Thirty Years of Land Protection on Pender Island

As we reflect on the Pender Conservancy's past 30 years of land protection on S,DÁYES (Pender Island), we are humbled by the profound efforts of so many people who have given so much of their time and resources to secure the protection of sensitive ecosystems that we continue to lose every day to development, exotic species invasion, and fragmentation.

S,DÁYES Flycatcher Forest; Photo by Alex Harris

Land Purchase for Protection

Over the past 12 months, we have been seeking community support for our KELÁ_EKE Kingfisher Forest fundraising campaign: to reach an ambitious goal of raising over $2 million to permanently protect this critical piece of wetland, forest and shoreline that links the land to the Salish Sea. As the community has done before, first to protect Medicine Beach, then Brooks Point, then S,DÁYES Flycatcher Forest, hundreds of people have stood with us to make this happen. The numbers are still rolling in, so stay tuned over the coming days for a campaign fundraising update, but the support from the Pender Island community (and beyond) was indeed overwhelming!

KELÁ_EKE Kingfisher Forest and Gardom Pond; Photo by Alex Harris

Conservation Covenants

To all the landholders who have committed, through conservation covenants, to the permanent protection of critical wetlands, Garry oak meadows, arbutus ridges, sharp-tailed snake and nighthawk nesting habitats, untouched rocky marine shoreline, and networks of lush Coastal Douglas-fir forests linking land to the Salish Sea, we say thank you—on behalf of ourselves, our community, and the future generations who will be able to experience the same sense of wonder that these lands invoke in us today. The Pender Conservancy holds covenants totalling over 24 ha (60 acres) of permanently protected private land on Pender: land that provides shading, groundwater and carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and green space that enriches our community by its enduring presence.

Mature arbutus in a forest protected by a conservation covenant on North Pender Island; Photo by Erin O'Brien