LTABC | 201-569 Johnson Street Victoria BC V8W 1M2 | 250-590-1921 | info@ltabc.ca
The Land Trust Alliance of BC is dedicated to the stewardship and conservation of our natural and cultural heritage through support of land trusts, conservancies and others. We provide education, research, communications and financial services.
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Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia accepts donations year round to aid in our conservation programs. These can be one-time, monthly, corporate matching, and planned giving. Read more about donation options here. Find a full list of our member organizations here.
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Thanks to the generous contributions of over 300 donors, Salt Spring Island Water Preservation Society has purchased 20 acres of the late Mike Larmour’s lands on Beddis Road, Salt Spring Island! Fundraising for the next phase of this project - to purchase Lot F - is now underway. Read more on their website.
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In Memorium
In November, Nanaimo and Area Land Trust lost two of its founders, Gail Adrienne and Barbara Hourston. Both Gail and Barbara were pillars of their community, and pioneers of what is now a robust land trust movement in BC.
Gail Adrienne was a founding member of the Land Trust Alliance of BC and was recognized with our inaugural Outstanding Staff Award in 2011. Barbara Hourston received LTABC’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
The Alliance extends our thoughts to their families and friends.
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Gail Adrienne, 1944-2020
NALT's Founding Executive Director
Gail’s influence on NALT and our community has been profound - the early efforts at watershed stewardship under Project 2000; the successful acquisition of the land that is now Cottle Lake Park in Linley Valley; the fundraisers such as the Music for the Mountain music festival to secure what is now known as the Mount Benson Regional Park; the support and mentorship of other land acquisitions like the Nanaimo River Regional Park and Moorecroft Regional Park; and the myriad other ways she worked to support, promote and protect the natural values of land and water in our area. For 22 of NALT's 25 years, Gail had her hands, heart and soul (and considerable will) invested in NALT’s and the community’s stewardship success.
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Barbara Hourston, 1933-2020
Emeritus NALT Board Director
The title Emeritus NALT Board Director was given to Barbara on her retirement from the NALT Board in 2011. Barbara’s contribution to NALT and the land trust movement in BC cannot be overstated. In 1991 Barbara gathered a group of like-minded citizens who formed the Friends of Linley Valley (later changed to The Linley Valley Park Committee) to search for ways to prevent development in the valley and secure parkland. In 1994, Barbara brought Tyhson Banighen, founder of Turtle Island Earth Stewards, to Nanaimo from Salmon Arm for a workshop on forming a land trust. Several groups from Vancouver Island attended. Over the next two years, and as a result of this workshop, five land trusts emerged, including NALT. For more than two-and-a-half decades, Barbara was a tireless champion, worker, and personal supporter of NALT—both with her time and her donations.
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Fundraising Campaign for S,DÁYES Flycatcher Forest, North Pender Island
Matching opportunity until December 31!
Pender Islands Conservancy has teamed up with Raincoast Conservation Foundation to purchase a 13-acre parcel of land on North Pender Island. The land is mature Coastal Douglas-fir forest with cedar and arbutus surrounded by sedge wetland. It is home to at least 35 bird species (including threatened olive-sided flycatchers), beavers, muskrats and amphibians. The wetland portion is part of the Buck Lake Reservoir and supports the water supply for thousands of Pender Island residents.
A generous donor on Pender has committed to match all donations received by the end of 2020 up to $50,000. Learn more on Pender Islands Conservancy's facebook page or make a tax-deductible donation here. Raincoast Conservation Foundation's website also has more info and a link to donate.
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Fundraising Campaign for Millstream Creek Watershed in the Highlands
One month remaining for 4:1 matching gift opportunity!
The Land Conservancy of BC (TLC) has launched a new fundraising campaign to protect 27 acres of Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) ecosystem in the Millstream Creek Watershed. Located in the District of Highlands, this lush and diverse mature forest includes characteristic veteran trees and three different wetland types (sedge marsh, hardhack marsh, and skunk cabbage swamp) found between undulating hummocks topped with rocky outcrops of Garry oak and arbutus.
The Millstream Creek Watershed campaign is supported by $248,000 from available government grants. TLC aims to raise a remaining $375,000 to protect this precious habitat by the end of the year. An anonymous donor has generously offered to match gifts toward this goal at ratio of 4:1, until December 31, 2020. With this opportunity, TLC seeks to raise a further $75,000 to secure the Millstream Creek Watershed. Read the full press release here, and make a donation here.
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Exciting New Regional Park Opportunity in Saanich
Target completion date of Earth Day (April 22) 2021,
Habitat Acquisition Trust (HAT) has joined forces with the Capital Regional District (CRD) to acquire and create a new regional park in Saanich. The almost 50-acre (20 hectare) forested property near Prospect Lake has been owned by the same family since 1971. The family had been actively seeking a permanent ’green’ outcome for over a decade, for the much visited and treasured “parkland”, which was originally purchased by their conservation-minded father. Though private property for almost 50 years, the family has welcomed recreational use by the property’s neighbours and the general public. Most people assumed the land, with its established walking trails, was already a park and it came as a surprise to many to learn that the property is privately owned and is at risk of being sold and developed. Find more information on HAT's website.
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The Nature Trust of BC receives three extraordinary gifts
The Nature Trust of BC will receive three extraordinary gifts just in time for the holiday season - properties owned by families who love their land and want the natural values protected. Acquiring land is only the first step. We need to care for these properties in perpetuity.
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Good news for Baikie Island Nature Reserve
Greenways Land Trust will receive a $275,000 grant to continue its restoration work at the Baikie Island Nature Reserve. The grant comes from the Environmental Damages Fund run through Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Read an excellent article in the Campbell River Mirror here, and visit Greenways website here.
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NATURE CENTRE CLOSED UNTIL FEBRUARY 1, 2021
Due to Rising Covid-19 cases in the region, the Centre will remain closed for the season, until approximately February 1. Visit their website or facebook page to stay in touch.
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Thetis Island Nature Conservancy
When the Thetis Island Nature Conservancy (ThINC) first came into being in 2012, the founding directors imagined their main role would be to educate local Thetis Island residents and visitors about the native species and ecosystems on the island and to encourage stewardship and conservation initiatives on private land. But before the new society had even been introduced to the community, a large tract of second-growth Coastal Douglas-fir forest on the lower slopes of Burchell Hill came up for sale and the ThINC directors found themselves in the middle of a massive land acquisition campaign to create Thetis Island’s first publicly accessible nature reserve. Five years later, the 16-hectare Fairyslipper Forest Nature Reserve, a partnership initiative between ThINC, the Islands Trust Conservancy and the Cowichan Community Land Trust, was realized. The land is now owned by the Islands Trust Conservancy and protected forever by a management plan and a conservation covenant. ThINC acts as the local management group.
Fairyslipper Forest is named after the delicate pink orchids (Calypso bulbosa) that bloom in the spring. The reserve contains many large veteran Douglas-fir, Western redcedar, Western hemlock and Arbutus trees, and is home to a number of species at risk including peacock vinyl lichen, silver crackers lichen, red-legged frog, ozette coral root, and Pacific sideband snail. ThINC has installed nest boxes for Western screech owls, conducts surveys for bats and other species at risk, and manages invasive species. Situated within the Coastal Douglas-fir Biogeoclimatic zone, one of Canada’s smallest and most at-risk zones, the reserve makes an important contribution to conservation in the province.
Fairyslipper orchids (Calypso bulbosa) bloom in the nature reserve in early spring. Photo: Marcie Welsh
During the past year, the major effort was to construct a two km public walking trail through the Nature Reserve. The project kicked off in the fall of 2019 with a trail building workshop led by instructor Riley McIntosh and attended by over thirty local volunteers, including several children from neighbouring Penelakut Island in whose traditional, unceded territory the reserve is located. Over the next few months, the volunteers from the two islands worked together to build a meandering low impact trail through the forest. “Before it was even finished, the trail became a beloved destination for local hikers,” says ThINC director, Ann Eriksson. “The creation of the nature reserve has raised awareness about the ecological sensitivity of the island and has helped cement a conservation ethic in the community.”
Building bridges on the trails with ThINKpod members Aislinn Cottell, Charlotte Fesnoux, Connor McRae Pharo, Lara Jensen, and Alex Spacek. Photo: Pat English
Every summer ThINC operates a nature house provided by the Porter family on their west side waterfront property known as The Portal. The nature house program, staffed by summer students, offers science- and art-based nature education programs to Thetis Island residents and visitors. But in the spring of 2020, along came COVID-19 and it quickly became apparent that the summer program could not go ahead as planned. The ThINC board took the opportunity to pivot its activities toward another of its core mandates: community food security.
ThINCpod youth team members Aislinn Cottell (background) and Crimson McLellan (foreground) work in the People's Apothecary Garden, a community educational resource for medicinal plants and herbs. Photo: Charlotte Fesnoux
Using funds from various sources, the board hired a coordinator and five youth, who became affectionately known as the ThINCpod. From June through October the team grew organic food for the community, created a digital Food Mosaic which includes a food map highlighting on-island producers, distributors, and food education facilities, and showcases Thetis Island "Food Security Champions"; and revitalized an old garden plot into the People’s Apothecary Garden, a place for growing and learning about medicinal plants and herbs. The ThINCpod also reached out to community experts for advice and mentorship, maintained trails and a pollinator garden, controlled invasive species, researched COVID-friendly recycling for TIRRA and published a blog about their experiences. “Community food security isn’t always associated with conservation,” says Eriksson, “but learning how to live sustainably on the land, from growing food and natural medicinal plants in a regenerative way that improves soil, increases carbon sequestration and keeps people closer to home to find the basics of life; to enhancing habitat for native pollinators; to dealing wisely with waste; each contributes to the health of nature and people. After all, in nature, everything is connected to everything else.”
For more information about ThINC check out their website or Facebook page.
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Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, group events are cancelled or have been postponed.
Please keep in touch with your local land trusts and watch their websites and
social media for updates about their virtual event and educational activities.
And please support them as much as you can!
Find a full list of our member land trusts here.
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TD Friends of the Environment Foundation's next grant submission deadline is January 15, 2021. Find more information here.
Applications for the Nature Trust of British Columbia's 2021 Brink/McLean Grassland Conservation Fund are now open. The application deadline is February 12, 2021. The Fund aims to promote research, habitat restoration and other stewardship activities that will assist in the management of the land, plants and animals of BC’s native grasslands. Find more info and a link to the application form here. See this link for all of NTBC's Scholarship and Funds opportunities.
Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation Enhancement & Restoration offers grants for a variety of conservation projects. Click here for more information and the latest application deadlines.
The Law Foundation of British Columbia 2020 Project Funding is now closed to applications. Visit this link for more information.
Tree Canada offers various grants throughout the year to community groups, schools and individuals to aid their mission to plant and nurture trees in Canadian communities for the benefit of all. Find their list of grants here.
The Victoria Foundation's offers yearly Community Grants. The application window for 2020 is now closed. The next cycle will open in February 2021. Find out more here.
Vancity Savings Credit Union Community Partnership Program is on hold until further notice. Watch this link for more information.
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Ongoing Funding Deadlines
Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund from West Coast Environmental Law. Applications are reviewed once a month. Read more here.
Use Giveffect to create an online fundraising campaign. Visit here.
Honda Canada Foundation funds non-profit charities for operating expenses, research or project costs. Details here.
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