Fleming College
IN-24: Innovation A

Fleming College began an Arboretum at the School of the Environment and Natural Resource Sciences in Lindsay, Ontario in 2017 with the Canada 150 initiative. Students and staff in the Ecosystem Management and Forestry programs planted out a variety of Ontario native species within our 50-acre campus to commemorate Canada's history while improving campus greening. Over the last two years, the Fleming College Arboretum has focused on stewarding and collecting seed from our Species at Risk (SARS) inventory, featuring rare, unique and endangered tree species that are locally adapted. This extraordinary initiative and educational program for the School of the Environment is a long term conservation and education legacy that protects vulnerable tree species in our region, as a UN response to biodiversity loss, climate change and the permanent closure of the 72-year-old Ontario Seed Plant. Using ESRI’s Arc Collector and iTree Eco software, students in the respective SENRS programs such as Ecosystem Management and Forestry, measure and calculate the ecological services our Arboretum provides the campus and regional in measured environmental and economic benefits. The Arboretum prepares students with the skills and knowledge for future seed collection from these trees and living seed bank conservation methods. Once seeds from the trees are collected, they will be conserved or distributed back to supporting community partners and schools through our Frost Campus Seed Bank. The SARS Arboretum is an innovative campus initiative that leads the college towards a future of protected biodiversity and unique environmental educational programming. United Nations SDG targets that are embedded in this innovation initiative include 4- Quality Education, 13-Climate Action, 15- Life on Land.