This may be especially of interest to people with properties close to the Niagara Escarpment in the Hamilton area:
Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA), the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club and the Hamilton Conservation Foundation will be holding a FREE Information Night for landowners looking to protect or enhance the natural features of their properties. The Information Night will be held on August 14th at the Valens Community Centre from 5:00 to 8:30pm with brief presentations at 5:30, 7:00 and 8:00pm.
Knowledgeable staff will be available to answer questions about protecting land through donation, easement or sale, and what might be best for your land and your family. Staff from the Hamilton Conservation Foundation will also be on hand to answer questions about legacy giving. Staff from the Hamilton Halton Watershed Stewardship Program will address questions about stewardship activities.
Have you wondered how you could protect the important forest or wetland parts of your land? Have you heard the terms conservation easement, split receipt, Ecogifts, or life estate and wondered what they mean to you and the benefits you could realize? Did you know you can protect your land and still use it as you always have with a conservation easement, partial sale or donation?
Many of Hamilton’s magnificent areas (ex. Fletcher Creek Ecological Preserve, Valens Lake, Dundas Valley) have been protected with the help of private landowners through donation, purchase and conservation easement. We want to grow this natural legacy by talking with landowners about preserving the forested or wetland parts of their land for their family’s future and the resulting community good.
As we work to protect natural lands, we want to learn from landowners in Hamilton’s watershed about long-term goals for the land. We are asking landowners to complete a short survey. Your input is very valuable to us and we will use this information to guide our land securement program.
Landowners can complete the survey at the Information Night or fill out the survey online at http://www.conservationhamilton.ca/land-securement-survey
As a token of our appreciation for your time, upon completion and return the survey, we would like to offer you a Family Day Pass to any of Hamilton’s Conservation Areas. The passes will be available at the Information Night or by contacting Jen Baker at 905-524-3339 or land@hamiltonnature.org.
For more information about land conservation programs, see Robert Barnett’s article “Saving Money Through Land Conservation Programs“.
2 Comments
Did you know that 80 per cent of our original forest cover below the Canadian Shield has disappeared as a result of tree cutting for lumber, industry, farmland and human expansion. As much as 76 per cent of our original wetlands are gone and 85 per cent of our rivers and streams have been diverted or dried up at least partially.
I never understood the importance of wetlands until I began working for a conservation authority. They help prevent flooding by storing spring rains and prevent drought by slowly releasing water into the system during drier periods.
Wetlands, strams and forests are the lungs and lifeblood of the world in which we live.
This is a great opportunity to learn how to preserve what little remains.
I’m sorry I didn’t see this comment sooner, Chris. For some reason it went into my spam folder which I check only occasionally. Glad I did today, & found your comment there.
I didn’t know the facts you state, although I was aware of how important wetlands are. Just remember Katrina & how the coastal lands of New Orleans could have absorbed a lot of the water if they hadn’t “improved” them.