A grassroots fundraising effort to buy a small island off Parksville and preserve it as a park is getting widespread support from everyone from youth to pensioners, says the chief executive of the B.C. Parks Foundation, which is leading the campaign.
Andy Day said high school students have contributed through their own fundraisers, and seniors on fixed incomes are chipping in with small amounts as a deadline looms Tuesday to acquire West Ballenas Island.
Day said when that’s added to some larger donations, the group is getting closer to its goal of raising $1.7 million before a deadline set by the private owner of the island.
The unnamed owner had agreed to reduce the price from $2.25 million.
If the fundraising goal is met, the island — currently zoned for residential development — would be preserved as a public park for kayakers, boaters and hikers.
By Thursday afternoon, the foundation still needed just over $217,000, within 87 per cent of its goal.
“The support has been incredible,” Day said in an interview. “And it’s across the demographic. Young people are inspired, seniors are saying: ‘I’ll give you $5 this month and $5 next month.’ Right up to the people who are doing well financially. Everybody is feeling — no matter how much they give — it’s something tangible they can do to preserve a piece of British Columbia.”
West Ballenas Island, which covers about 100 acres, is considered one of the most biodiverse sites in the Gulf Islands, home to bird populations, rare plants and marine life.
West Ballenas is also the last link in a proposed Ballenas-Winchelsea Archipelago marine park.
Home to red-listed Garry oak-arbutus trees and a rare shore pine-cladina-kinnnikinnick plant community, it’s one of only two locations in B.C. where the endangered water-plantain buttercup is found.
The island’s foreshore serves as a winter haul-out for California and northern sea lions, and is adjacent to a rockfish federal conservation area. The passage between the two Ballenas islands contains eelgrass beds, rearing grounds for salmon and home to Dungeness crab.
The island and the entire archipelago have historical significance for the Snaw-naw-as people, also known as Nanoose First Nation.
Several years ago, the nation repatriated remains that had been disturbed by the Department of National Defence on a nearby island, said Nanoose First Nation councillor Brent Edwards, but members have no access to the privately owned West Ballenas.
The nation supports the foundation’s efforts to purchase the island, and looks forward to gaining access to the land and having a say in the management plan, Edwards said.
“If the greater public doesn’t support it as well, then we think it’s a lost opportunity for the citizens of Vancouver Island and British Columbia and Canada to have a unique piece of privately owned property be potentially available to the public again,” he said.
If successful, the acquisition would be the second by the B.C. Parks Foundation. Last year, it raised $3.4 million to buy an eight-square-kilometre section of remote coastal wilderness at Princess Louisa Inlet, near Egmont on the Sunshine Coast.
The same deal was struck with that owner — a reduced price but with a timeline to allow grassroots donations. The campaign went right to the deadline, something Day expects with the West Ballenas project.
He said even during the pandemic, support has been “amazing.”
Students from Ecole Secondaire Ballenas chopped and sold firewood as a fundraiser.
“They are very aware of climate change and the environment,” said Day.
He noted the pandemic has made people more appreciative of the outdoors and the natural world, and the need to save important spaces.
— With a file from Roxanne Egan-Elliott
> Online: bcparksfoundation.ca/projects/enhance/west-ballenas-island/
