Calgary, Alberta Integrated Pest Management Policy

Calgary, Canada

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Type: Policy

Status: In effect

Source File: Click here

Description:

Integrated Pest Management or IPM, is a healthy approach to keeping pest populations (weeds, insects, diseases, etc.) under control. IPM is how your City of Calgary Parks department consolidates and coordinates all necessary pest management techniques, effectively, economically, and using environmentally sound methods. Since pest problems often point to ecological imbalances, the IPM goal is to plan and manage ecosystems to prevent organisms from becoming pests.

The City of Calgary IPM Plan (2023 KB) is one of the foremost municipal IPM strategies in Canada. It takes a leadership role within the city by educating and promoting IPM to other City departments and the public. Community values were incorporated into the plan during its development in 1998, in consultation with the Pesticide Advisory Task Force, The City of Calgary staff and the public. The plan aims to manage Calgary's 9,088 hectares of green space in an ecologically friendly and cost effective manner.

Best Practices and Innovations
IPM promotes and practices a better understanding of the ecosystem and why pest problems occur. It also provides a reduced dependence on chemical controls.

These practices result in healthier parks and higher quality recreational areas and actively protect natural ecosystems within the urban environment. They foster the preservation of natural enemies of pests and ensure The City's tactics are in compliance with municipal, provincial and federal regulations regarding pest management.

As well as pesticide-free parks, other examples of our recent successes are:

• Providing enhanced maintenance opportunities to parks
• Monitoring and identification of new and potential pests in the city
• Evaluating new machinery for rehabilitating turf sites
• Top dressing products to promote soil cycling in turf
• Deep-tyne aeration to reduce soil compaction on recreational turf
• Using slow release fertilizers to promote year-round fertility
• Testing corn gluten as a natural fertilizer and weed suppressant
• Organic fertilizing trials