A Legacy of Responsible Citizenship
If you venture past the coffee shops and restaurants high on Quadra Street, through Royal Oak, down the hill and into West Saanich, it is possible to feel completely apart from the city. You’ll find yourself on thin, twisting roads lined with Douglas-fir, Garry Oak, Arbutus, and a sense of fading ecological history. The Tod Creek watershed is threatened by traffic, decreased biodiversity, increasingly endangered, destroyed and degraded wetlands, and a polluted Prospect Lake. Ric and Frances Hunter are using a conservation covenant to combat the erosion of the natural land and preserve the habitat in perpetuity.
A conservation covenant is a promise. Ideally, such covenants restrict land use and can be used to prohibit subdivision, protect a wetland or mature forest development, and limit logging practices to ecologically sustainable forestry. Each covenant is tailored to the distinct character of the land in question and the conservation goals of its owners.
Their property is unique because of the maturing forest and Garry Oak Woodland. In addition to a number of Douglas-firs that are four hundred years and older, there are well-utilized wildlife trees and an ancient nurse log with three mature trees growing out of it. Wildlife on the property includes Blue listed (Provincially vulnerable) Seaside bittercress (Cardamine angulata), Red listed (Provincially endangered) Phantom Orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae), river otter, mink, grey squirrel, owls (barred and Western screech), Pileated woodpeckers, bald eagles, wrens, warblers, swallows, brown creeper (nesting) and many other bird species. The land is part of a larger local network of remnant natural green spaces in the area such as Mount Work to the west and Elk and Beaver Lake Regional Parks to the east.
“I don’t think that property ownership in any day and age—but particularly in our time—should mean we have the right to destroy it,” Ric says. “That’s something that simply has to change.” Ric and Frances have spent the last three and a half decades living their philosophy and they felt a conservation covenant was the next logical step to secure the success of their efforts. Ric views it as more of a responsibility than a legacy. “Those of us who care about the environment simply have to stick our necks out and do it,” he says. “It’s just another thing we can do to help save the planet, and people have to take that responsibility when it’s before them.”
– Darin Steinkey
