Recognizing Ecological Land Care of Urban Greenspaces

From tiny to extensive, volunteer led to municipally created and maintained, sites of all shapes and sizes that offer examples of sustainable, regenerative and ecological land care are eligible for recognition.

Read more about the program and the 2022 Greener Greenspace recipients by clicking the button below. 

Update on the 2023 Program: SOUL is taking time to engage members on the future direction of the organization and therefore we have paused the submission period for this year's program. Stay tuned for more information about the Greener Greenspace program!

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2023 Ecological Land Care Webinar Series

SOUL's 2023 Ecological Land Care Webinar Series featured presentations by SOUL's Greener Greenspace recipients and explored community and municipal-led ecological land care and Indigenous-led land stewardship. 

You can access the recordings of these episodes at 2023 Webinar Series

The Organic Land Care Standard

The Organic Land Care Standard is a technical and goals based document that was first introduced by SOUL in 2003 to address the need for a tool to support a successful transition toward sustainable land care practices by individuals, community, industry and government.

The Organic land care standard is updated regularly to remain in alignment with the Canadian Organic Standard.

Organic land care is the design, construction and maintenance of landscapes using practices and products that preserve and support the health of ecosystems and human communities.

2022 Year of the Ecological Garden

A year-long presentation and Q&A series promoting ecological land care and sharing the expertise of SOUL members.

Many of the episodes were recorded and are now available for viewing.

Recorded Episodes

Organic Land Care for Your Community

A Step-by-Step Guide for Community Members Working to Change Municipal Policies for a Greener Future

Organic Urban Land Care is much more than simply restricting the use of synthetic chemicals, it is working with natural systems to create healthy and resilient landscapes. It is a process of planning and caring for spaces with an ecosystem approach, relying on various elements of that ecosystem to support each other so there are fewer inputs needed and less waste produced. At its core, Organic Land Care is about increasing the biodiversity and subsequent resiliency and function of landscapes.

The Role of Horticulture in Cultivating Social and Land Equity

This series is a starting point for a conversation about the garden, landscaping and horticultural world and how the spaces that we cultivate are experienced by people who work with land and plants and the people who occupy, or are excluded from, those spaces.

Over the course of six sessions, we introduced some of the challenges and opportunities around how the urban landscape is currently cared for, we heard from Black and Indigenous speakers about their work and experiences in the horticultural world and we explored some ways to address the root issues to some of the challenges described.

The sessions were recorded and can be found here.

If you would like to organize a viewing of the recorded sessions within your own community, whether that community is professional, social, geographic or virtual, we are happy to pair this with a live, virtual Q&A or discussion session, since our hope is to seed the beginnings of conversations around how we can practice caring for the urban landscape in ways that also cultivate space for all of the life, including human life, that makes up thriving communities.

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