聽Eco-warrior Greta Thunberg visited the Athabasca Glacier and Edith Cavell with Parks Canada and scientists from the University of Saskatchewan last week | Parks Canada photo
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Teenage activist Greta Thunberg spent time in Jasper last week to see some of the environmental issues affecting our park.
Thunberg, the Swede behind Fridays For Future climate strikes across the globe, talked with Parks Canada biologists and ecologists and visited some Jasper landmarks.
She spent six snowy hours on the Athabasca Glacier with John Pomeroy, director of the Global Water Futures program at the University of Saskatchewan, and learned about the glacier鈥檚 retreat, digging into the ice with the scientist to see how it is changing.
Because of a warming climate, the Athabasca Glacier has been receding or melting for the last 125 years.
Its surface is darkening because of soot from forest fires in BC and algae is darkening it even further and accelerating its melt.
Parks Canada talked with Thunberg and her dad, Svante Thunberg, about whitebark pine, an endangered species, and the Parks Canada ecological monitoring program.
A Parks biologist took the teen up to the Edith Cavell area to talk about the monitoring program and to show her how white pine blister rust, mountain pine beetle, fire suppression and climate change has had an impact on the forest health.
Parks Canada has been involved in a 19-year project to restore and protect whitebark pine in the mountain national parks.
The organization is restoring the endangered tree species by collecting whitebark pine seeds and growing, planting and monitoring seedlings that are naturally resistant to blister rust (a fungus that attacks the whitebark pine, causing them to die) while inventorying and mapping for the presence of the species.
In a tweet to her followers, 16-year-old Thunburg thanked Pomeroy and Parks Canada ecologist Brenda Shepherd for educating her 鈥渙n the effects of the climate and ecological crisis on stunning Jasper National Park鈥�.
Her stop in Jasper was part of a tour across Canada that has seen her take part in climate rallies in Edmonton and Vancouver, and visit northern Alberta First Nations to learn more about the oilsands.
