Turin Pawpaw Woods
Jim and Georgina Sheldon donated 40 ha (100 acres) upland forest, wooded 
swamp and retired farmland to the Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC) with the vision of seeing the agricultural lands restored to their former wetland and forest habitat. This parcel is part of the Turin Pawpaw Woods, one of Chatham-Kent�s largest forests, running to the north of, and parallel to, Highway 401 in Chatham-Kent.
In late 2005, SFN donated $1 000 to the Turin Pawpaw Woods stewardship endowment fund and in the following years SFN has worked with the NCC and other partners to restore prairie grass on this property.
Members of our club have also been involved with botanical and bird inventories. We have placed wood duck nesting boxes in the woodlands button bush swamps and we do marsh monitoring (amphibians) in the retired farmlands newly constructed wetlands. We have helped with exotic plant removal and were involved with planting of red cedar and white pine to establish a conifer shelter belt surrounding the cropland area.
We have signed and renewed stewardship agreements with NCC. This agreement includes detailed vegetation monitoring during August. Twenty eight monitoring plots have been established in which all plants are identified, percentage cover for each determined as well as amount of bare ground. This will be continued for several years to determine the changes in species cover. Since restoration began in 2005, the prairie habitat has flourished and is now a beautiful, beneficial habitat in Chatham-Kent.
For more photos of our work in this project, see our photo gallery.
For photos taken by our club member, Herman Giethoorn, of the species found on this property follow this link to Turin Pawpaw Woods. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hgiethoorn/sets/72157625551222252/