The Comox Valley Land Trust (CVLT), Comox Valley Project Watershed Society (CVPWS) and the Comox Valley Conservation Strategy Community Partnership (CVCSCP) has received a grant of $5000.00 from the Comox Valley Community Foundation $5,000.
This grant was used by the CVCSCP to upgrade mapping equipment for the newly founded “The Mapping Centre” (TMC) under the auspices of the CVPWS. The grant bought three items that improved digital Global Positioning System, Global Information System and digital imaging ability to capture information and transfer to digital maps.
This equipment has been added to an already significant capacity for collecting data, producing maps and working in partnership with individuals, agencies, businesses and the Stewardship Community represented so well by the CVCSCP. The increase in capacity is already serving the formation of a Regional Growth Strategy and a Sustainability Strategy by providing excellent mapping data.
In 2006 the CVLT, in partnership with the Tsolum River Restoration Society (TRRS) and CVPWS began to amass digital mapping information from many sources to begin a process of determining the areas of the Comox Valley that are priorities to protect. The criteria upon which the priorities would be based came down to a comparison between the threat of damage or loss of natural systems, ecosystems and the environmental services provided by land based natural capital and the value of those services to air, water and land quantity and quality on specific properties.
The connectivity between ecosystems was essential to the long-term protection and maintenance of the incredible biological diversity that add up to the extraordinary beauty and resilience of the Comox Valley. Out of this change of approach the document Nature Without Borders (NWB) was published in 2008. NWB identified and mapped originally, five broad landscape connectivity issue areas that, given proactive protection, could ensure a stemming of the ecosystem losses already experienced in the Valley and even, with excellent levels of buy-in from all sectors of the community, begin to regenerate and restore the natural systems. All local governments have endorsed NWB with a commitment to working together across jurisdictions, participation in two joint conservation projects and other than the Upland Wildlife Corridors supported the proactive approach of the priority areas for conservation.
