Quinte Conservation launches new volunteer initiative

Quinte Conservation headquarters are located along Old Highway 2. Photo by Joseph Carin, QNet News

By Joseph Carin

BELLEVILLE – Quinte Conservation launched a new program called Adopt a Trail to help maintain Quinte’s 23 conservation areas and bolster their available workforce.

Adopt a Trail looks to find volunteers who regularly hike the Quinte conservation network of trails to work alongside staff to ensure that they are user-friendly for all community members such as branch cutting, pruning and pathway clearing.

Recruiting community members who frequent the conservation area as volunteers would help maintain the quality of the environment, said Kathryn Di Donato, human resource specialist and volunteer coordinator of Quinte Conservation.

Human resource specialist and volunteer coordinator Kathryn Di Donato says that they have been building with their small workforce for sometime. Photo by Joseph Carin, QNet News

“We thought it would be a perfect way to incorporate some trail maintenance while providing the opportunity for individuals who are constantly using our conservation areas to support them. We have a number of trails in our conservation area making it hard to check on them on a daily basis so we are introducing this volunteer program to ensure that everything is user friendly.”

Currently, Quinte Conservation has three on-field staff members that work to maintain the multiple conservation areas.

“We just don’t have enough manpower to maintain the trails on a regular schedule. It is an issue we have been facing for a while.”

Volunteers will be trained by conservation staff and choose a suited trail to maintain. A volunteer information night will be held Feb. 28 at Quinte Conservation’s main office on Highway 2.