4 years after Fiona, P.E.I.'s sand dunes are starting to heal

The dunes on PEI's north shore are healing after being damaged by post-tropical storm Fiona which struck the island in 2022. It was pretty upsetting to come out and see the erosion that had taken place especially in this area of the park. There was up to 10 meters of dunes lost to that storm but we knew and we trusted that those dunes would recover if we could give them space in time and what we're seeing today is exactly that. Photos taken using this citizen science initiative show the drastic difference between what the dunes looked like before Fiona, what they looked like immediately after, and what they look like now. Atkinson says dune growth is a year-round process. Over the course of the winter is when most of the sand accumulates in these areas and then once spring comes the vegetation that gets established in the undisturbed areas helps to stabilize that sand and then allows sand to accumulate behind them which is what actually grows the dunes. So it's a year-round effort in resilience. There are signs and barricades on the beach to remind people not to disturb the dunes as they work to regenerate but Atkinson says keeping people off the dunes has been a problem. The park extends along the north shore for over 65 kilometers so there's a lot of dune habitat within the national park and with that you know there's a lot of pressures from visitors that come to the park within a three-month period over the course of the summer between June to end August we can have hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to these sites. She says local stewards have been stepping up over the years to inform visitors and keep them off the dunes. She says that's the best thing people can do to help support the dunes as they continue to grow back. If we don't get another storm like Fiona, we expect the positive trend to continue. The dunes are doing what they're meant to do. You know, they will naturally recover and they will naturally regenerate as long as we can give them space and time to do so. Gwyneth Egan, CBC News, Brackley Beach.