The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority dished out some hardware earlier this month to those contributing to the health of the region.
SCRCA held their Annual General Meeting March 10 in Point Edward, the organization's first in-person meeting since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The authority recognized Bob Walsh for his work with endangered Spiny Softshell Turtles in the Sydenham River, Mary Tizzard for contributing nearly 1,000 volunteer hours to the SCRCA over the past two years, and Vivian and Chris Crump for reworking their family farm to improve the local habitat.
Since 2019, the Crumps have installed a grassed waterway, a rock chute, and a series of wetlands to prevent soil and nutrients from entering local waterways. They've also planted over 3,000 trees on their property in Ilderton, and have adopted rotational grazing and cover crop practices.
Vivian talked about what it meant to win the award.
"Well it's kind of cool that we got recognized for the work we've done, because it was a lot of people that went into our property that helped us to get where we are today, and hopefully this is here for many generations to come and probably a few more changes along the way."
Vivian said they've adopted environmentally-friendly practices since they bought their farm about 25 years ago.
"Making the water that goes into the water system cleaner, we're sustainable, we try and not over-crop things, we rotate our crops, if we have to spray things, we try to not overdo it, we put cover crops in, all those things."
She's hoping their story inspires others to follow suit.
"Hopefully everybody plants a tree and takes care of the environment because we're only given one shot, so we have to take care of what we have."
Vivian added that they're always trying to educate people.
"We have camping that we open up here, they can bring their own camper, and if they're self-sufficient, then they just go out in a pasture with our alpacas and look at the ponds and the fireflies and enjoy the rural air."
Along with the awards, elections were held during the meeting for the 2023 positions of Authority Chair and Vice-chair. Pat Brown, representing the Township of St. Clair, was elected Chair while Lorie Scott, who represents the Municipality of Lambton Shores, was elected Vice-Chair.