Projects & Clients

Red Hill Valley Project (City of Hamilton)

Kayanase is currently working with the City of Hamilton on an ecological restoration project as part of its Red Hill Valley Project. The City’s Red Hill Valley Project is an environmentally-integrated infrastructure project which includes construction of a controlled access parkway, improved storm water management, naturalization and stabilization of degraded/urbanized sections of Red Hill Creek using natural channel design, and a landscape management plan including trails, native tree and shrub planting, and ecological restoration.

The ecological restoration activities will attempt to restore natural ecological diversity and function on more than 100 hectares of land located within the Red Hill Valley – a recognized Environmentally Sensitive Area and important natural corridor linking the Niagara escarpment forest to the Lake Ontario shoreline. It is one of the largest ecological restoration projects ever undertaken in a major urban setting in North America. The ecological restoration plans developed by Kayanase’s professional restoration ecologists include seeding and planting of over 1,000,000 native trees, shrubs, and forbs, established from local wild-type seed collected from within 75 kilometers of the project site. The plans include restoration of a variety of woodland and wetland habitat types appropriate to the Carolinian forest zone location, according to habitat restoration templates, based on reference model sites and conditions.

The project is being completed as a “design-build” restoration project, whereby Kayanase restoration ecologists are designing and managing the restoration program from initial site assessment, plan development, site preparation, seed collection, plant propagation, site installation, maintenance and monitoring to a site “free-to-grow” stage. The project is a 5 year, $4 million initiative.

In addition to the establishment of native plants, a large component of the restoration work involves the management (e.g., removal) of invasive exotic species, which is a major factor impacting the current ecological integrity of the Red Hill Valley. An exotic species is one which has been introduced either by accident or deliberately (e.g., for landscaping, gardening, pest control, for food or fiber production). Invasive exotic species are aggressive and often displace native plants and wildlife, reducing the ability of natural ecosystems to function properly and remain healthy. Exotics, once established, make it difficult to re-establish native plant populations. A few examples of problem invasive species in the Red Hill Valley include, Garlic Mustard, European Buckthorn, Japanese Knotweed, Spotted Knapweed, and Tartarian Honeysuckle. One of the objectives of the restoration work is to reduce and replace problem exotics with appropriate healthy native plant assemblages, capable of limiting future re-establishment and spread of problem exotic species.