When you’re up to your posterior in alligators, goes the saying, it’s hard to remember that your initial mission was to drain the swamp. The Land Conservancy’s focus is not on draining swamps, but on saving swamps and other special places in B.C. That mission will go more smoothly and effectively now that the organization no longer has to wrestle with the metaphorical alligators that have threatened it for the past few years.
TLC won approval Thursday from the B.C. Supreme Court for a survival plan that will pull it out of its financial swamp and move it toward a more sound footing.
It’s a huge victory for an organization that has too long been distracted from its worthwhile objectives by its debt woes.
“We’ve been struggling uphill for so long,” said TLC director of operations John Shields. “To have actually gotten over the top is an elating experience.”
The nonprofit Land Conservancy of B.C. was formed in 1997 with the aim of protecting properties with ecological or heritage value through protective covenants and outright purchases. Over the years, it acquired about 50 properties; on Vancouver Island, those included Abkhazi Garden, Ross Bay Villa, Sooke Potholes and the Wildwood ecoforest north of Ladysmith.
Efforts by TLC and other organizations are essential if we are to save special places from being paved over by what is called progress. These are places that are part of our collective soul.
But TLC’s ambitions exceeded its grasp. Because of using mortgages to buy properties, and borrowing from other projects to cover operating costs, TLC’s debts mounted. In 2009 and 2010, disagreements arose over financial management, and the board of directors was fractured. Three members of the board quit.
In 2013, more than $7 million in debt, TLC applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for creditor protection, and a monitor was appointed to help keep the organization going and form a plan for settling debts.
Efforts to sell properties to pay off debt sparked controversy, as donors and other supporters worried about the future of the protected places when protection was removed.
A plan has been worked out. A partnership between TLC and the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Nature Trust of B.C. will see them pay $1.5 million for 28 properties. Negotiations are proceeding with the Capital Regional District that would see the CRD assume ownership of the Sooke Potholes campground, which would then be managed by the T’Sou-ke First Nation, if all parties can agree. TLC can now sell or transfer properties without court approval if there is no opposition.
When everything has been settled, TLC will own only a few properties, including Abkhazi Garden. It will retain more than 200 protective covenants, and will seek to achieve its goals through more such covenants.
Shields says all creditors will be paid in full.
It’s a good plan, and much credit should go to TLC supporters for forgiving more than $1 million in debt. These are ordinary people who believed — and still believe — in TLC and its aims.
The path ahead will no doubt have challenges, but it’s a much better path than the one the organization followed in the past. A leaner, more focused TLC will continue to guard places important to our natural and cultural heritage.
The plan is not only good for TLC. By saving the Land Conservancy, this plan has saved much of cultural and environmental importance to all British Columbians.
