2025: A year of environmental resolve in the Kawarthas |
Even as climate disruption and threats to our flora and fauna continue to worsen in Peterborough and the Kawarthas, 2025 offered powerful reminders that local action still matters.
Across the region, educators, researchers, volunteers, businesses, municipal leaders and a host of non-profit organizations made tangible progress in protecting nature, strengthening climate resilience, and inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards. These achievements do not erase the serious challenges ahead, but they show that commitment, creativity and community collaboration can still move the needle — often in meaningful and lasting ways.
In 2025, the Kawartha Land Trust protected more than 580 additional acres, including the 435-acre Kawartha Highlands South Nature Reserve and the Cation Wildlife Preserve. The Kawartha Highlands property is home to granite rock barrens, expansive forests, wetlands and natural shoreline along 1.2 kilometres of the Mississauga River.
Reaching 8,250 total acres protected, the trust became one of the first in Canada to earn the Certification in Conservation Excellence.
Volunteers contributed 3,450 hours, planting more than 6,500 native trees and shrubs and restoring trails damaged by March’s ice storm, significantly enhancing climate resilience and biodiversity across the Kawarthas.
Green Economy Peterborough held its fourth annual Leadership in Sustainability Awards in June, recognizing local businesses like Morton Medical Centre, Woodleigh Farms and Wild Rock Outfitters for climate action. Morton Medical and Woodleigh Farms also won national recognition for innovation and emissions reduction, highlighting strong local leadership in sustainability efforts.
Other winners included Charlotte Products, Trent Health in Motion and Unity Design Studio.
In 2025, Camp Kawartha achieved global acclaim as its Pathway to Stewardship and Kinship program received the United Nations University’s Outstanding Flagship Project Award. This prestigious honour recognizes the pathway as one of the world’s leading examples of education for sustainable development with its “community-grounded model” helping to raise environmentally aware, caring and engaged young people.
True wealth could be measured in clean air and water, healthy soil, thriving ecosystems and citizens who come to care for and tend natural spaces. Summer campers are shown........