Fundraising Campaigns
Island conservation projects need your support!
With 100% of our overhead costs being covered by local taxpayers, your donations go directly to our projects. Your donations of cash or securities make possible land purchases and stewardship education programs that are beyond the scope of our core funding.
Please give to one or more of our current projects:
Recent fundraising successes
Fairy Fen Acquisition
In 2007, as part of our Crown Land Acquisition program, the Trust Fund Board applied to the Crown for an 18 hectare (45 acre) parcel on Bowen Island which would protect one of British Columbia's most biologically diverse and ecologically rare fens locally known as Fairy Fen or Mystery Marsh. The Board accepted an offer for the land from the Crown in 2007 but will not be registered on title until a survey is complete in 2008.
As a Crown Land acquisition of this size is beyond the scope of the Islands Trust Fund's regular budget, we are partnering with the Bowen Island Conservancy to fundraise the more than $50,000 in costs associated with acquiring and managing the reserve. Costs include a Land Act Survey, a management plan, trail improvements and boardwalks, and signage.
Once acquired, this parcel will create a vital link in Bowen Island's Cove to Cape Greenway. The acquisition of the Fairy Fen property will reduce the risk of logging and residential development around the fen. The improvements to the trail system will also reduce the recent damage caused by unauthorized users of off-road vehicles.
More information on our Crown Land Acquisition program is available here.
Opportunity Fund
The Opportunity Fund’s purpose is to provide funding to local conservancies working on urgent and regionally important conservation projects.
The Fund will generally provide support for hard to fundraise costs associated with land protection, or will be used to lever increased donations to land acquisition projects in the Islands Trust Area.
This fund provides our donors with the opportunity to support projects at their most critical stage, often before they become public. More information, including guidelines and management principles, are available here.
All proceeds from our birthday calendars go the Opportunity Fund. You can support the Fund and reward yourself with a beautiful calendar for recording birthdays and anniversaries.
Ruby Alton Nature Reserve Maintenance Costs
Ruby Alton bequeathed her 1.6 hectare oceanfront property and 1920’s era house on Salt Spring Island to the Islands Trust Fund. In her Will she gave guidelines on how she wanted the property used after her death. As a forward thinking individual, Ruby also established an endowment fund to assist with the long term maintenance of the property and house.
Unfortunately, the rental income and earnings on the endowment are not sufficient to cover the major upgrades required to the house and associated infrastructure. The remaining tasks in the management plan include:
- Washing, scraping, and repainting the exterior of the house to protect it from the elements, prevent structural decay, and add to the appearance of the house.
- Upgrading the house’s energy efficiency.
- Undertaking urgent repairs to the septic system.
Recent Fundraising Successes
Squitty Bay Provincial Marine Park Expansion
The Lasqueti Island Nature Conservancy and the Islands Trust Fund reached their goal of raising $250,000 in a whirlwind 2007 summer campaign to protect the Iversen/Tyler property next to Squitty Bay Provincial Marine Park on Lasqueti Island. With our contribution, the Ministry of Environment will purchase this beautiful 38.46 (95 acre) oceanfront property from Terry Tyler and Ingrid Iversen for $1,340,000, a price well below market value. The property owners provided a significant donation through Environment Canada's Ecological Gift Program because they had a vision of the property being protected as a park.
This property is a Gulf Island treasure. The protection of this property will result in a four-fold increase in the size of Squitty Bay Provincial Marine Park from 13 hectares to more than 51 hectares. The property features almost a kilometre of coastline with sheltered bays and beaches, older forests, a heritage orchard, a salmon-bearing creek, and windswept coastal bluffs. The property is also a fine example of the endangered Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem, which is in urgent need of protection as it is under extreme pressure from agricultural and urban development.
The Lasqueti Island community and Islands Trust Fund donors, including the Nature Trust of BC and the Marine Parks Forever Society, pulled together to protect this special place by contributing over $143,000 in donations. The BC Trust for Public Lands provided $107,000 resulting in the community reaching its $250,000 goal.
In celebration of the success, the former owners of the land sent this joyous note to all involved:
November 15, 2007
Congratulations on your new park. Enjoy it, love it, take care of it, let the salmon run and run. Let the kiddies play on the beaches. Let the forest thrive. Somebody get together a pruning party for the orchard and distribute the apples, pears and plums far and wide. Let the flowers bloom on the headlands and the sheep roam everywhere else.
It's a place where a lot of very important and magical things happened to us, and I'm sure many others (including, I hear, one birth). Hopefully this place will continue to induce magic in a lot of people for a long time.
Thanks to everybody who helped make this dream, for us, and for a lot of Lasquetians, come true.
Love, Terry Tyler and Ingrid Iversen
The Islands Trust Fund along with the Lasqueti Island Conservancy wish to thank all the conservation-minded individuals and organizations who answered our call for help and gave generously to protect the Iversen/Tyler property.
Mount Artaban Acquisition
In 2006, as part of our Crown Land Acquisition program, the Crown offered the Trust Fund Board a 107 hectare parcel on Gambier Island which would protect much of Mount Artaban. To complete the acquisition, the Islands Trust Fund partnered with the Gambier Island Conservancy to fundraise $30,000 to cover the costs of a Land Act Survey and a management plan.
The Gambier Island Conservancy succeeded in raising more than $46,750 towards the protection of the property. The Conservancy plans to use surplus funds to pay for improvements to the property such as trail repair and signage. If you would like to learn more or would like to donate to this important project please visit the Gambier Island Conservancy's website or call Peter Scholefield at (604) 913-9090.
In 2007, the Islands Trust Council announced that it had selected the Gambier Island Conservancy for a community stewardship award in recognition of its dedication and ambition in the fundraising campaign for Mount Artaban.
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