Showing posts with label TLC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TLC. Show all posts

Sunday, November 29, 2009

More on Sea-To-Sea Greenbelt Acquisition

TLC (The Land Conservancy) tells us that certain timber companies have balked in recent years at selling land needed to complete the Sea-to-Sea Greenbelt which the CRD has been attempting to preserve. It seems that with forestry markets the way they now are however, timber companies are competing with each other to sell forest land, which would presumably affect the price they would hold out for. Meanwhile, development companies are always interested in acquiring the land to serve an ever-growing population of home-seekers, and the federal and provincial governments are "not spending money on conservation lands these days" (quoting Bill Turner of TLC). That is why the CRD, in partnership with the TLC, is seeking to extend the parks acquisition levy and amass $45 million to finish preserving a sea-to-sea belt of wilderness west and north of Victoria.

The TLC plays the role in B.C. that the National Trust does in England, which is to "protect and open to the public over 350 historic houses, gardens and ancient monuments. We also look after forests, woods, fens, beaches, farmland, downs, moorland, islands, archaeological remains, castles, nature reserves, villages - for ever, for everyone." The National Trust does this with income from "membership fees, donations and legacies, and revenue raised from our commercial operations".

The British context is different than ours however, in both positive and negative ways. Having a comparatively tiny landmass, their landscape has long since been completely taken over by human activity (some thousands of years old). Not much is left which we would call wilderness. On the other hand, in urban areas Britain has tree protection with teeth. Citizens can request a Tree Preservation Order when trees are threatened by development, and city councils can use it to save them: "The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 enables us to protect trees in the interests of amenity ... The making of an order, in general, makes it an offence to cut down, top, lop, uproot, wilfully damage or wilfully destroy a tree without our permission." Here, once someone buys a property to build on, they can do what they like with trees. But in Britain "We have a duty to make tree preservation orders, where appropriate, when granting planning permission."

In addition, the organization Natural England (an "indepent public body") through municipal government gives developers seeking building permission a "Green Test" which stipulates that they:

Provide greenspace within 300 metres of every home;
Support an increase in priority species and habitats in and around new developments;
Provide a wide variety of parks, wild areas and open spaces to meet the needs of both nature and people.

It is time B.C. got something similar. Unlike Britain, we still have the chance to save wide swathes of forested wilderness, but like them we also need tools to preserve woodland inside cities. After all, that is where most people live. It is being surrounded by greyspace that makes them migrate to the countryside -- eating up more forest land for their habitations and services.