Sudbury regreening efforts highlighted at international conference

Morning North7:38Sudbury shines at re-greening conference

Sudbury is a world leader in re-greening, and this week, international experts are in town to talk about lessons learned at the Sudbury Mining and the Environment Conference. John Gunn is part of the conference. He shared some of the big issues with us.Experts from around the world are in Sudbury this week to learn more about the city's internationally recognized regreening effort. 

The 20th annual Sudbury Mining and the Environment Conference is being held at Laurentian University.

People who study or work in the field of environmental reclamation are learning about how large swaths of the city went from desolate black rocks to green trees.

The transformation in Sudbury has been so dramatic that tours of the city no longer reflect how scarred the landscape once was from mining activity, said John Gunn, director of the Living with Lakes Centre at Laurentian University.

"The recovery is so dramatic that our so-called reference sites don't look very bad to most people," he said. "We didn't have any clearly black areas to show them the before and after story."

To show people the difference the regreening has made, Laurentian University created a film series dedicated to the changing landscape, Gunn said.

The conference will also highlight the reclamation of uranium mining sites in Elliot Lake, he said.

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