By Trevor Greenway

A new non-profit conservation group in Cantley wants to help the municipality reach its ambitious goal of protecting 50 per cent of its greenspace by 2030. 

Conservation Cantley launched this fall after Daniel Lacasse and other residents were showing up to Cantley council meetings with concerns about urbanization within the municipality – residents like the swarm of concerned citizens who showed up last year to fight expropriation plans on an historic Cantley farm. 

“There’s a realization from citizens that the environment is very important,” said Lacasse, who is the president of Conservation Cantley. “People moved to Cantley in particular to be close to nature, but people realize that access to nature is difficult. And I think there is a realization that you can’t only rely on the government alone to protect the environment.”

Lacasse was clear that the organization was not born to fight any specific development project but more to build a strategy on how to conserve land of ecological value that falls within Cantley’s borders. The organization has been working with Action Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment (ACRE), an environmental organization that has acquired hundreds of acres of ecological land throughout Chelsea and Wakefield. 

Lacasse spoke of the organization’s three-point mandate: to acquire eco lands, make these lands accessible to the public and educate the public about the importance of environmental protection. 

“One thing we clearly heard from ACRE is that people are much more inclined to invest in the acquisition of land if they can have access to it,” added Lacasse. She explained that Conservation Cantley will be looking at acquiring ecological land and then maintaining it so that locals can have access to trails that won’t damage the environment. 

“We really want to have an advisory role in terms of educating, advising and making the municipality and the public aware of the importance of environmental protection and conservation,” said Lacasse. “We also want to work with the MRC des Collines in terms of understanding the territory to be able to identify where to buy land [and determine] what land is of ecological value. We need to know the territory we are on.”

Although the organization just launched last fall, they have a roster of board members with experience leading other non-profit organizations in the area or with ecological expertise, such as Marguerite Poelman, who helped establish the Table de développement social des Collines-de-l’Outaouais and the Cercle d’autosuffisance de Cantley, and Carine Côté-Germain, who has a master’s degree in forest management and who worked as a species-at-risk biologist in Yellowknife for the federal government. 

The organization hasn’t acquired any land yet but is in the process of identifying plots that would be of interest to the organization. 

Conservation Cantley said it is always looking for more volunteers and members to join their cause, and is also working on gaining registered charity status so it can produce donation receipts. Contact them at: https://www.conservationcantley.org