On March 26th, roughly 150 students, community members, and delegates from Ottawa’s many environmental groups gathered at the Shenkman Arts Centre for the final installation of David & Tara’s Stronger Together Tour. David Suzuki and Tara Cullis, life partners and co-founders of the David Suzuki Foundation, toured for two months this spring, performing their original play, What You Won’t Do For Love, in local theatres across Southern Ontario.
Ecology Ottawa is thrilled to announce the recipients of our fourth annual Eco Awards! Ottawa is unusually blessed with an outstanding natural heritage and individuals dedicated to preserving it. We think it’s critical that those who inspire us to take ecological action in Ottawa be appropriately recognized, and it’s our privilege to do this.
We attended City Council’s Public Works and Infrastructure committee on April 23 to urge the adoption of a bike share system. As a City staff report outlines, this concept has undergone several studies already—most recently, a feasibility study. This study observed that bike share could be rolled out in early 2027; but instead of adopting the study’s recommendation, the Committee opted to produce—drum roll, please—another study.
Our Eco Awards are back! To celebrate Earth Week 2026, we’re again highlighting the people, places, plants, trees, and animals of Ottawa that inspire us, bring the community together, and enrich our ecosystem. Make a nomination today!
As part of a sewer and watermain maintenance project, the City of Ottawa was to construct sidewalks on a few streets in the neighbourhood of Manor Park. This addition has met stiff resistance with some Manor Park residents, though many are in support as well. Here we’ll take a look at some of the arguments made against sidewalks both in general and particular arguments made about this project.
Recently an inquiry about the safety of allowing right turns on red was brought to the Ottawa Public Works and Infrastructure Committee by Councillor Ariel Troster. Ottawa city staff responded to this by claiming that RTOR is in fact safer for pedestrians. But could this possibly be true? We dug into the data.
Ecology Ottawa addressed a meeting of Council's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee on Thursday to oppose a report recommending against protecting pedestrians and cyclists downtown with a ban on Right Turns On Red. This report was full of problems: the complete omission of research literature, wholly inadequate statistics, and an acquiescence to dangerous driver behaviour.
The City of Ottawa released the results of a Tree Canopy Mapping last September. So what is this, and why is it important? And above all, how is our urban tree canopy doing? Our Council Watch Intern Kristen Busby breaks it down.
Ecology Ottawa delegated to City Council's Environment and Climate Change Committee meeting today to support a proposed new funding stream for community waste diversion initiatives and urge several improvements. This new funding responds directly to advocacy by Ecology Ottawa dating to 2024. Over 250 people signed the petition, and Committee members explicitly cited community input as influencing this proposal.
Ottawa City Council’s Planning and Housing Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee met on December 17 in a joint meeting to discuss the final draft of Ottawa’s new Zoning By-law. We learned that staff had proposed undoing some of the gains made on bike parking, which is of course critical to transitioning our city from car dependency to sustainability. Please read our delegation!
"I wanted to make sure I was mimicking the Ecodistrict Ottawa is a part of, which is the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Another thing we wanted to consider was the type of plants. We wanted plants that 1) were drought resistant, 2) staggered blooms (spring, summer and fall) and 3) co-planted well together..."