We recently sat down with Andrea Service, a Property Guardian, and asked about her experience volunteering with the Nature Trust.

What is your connection to nature? What do you love about nature and wild places? 

I’ve always loved the woods from a young age. Living in northern Quebec and then on travels with my family to densely forested places such as Finland and Sweden, forests were magical places that lit up my curiosity of the natural world. My parents gave me a lot of freedom, and if I wasn’t exploring a forest’s rich understory or damp woodland floor (fungi are marvels!), I would be found looking up at the canopy or sitting beneath an enormous pine or oak listening to forest sounds. As a child, I remember being moved by the mammal calls; the buzzes, hums, taps and clicks of woodland insects; and the fluting of migratory birds. Living in Ireland and Africa in my 20s, I also spent a lot of time on the coast and learned a lot about marine environments – I think I would be happy in pretty much any semi-natural habitat that you place me, including bogs and fen!

My love of forests led me to a PhD in the historical ecology of ancient Irish oakwoods. Ireland lost most of its woodland during the 16th-century Tudor clearances, but pockets of ancient semi-natural woodland remain, and I spent 4 years studying the Crom oakwoods on Upper Lough Neagh – now a National Trust protected site. I then was involved in fieldwork for the initiative Back on the Map: Ancient Woodland Inventory, where we recorded and catalogued ancient woodland that has been continuously forested since at least 1660, with the aim of ensuring protections for these incredible forest ecosystems. These places are irreplaceable habitats of high biodiversity value and what I learned was that they also contain features of great historical and cultural significance, so it was a hugely inspirational experience.

I continued to do fieldwork in forest ecology in other parts of the world and worked in Botswana and Kenya on a forest restoration program. When I moved back to Nova Scotia with my young daughters, I had many wonderful years studying and monitoring the Acadian Forest (Wabanaki Forest), and also worked on the Inner Bay of Fundy Salmon restoration project – so being outdoors in diverse habitats has been a huge part of my life. The Cape Breton and Mabou Highlands were an incredible discovery for me, full of red spruce, balsam fir, sugar maple, yellow birch, Eastern hemlock, and Eastern white pine – this is where my love of Cape Breton took hold!

What inspired you to get involved with the Nature Trust?

Ten years ago, I moved into the field of environmental impact assessment, with my work focusing on what the Government of Canada has considered the twin crises of the future: biodiversity loss and climate change. From this space, I have tried to effect change at the policy level to protect Canada’s remaining wilderness and wild species. I wanted to know why certain decisions were made at the political level, and how the data that we, as scientists, conservationists and Indigenous Peoples have collected while working in the field, is being used to support the conservation of our biodiversity and wild spaces.

My work is now very desk-based, and so it was important to me to get back into the field. I have found it so amazing to be able to access Nova Scotia’s old-growth forests, islands, wetlands, and critical coastal habitats through field monitoring while also supporting the Nature Trust’s incredible work in protecting these spaces! I’m so grateful to the Nature Trust for the opportunity to connect with like-minded people, to explore these beautiful landscapes and to make lasting friendships. It really has given me back so much happiness and purpose. What is more, Riki and Christina have given me sites to monitor in the Mabou Highlands, so I am literally doing cartwheels whenever I can get up there and start logging the monitoring on the Landscape app.

Why is volunteering in this capacity important to you?

I feel that now, more than ever, it’s so important to champion the inherent value of these wilderness spaces. For me, protecting biodiversity – both species and habitats – is not just an ecological necessity, but a profound moral duty. The role that the Nature Trust plays in private land conservation benefits us all. I’m sometimes asked: why is it important to save these wilderness areas when our focus needs to be on strengthening our economies and socio-economic well-being.? My answer is that a healthy economy depends on a healthy environment. We are literally ensuring our future when we protect biodiversity – clean water, crop pollination, climate regulation, the plants and animals that support tourism and traditional economies – all of this underpins more than half of our GDP.

Volunteering with the Nature Trust makes me feel connected to a greater purpose. The protection and conservation of these wild spaces – so generously donated by landowners – provides a safe haven for wild plants and animals; it strengthens our resilience to climate change by protecting our lands and oceans, which are massive carbon sinks; it ensures climate regulation and healthy ecosystems that filter our drinking water, regulate floods, mitigate droughts and purify the air; and it sustains Indigenous values systems and Indigenous Knowledge which, have so much to teach us about our place in the wider landscape.

When I’m out in the Mabou Highlands or supporting Piping Plover surveys on the South Shore, these protected areas really help me to feel connected to something bigger than myself. Volunteering in these spaces makes you feel curious and engaged with the natural world, and I think this is so important to developing an understanding that we all connected to this web of life – we can’t live in isolation from it – and why would we want to?

How have you found your experience volunteering with the Nature Trust? How was the training and onboarding?

My experience volunteering has been incredible! I could not speak more highly of the team and the many opportunities they have offered, whether it’s hands-on wilderness mapping or fieldwork, community outreach, or participating at events, the support is gold star. Christina, Riki and team go to exceptional lengths to provide training (e.g., the Landscape app), including invasive species identification and presentations on current projects, and make an effort to provide volunteers with great experience – you are able to suggest properties you would like to monitor and they will help connect you with other volunteers. The monitoring blitzes and hubs are also a wonderful way to see everyone, make friendships and take part in collective efforts to monitor property or to get into the woods and do a good clean-out! These events are a highlight for me.

What would your message be to others that are interested in getting involved with the Nature Trust?

If you love being outdoors in our beautiful province, care about Nova Scotia’s ecosystems and wildlife, and want to feel connected to a like-minded community of volunteers who all come from different backgrounds and are supportive and fun, this is a truly wonderful thing to do. Christina and Riki make it so easy to participate, and you can devote as many as hours as you have. Really, nothing lifts the spirits like advocating for our planet’s ecosystems together!

Thank you to Andrea for sharing her story, and for her amazing volunteer work! Learn more about our Property Guardians program.