By Steve Weatherbe

SCOTCH Broom is a highly competitive, tough European plant that has been spreading northward up the roads and highways of Vancouver Island since its deliberate introduction here by a Scottish settler named James Grant in 1850.

Now the Lighthouse Christian Academy, a K – 12 school in Langford, just west of Victoria, is taking on broom with a day-long blitz in early October.

The goals are: to do community service by clearing out a section of Mill Hill Park; to educate the students about invasive species; to build solidarity between the 40 high schoolers who will do the actual broom-bashing and their 85 elementary school buddies who will canvas door-to-door for donations based on the hours spent bashing; to teach that nature is a gift of God meriting grateful stewardship; and to raise funds for special projects.

“It's as much for learning as raising funds,” said principal Leland Makaroff. “And, of course, it’s a great bonding experience.”

The principal is aware that environmentalism has approached the importance of a religion in some people's lives.

“But if Christians share their concern for the environment from a different perspective, we can build a bridge to them,” he said.

“We can protect nature without worshipping mother nature.”

Makaroff said the key biblical concept for Christians dealing with the environment is stewardship, not ownership. “God gave us a planet that was in balance, and we should try to keep it in balance by correcting mistakes such as the transfer of invasive species.”

Makaroff had led a much smaller group of senior students on a broom-bash a few years ago at a different school. When he changed homes as well as schools, he found that his new backyard opened up on a growing patch of broom in an adjoining park. He took it on as a personal mission.

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And it gave him an idea.

“I thought, instead of a walkathon to raise funds, why not put that effort into something that benefits the community, and get all the seniors into fighting broom?”

It won’t be easy. Broom is a mildly toxic plant that is inedible for most its life, grows to 10 feet in height, spreads both through root expansion and by exploding thousands of seeds each year.

It out-competes native species and is viewed as a major threat to both the native Garry Oak meadow ecosystems and the forest industry’s Douglas Fir plantations, by outgrowing and shading tree seedlings.

Despite efforts to find insects, plants or organisms to control broom, on Vancouver Island manual weeding persists. Makaroff said the technique has evolved from initial efforts to kill the plant by uprooting it.

“This just tended to shake seeds loose onto the disturbed soil and spread it. Now the idea is to cut the plants off just below ground. In a few years you come back and do it again.”

Makaroff will ask the Capital Regional District parks department to assign several areas to the school permanently, so that it can rotate through them year-to-year.

Grade 12 student Tom Myers has participated in other Lighthouse environmental projects such as cleanups of streets around the school as well as a creek and nearby forest.

Just back from a reconnaissance mission to the park, he said the work consisted of stooping down to cut the plants off at the roots, then gathering the plants for destruction.

“You have to be careful not to disturb the earth,” he said, “because this would get the plant starting up again.”

One final payoff: “Some students may be attracted to the environmental sciences as a career field,” Makaroff said, “while others may get an incentive to go on to university in any field – just so they won’t have to do manual labour for a living.”

October 2010