Finding the trust to give your land away
A rising number of British Columbians are bequeathing property to organizations who promise to protect the areas forever
By Mark Hume, The Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER — As he makes his way through the tangled forest that surrounds his home in Coquitlam, Steve Vida points out where a black bear named the Young Punk broke down a fruit tree and where another, Four by Four, has bathed in an ornamental pool.
“My friends,” says the 86-year-old widower, referring not just to the bears but the coyotes and wild birds that keep him company on the one-hectare property he recently decided to leave them in his will.
Mr. Vida, a retired engineer who helped build instant resource towns during his career, thinks he could have got $1-million for the land from an eager developer.
Instead, he did what a small but increasing number of British Columbians are doing: He sought out a land trust and gave it away.
“I was with an engineering company and I have seen destruction,” he said. “I didn’t want to see the property destroyed. Somehow I got a connection with the Land Conservancy of B.C. and they worked it all out.”
Under a conservation covenant, the land will be maintained in its natural state after Mr. Vida has died, with ownership held by the Coquitlam Foundation, an organization that manages charitable gifts for the community.
“It means the property can’t be touched. Trees can’t be cut. No development,” Mr. Vida said as he pushed aside drooping deer ferns to show a fresh bear track in the mud.
Everyone has their own reason for getting involved with a land trust, but for many, as for Mr. Vida, it is rooted in a deep love of nature.
When he was 5, he was given a thrush, which he put into a cage with a handful of chicken feed that went uneaten. Told the wild bird would die if kept, he decided to set it free.
“So I opened the cage. … The poor bird flew up to a mulberry tree and started to sing. I’ve never forgotten that moment, freedom and singing. I’m still under the influence of that.
“All my life I was thinking about the environment and nature. That’s more important to me than $1-million, so this wasn’t a difficult decision for me,” he said with a smile.
In B.C., the number of land trusts has grown to 35 from just three 15 years ago. The trusts, most of which work at the local level, protect natural areas ranging from small pieces of land, like Mr. Vida’s, to entire mountains, either through conservation covenants or by direct purchase.
In July, the Nature Conservancy of Canada announced the biggest private conservation initiative in the country’s history when it unveiled plans to buy and protect 550 square kilometres of forest in the Kootenays. The Darkwoods project grabbed headlines because of its size - 55,000 hectares - and $125-million price tag, but between that and Mr. Vida’s gift there lies a full range of projects.
Shelia Harrington, executive director of the Land Trust Alliance of B.C., said that over the past 15 years land trusts in the province have helped protect more than 200,000 hectares.
The trusts work by forming partnerships with private landowners, local communities, companies and governments, which often match donations on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
Sometimes trusts simply buy key pieces of property on the open market, but often they rely on supportive owners who donate land or reduce selling prices because they want their property protected in perpetuity.
Protecting important natural landscapes is primarily the role of the government through parks programs, but Bill Turner, executive director of the Land Conservancy, said trusts have grown rapidly in B.C. because the job simply wasn’t getting done.
“The government doesn’t have the resources in terms of money because the provincial budget for park acquisition and other biodiversity acquisitions is only in the $3-million-a year range. That doesn’t go very far, spread across the entire province,” Mr. Turner said.
And, he added, nothing motivates government more than when people are prepared to put up money to save a piece of land.
“It doesn’t matter whether people donate $10. It counts to the government because it’s someone putting their money where their mouth is and saying this really matters to me,” said Mr. Turner, whose organization is currently involved in several projects, including a $1.5-million effort to purchase private land holdings in Valhalla Provincial Park.
“The reality is if we waited for the government to do these things, even with the best of intentions, it just wouldn’t happen.”
The big four trusts
At the moment there are four large and 31 small trusts in British Columbia - a full list can be found at landtrustalliance.bc.ca. The four largest trusts are:
Land Conservancy of B.C.
Web: conservancy.bc.ca
Phone: 1-877-485-2422
Nature Trust of B.C.
Web: naturetrust.bc.ca
E-mail: info@naturetrust.bc.ca
Phone: 1-866-288-7878
Nature Conservancy of Canada
Web: natureconservancy.ca
E-mail: bcoffice@natureconservancy.ca
Phone: 1-888-404-8428
Ducks Unlimited Canada
Web: ducks.ca/bc
E-mail: du_surrey@ducks.ca
Phone: 1-800-665-3825
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FUNDING FACTS
The local land trusts are relatively new, with all of them founded in the 1990s. There is some competition for funds and volunteers, but the trusts strive to work in concert with one another and avoid overlap.
A survey by the Land Trust Alliance of B.C. found that trusts draw their funding from many sources, including donations, fundraising events, support from non-government foundations and grants from federal, provincial and local governments. Revenues range from $200 to $400,000, with a median of $88,000. Most of the money is used for land acquisition.
Mark Hume
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Over the past 15 years, a growing number of land trusts in British Columbia have been working together to save natural areas that are threatened by development. Here are 10 key acquisitions made, or planned, by 35 trusts.
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1. Campbell River Estuary
19 hectares
In 1999, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the City of Campbell River and the Tula Foundation purchased Baikie Island in the middle of the Campbell River estuary. It was the first step in a plan to eventually reclaim all of the estuary. Another key purchase was made last year, when the site of an old shake mill was acquired. The island has been restored to its natural state.
2. Denman Island
(Central Park Vision) 320 hectares
The Denman Conservancy Association has bought key parcels of land across the island, which it hopes to package with Crown land to create a protected area the size of Central Park in New York.
3. Little Qualicum River Estuary
16 hectares
Seven groups teamed up to purchase intertidal marshes, sandflats and forest at the mouth of the Little Qualicum River. The property cost about $500,000 and “protects the estuary from the threat of residential development and prevents future agricultural use,” states the Land Conservancy of B.C.
4. Saltspring Island
(Burgoyne Bay)
930 hectares
Burgoyne Bay was a multi-million-dollar acquisition in Canada’s largest area of undeveloped Garry oak woodlands and arbutus forest. When the owners, the Texada Land Corp., started clear-cutting, the community, led by the Salt Spring Island Conservancy, launched a two-year fundraising project and purchased the property.
5. Victoria (Woodwynn Farm)
77 hectares
The Land Conservancy of B.C. is trying to raise $6.25-million to purchase this farmland on Saanich Peninsula, just outside Victoria. The farm would continue to operate, but the Land Conservancy would hold a conservation covenant to prevent subdivision and to guarantee it will remain in agricultural use.
6. Victoria (Madrona Farm)
11 hectares
Friends of Madrona Society and the Land Conservancy of B.C. have launched a fundraising campaign to purchase the Madrona Farm, which lies in Victoria’s Gordon Head area. The land, which will cost more than $2-million, is in the agricultural land reserve. However, without protection by trusts, a private owner could turn it into a hobby farm or estate and take it out of food production.
7. Fraser River delta
(South Arm Marshes)
900 hectares
The Pacific Estuary Conservation Program spearheaded a series of purchases costing about $5.5-million to obtain this habitat complex of tidal wetlands, mudflats and drainage channels that have developed on floodplain silts and sands deposited by the Fraser River. Ducks Unlimited Canada played a key role.
8. Okanagan Valley (Skaha Bluffs)
304 hectares
Five organizations - including Mountain Equipment Co-op and the federal and provincial governments - raised $5.25-million to acquire the Skaha Bluffs property in June. The property helps support 15 species-at-risk, including California bighorn sheep, and has a mix of coniferous forest and grasslands.
9. The Kootenays (Valhalla Prov. Park)
62 hectares
The Land Conservancy of B.C. and the Valhalla Foundation for Ecology and Social Justice have launched a campaign to raise $1.5-million to protect a 62-hectare waterfront parcel of private land in Valhalla Provincial Park. The property is home to grizzlies, wolverines, cougars and at-risk species, says Wayne McCrory of the Valhalla Wilderness Society.
10. The Kootenays (Darkwoods)
55,000 hectares
Announced in July by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the $125-million acquisition of valleys, mountains and lakes - plus an endowment fund to ensure the property is cared for - was unprecedented in its size.
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