68 ha)
  • 35 ha of site prep * 4 (Mow, till, cover crop, repeat)
  • 31 ha of meadow buffer mowing multiple times
  • 108 ha of Adaptive Management and monitoring (Buffers, shrub nodes and meadow) managing invasive species, drought, etc.

The Meadoway Team consists of the following TRCA staff members among many more:

Thank you to the team for all of their hard work!