A generous donation in Prince Edward County, Ont., has taken another swath of land out of the hands of developers. Ann and Alan Dacombe recently donated 59 acres of undeveloped land along the shores of Lake Ontario to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), a not-for-profit that helps preserve important ecosystems across the country.
The property is located in Prince Edward County’s South Shore, an ecologically sensitive area that includes coastal wetlands, forests, streams, sand beaches, and globally rare habitats, such as alvars and sand dunes. The donation adds to the 1,900 acres of land already protected by the NCC along the eastern coast of Lake Ontario.
The Dacombe family owned the property for more than 50 years. Ann and Alan’s kids grew up there, walking along the shores of Lake Ontario and riding horses across the property. With their kids now fully grown, the Dacombes wanted to preserve the beauty of the area while cementing a family legacy. “After being the guardians of this land for over 50 years, it gives my family and I a sense of peace knowing it will remain undeveloped forever,” said Ann in a statement.
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By donating the land to the NCC, the property has become a part of the Prince Edward County South Shore Nature Reserve, ensuring it remains a protected habitat in perpetuity. Even if the NCC were to no longer exist, says Jennifer Gagné, a conservation biology coordinator for the NCC, the area would remain protected, passed on to another land trust.
The NCC is particularly excited about this donation because the property acts as an important habitat for migrating birds, including the endangered loggerhead shrike. It’s also an ideal spot for turtle migration and nesting (one of the species that will benefit is the endangered Blanding’s turtle).
Gagné says the NCC is currently putting together a management plan to figure out the best way to steward the land so that it has the most impact on conservation. Once this is set up, she says it’s possible the land will be opened to the public.
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“There are rare times when there’s extremely sensitive habitat with an ecological gift, where it’s not safe for people, or having people on the site would really impact an extremely rare or sensitive species or habitat,” she says. “But I think it’s likely this property will have public access. There’s already a nice trail that goes through these habitats. And then the beauty of the property is really the shoreline at the end of the trail.”
Since its inception in 1962, the NCC has conserved more than 37 million acres of land across Canada. When working with donors, Gagné says the NCC typically looks for larger areas of land with few to no structures that provides ecological value to different species.
“It’s really a case-by-case basis,” says Gagné. “Usually, someone would contact us and say, ‘I have this property I want to donate.’ Then we would go to the site and take an initial look at what’s there. See how many invasive species there are and if it’s something that we think could make an impact.”
As an incentive to donate, donors can gift the land through the federal government’s Ecological Gifts program, which provides tax benefits, such as not having to pay capital gains on the land, and receiving a tax credit for the land that can be applied to 100 per cent of the donor’s taxable income, carried forward up to 10 years.
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