Portable boardwalk a new strategy for sand dune preservation

The Nature Conservancy of Canada and a group of volunteers were at St. Peter's Harbour Beach on P.E.I.'s North Shore Saturday working on two projects to preserve the dunes there.

They were planting 2,000 plugs ofmarram grass and building a portable boardwalk.

Julie Vasseur, program director for P.E.I. with the Nature Conservancy, said this is the second year for planting marram grass at the beach, but the first time for the portable boardwalk.

• Marram grass planted to preserve beach's sand dunes

"We decided to go with a portable one because the right-of-way, the pathway to the beach, is too low to support a permanent one," said Vasseur.

"We still wanted to create a pathway for people to walk on. And this will also help guide them from not walking on the grass as well. So we decided that we would build a portable structure which is a really neat design that actually rolls. So we can roll it up at the end of the season and store it to keep it safe."

The Nature Conservancy of Canada owns and protects 149 hectares of land in the St. Peters Harbour beach area.

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