Invasive species might come from faraway places but there will be a familiar face helping to make the presentations during an upcoming workshop on invasive species in Clearwater.
Aaron Ritchie-Bonar graduated from Clearwater Secondary School in 2010. She then studied at 
Thompson Rivers University, where she received several awards including TRU's medal in natural resource science.
She spent the winter of 2014 at the University of Belize, joining its women’s soccer team to play in the Central American University Games.
The workshop, titled Be PlantWise, will be about invasive plants in the Clearwater area.
It will include a presentation by Invasive Species Council of BC about its PlantWise program, which is a province-wide initiative designed to work with the horticulture industry and home gardeners to choose safe alternative or native plants instead of invasive ones.
The workshop also will include a discussion by Southern Interior Weed Management Committee about other invasive plant species in the Clearwater region plus a presentation by Agrowest Consulting about a case study on invasive knotweed species.
Following the presentations there will be free refreshments, with the presenters and a representative from Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) available to answer further questions.
The workshop will be sponsored by the Invasive Species Council of BC (ISCBC) and TNRD and will be held at Dutch Lake Community Centre on Tuesday, March 7, 6 – 8 p.m.