.:FORESTRY AND PHYTOREMEDIATION SERVICES

To absorb nutrients from agro-chemical flows and urban effluent; bio-remediate landfill leachates including but not limited to heavy metals, hydrocarbons, chemical compounds and organic waste; reduce erosion and contain silt flows on stream margins; enhance biodiversity through the creation of wildlife habitat and wildlife corridors; carbon sequestration and oxygen production; landscape beautification; farmyard forestation strategies to lessen multiple contamination risks. The project also applies phytoremediation technology to industrial waste sites which indicate contamination of a type with a high potential for phytoremediation such as crude oil and refined fuel.

• Planting multi-variety trees and grass along river and stream margins, marshes, dugouts, dams and lakes.
• Farmyard shelterbelts and run off filters.
• Forestry for hydraulic control to reverse soil salinity. 

• River and stream margin forestation.
• Salinity control forestation around municipal lagoons.
• Living landfill forest caps and forest filters.
• Effluent irrigation woodlots.
• Biodiversity forest blocks.
• Tree seedlings planted and mulched with grass seeded in the inter-row space .
  

• Water protection, reduced erosion, increased bio-diversity and beautification.
• Future industries for the farmer (native tree species can be harvested for health food and/or fruits. These include rose, saskatoon, buffaloberry, chokecherry, and many others). Other trees are being planted with wood harvesting in mind.

• HELP's rural program was designed by farmers for farmers.
• The program offers more varieties of trees than have ever been available: 30 species of native trees including deciduous shrubs (Rose, Caragana, Dogwood, Hawthorne, Lilac, Red elder, Seabuckthorn, Shrub Willow, Wolf Willow), berry trees (Buffaloberry, Chokecherry, Saskatoon, etc.), large deciduous (Green ash, Aspen, Cottonwood, Poplar-Walker-Manitou-Assinaboia-Okanese-Northwest, Oak, Maple, Acute Willow, Red Cedar, Paper Birch, Russian Olive, Siberian Crabapple, etc.), and evergreens (Blue and White Spruce, Pine, and Larch).
• HELP employs the PFRA-promoted four foot plastic mulch which is applied on top of trees at the time of planting to reduce ground surface evaporation and weed competition.
• HELP has innovated several techniques and products to achieve near zero-maintenance forestation.    
  HELP innovations include:
• Living Mulch between tree rows:  HELP establishes creeping red fescue grass between tree rows as a living mulch to keep out higher water use and invasive weeds. The high grass application rate (20lbs per acre) serves to create dense cover that will stop weed encroachment. The grass does not, however, compete with trees, as it becomes quickly root bound and goes dormant for most of the year.
• HELP International provides:
• Assistance with land assessment and planting plans.
• Land preparation advice.
• Machinery (tree planter, mulch machine, grass broadcaster, harrows, quad).
• Delivery of trees, grass seed, and plastic mulch on the day of planting.
• Free technical advice.
• Experienced laborers.
• Assistance with accessing free trees.
• Supervision of the tree, mulching and grassing installations.

• Three row forest buffers have been planted along 220km of cultivated stream margins in seventeen municipalities on 195 farm properties.  This is the largest program of its kind in Canada.

• HELP has installed the first four woodlots in Saskatchewan for community-wide effluent irrigation at Stoughton, Halbrite, Gull Lake and Carrievale.