The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) is looking for support to help them protect China Cove, a piece of land on the Bruce Peninsula they say will otherwise be developed.
Local Regional Program Director Esme Batten says, “The China Cove property is a really incredible 29 hectare property on the northwest end of the peninsula to the southwest of Tobermory. It’s a spectacular area featuring almost 1 km of undeveloped Lake Huron Shoreline, rich ecosystems including intact forests, alvars and thriving wetlands– and unfortunately, the property has been divided and is ready for residential development.”
The NCC is looking to raise the final $220,000 needed within in the next month to purchase the land. Batten says with already existing donations, the total raised by the end will be $3.25 million.
She says, “The owners are happy to work with NCC to try to get a deal so that we can protect the property in perpetuity, and so are interested in working to protect the area forever and not move forward with development if we can raise the remaining funds in time.”
The NCC identifies land for protection based on how ecologically sensitive it is.
Batten says, “At NCC we use a science driven approach to identify the most impactful places to work in order to preserve Canada’s biodiversity.”
She says they’re looking to combat the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, and they use science based planning to think of where they need to work and why.
She explains, “Often, on the peninsula it will be looking for things like where do the rare habitats and species exist, where is the opportunity for connectivity and movement corridors to support the migration of wildlife, whether that be breeding birds doing their migration in the spring and fall or whether it be the movement of things like wide ranging mammals including black bears and fishers that need different types of habitats throughout their life cycle. There are several things that we look for when working to protect property on the peninsula and across the country.”
Batten says in this particular area, it’s the last 8 km of shoreline that’s not either developed or protected.
“It’s a key priority to protect what is intact while we still have an opportunity and it also supports globally rare alvars and species at risk that are in large amounts found only in the great lakes region, and here on the Saugeen Peninsula we have some of the highest populations of them in the world. So we have a really unique opportunity to protect them before we lose them,” says Batten.
The NCC actively stewards over 5,000 hectares of protected land on the peninsula, and have helped to protect over 7,100 hectares on the peninsula.
There are two national parks as well, and the federal government has also bought other land on the peninsula to protect some of it.
Batten says if you would like to donate to help protect this piece of land, you can do so online, by cheque, or by phone.
China Cove is named after the wreck of the China, a two masted schooner that wrecked in November 1883. Batten says the wreck is quite close to property.
