Nature Vancouver

Nina Shoroplova is the author and photographer of Legacy of Trees: Purposeful Wandering in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. She is also a Master Gardener of BC, and leads tree-identification walks with Stanley Park Ecology Society, Nature Vancouver, and Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival.
At the beginning of each tree-identification walk she leads, Nina asks people to stand in a circle and say (1) their first name, (2) which tree or trees they particularly want to see (they will have a list of trees in the area), and (3) to share their own expertise. "I just love trees" is a frequent answer to the last question, and so is "I want to learn about all trees," but a knowledge of birds, insects, fungi, plants that grow in the shade of trees, and of different types of wood are all equally helpful. At the end of a recent walk, someone asked her to create a PowerPoint Presentation about some of the terms she uses, like leaf and leaflets, simple and compound leaves, leaf lobes and veins, trunk and bole, and even petiole and peduncle! So here it is, Nina's PPP on naming the parts of woody trees and shrubs in our urban forest. Please join us and love trees even more.

Sarah Cox is an author and environmental journalist based in Victoria. B.C. Speaking about her latest book, Signs of Life: Field Notes from the Frontlines of Extinction, Sarah will talk about the increasingly desperate measures underway to save species at risk of extinction, including the spotted owl, the huge gaps in Canada’s safety net for endangered species, and how we can turn things around.

Sarah is a longtime reporter and editor for The Narwhal, where she writes about energy and environmental issues. Among other journalism awards, she is the recipient of the World Press Freedom Award, the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the Science Media Centre of Canada and the Canadian Association of Journalists’ Award for Environmental & Climate Change Reporting. Her first book, Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Big Hydro, won a B.C. book prize and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.

> “Sarah Cox’s reporting on environmental issues has long been essential reading, and Signs of Life is no exception. Detailing everything from efforts to save the old-growth forest-dependent spotted owl in British Columbia to rare lichens in Nova Scotia’s disappearing woodlands, Signs of Life combines whip-smart reporting with an in-depth knowledge of conservation science to produce a persuasive call to act before it is too late.”
> — Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree