|
|
|
 |
         |
 |
||||||
|
A Land Trust‘For everyone, forever’ “I have raised strong objection to the Government of Canada The face of this countryside deserves to remain unspoiled.” The Right Honourable John Diefenbaker, 1972 “If you believe in markets, you may be surprised by what the future looks like. Not personal spacecraft or gleaming megacities – those are the
daydreams of the era of cheap energy. Jeff Rubin, Economist , 2009 Diefenbaker was retired from public life when he wrote these words in his biography. Son of a Greenwood schoolmaster, the former Conservative Prime Minister considered this beautiful area part of his heritage. No doubt he also enjoyed sniping at the new Liberal Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau! The quote is prophetic; this countryside has indeed been left unspoiled. The homes, farms and communities that once thrived here have been largely destroyed but the land itself remains. The second statement was written almost four decades later and reflects the new reality, one that Diefenbaker and his generation could not have foreseen. In his book, ‘Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller’, Jeff Rubin, former CIBC Chief Economist, predicts an end to the global economy. Soaring fuel costs will result in land in the suburbs being returned to farming that 'will then help stock the grocery shelves in my supermarket, just like it did thirty or forty years ago'. Which brings us back to these lands, these rich soils, Class A agricultural lands, right on the doorstep of the largest city in Canada, and the continued struggle to protect them. ****************************** “The federal and provincial governments have the unique opportunity to support creatively the agriculture of Canada and Ontario, to conserve nationally important natural heritage systems and to protect and enhance a priceless heritage of a scale, quality and character of which no other major city in the world can boast. We have a magnificent public asset. As learned many times over, however, such a resource can be squandered easily: and once lost, it is gone forever.” Since 1972, Claremont-area resident Lorne Almack has been fighting to stop the airport and save the land. Original members of People or Planes in the Seventies and a founder of the Green Door Alliance, Lorne and his wife, Rhoda, continued to lead the way, eventually “putting their land where their mouth was” by making an ecological gift of a conservation easement for 999 years on their beautiful 34 hectare property. The land may be owned, but never developed. At 85, the retired Management Consultant and Public Engineer has just released a draft proposal for a Land Trust. Almack, a founder of the Green Door Alliance, has worked with other concerned residents and experts in finding a way to manage these lands. They concluded: “A Conservation Land Trust was the preferred management vehicle. Despite inept past management, deficient agriculture and natural area protection, non-support for a sense of community, neglect of building maintenance, monoculture, cash cropping and frequent demolitions, it is still potentially a magnificent Canadian asset. We must admit that the expropriation has protected the land from the ravages of sprawl and provides an opportunity suitable to the 21st century.”
Over the years, Almack has witnessed succeeding generations of governments and politicians tossing the issue of the federal lands around like a hot potato. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, it was an Ontario Conservative government and federal Liberal Party that signed the devil’s agreement to expropriate (occasioning POP’s ‘equal opportunity’ hanging in effigy of both Premier Bill Davis and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau!). Governments have come and gone, every now and then one of them making noises towards settling the issue, either by creating the airport or by returning the land to private hands. Only in recent years, with the changing economic world and global environmental catastrophe that threaten us all, have most politicians in the area publicly stated their opposition to an airport. We’ve come a long way from the days of hanging politicians in effigy. Our local Member of Parliament, Mark Holland, has gone one giant step further, joining environmentalists and advocates like Almack to say the time has come to protect these lands for all time. “We have to move beyond just talking about being against an airport in North Pickering – that argument has been effectively made – and start pursuing the idea of a Land Trust to permanently protect this oasis and create a green infrastructure for future generations.” (More from Mark Holland at North Pickering Land Trust video)  A Conservation Land Trust, writes Almack, is a corporate or charitable organization mandated to own and manage specified property in the public interest as defined by its mandate or charter. There are many hundreds of land trusts throughout the western world. Most notable is The National Trust of Great Britain, founded in 1895 by three Victorian philanthropists whose concern for uncontrolled development inspired them to create a Trust, “to be guardians of the nation in the acquisition and protection of coast lines, countryside and heritage buildings. They saw a need for quiet, pure air, exercise, the sight of the sky and things growing -- needs common to all men.’’ Their motto: “forever for everyone’’. ****************************** The United States America has the Trustees of Preservation (founded in 1891) and the Land Trust Alliance which have helped protect over 700,000 acres and some 1,000 conservation projects. The agricultural industry in North America has risen to the challenge of protecting farming and farmland against development with such groups as the Ontario Farmland Trust and the American Farmland Trust. In Canada, Nature Conservancy has protected 117 million acres of environmentally significant land, while Ontario Nature protects from development some 21 properties totalling 5,274 acres. Locally we have the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust and the Federal Greenspace Project which has designated the federal lands within the Oak Ridges Moraine and a corridor south to the Rouge Park (some 7,500 acres) as the Federal Greenspace Preserve. However, these lands remain under Public Works and Transport Canada management and are not protected in perpetuity by any federal legislation or easements. Legally transferring all of the 18,600 acres to Land Trust management would ensure protection, encourage private stewardship, and over a 25-year time frame provide for compassionate treatment of tenants, the evolution of a viable farming community and possible additions to the Rouge Park. www.nature.org www.moraineforlife.org/library/ReferenceList.php www.ontariostewardship.org/councils/durham To find out more about making an ecological gift or about conservation easements, contact: Ecological Gifts Program, ******************************
|
|
 |
|
 |
||
