Invest in Nature

Ask the province to support nature today!

Ontario budget 2024 consultations are open until January 31, 2024.

The province is seeking input on the 2024 budget. Budget consultations are a critical time to provide recommendations about community and sector priorities -- and help us shape the future for our province!

Help us by sharing this message:

OLTA and Nature Conservancy of Canada are asking the Government of Ontario to support community land protection efforts by investing $25 million each year for four years to support renewal and growth of the Greenlands Conservation Partnership.

Through this program over ...

Ask the province to support nature today!

Ontario budget 2024 consultations are open until January 31, 2024.

The province is seeking input on the 2024 budget. Budget consultations are a critical time to provide recommendations about community and sector priorities -- and help us shape the future for our province!

Help us by sharing this message:

OLTA and Nature Conservancy of Canada are asking the Government of Ontario to support community land protection efforts by investing $25 million each year for four years to support renewal and growth of the Greenlands Conservation Partnership.

Through this program over the past four years, local and regional land trusts have already secured more than 60 new properties across Ontario, from Thunder Bay to Lake Erie to Thousand Islands. This includes 31 new properties that provide public access and increase the availability of green spaces for the people of Ontario to enjoy, and protecting habitats for at least 85 species at risk.

Help us conserve more ecologically significant lands by asking the Government of Ontario to grow the Greenlands Conservation Partnership!

To help you to share this message, we have created a draft email for you to personalize and submit. We encourage you to personalize this email to send to your MPP.

Thank you for your help!

How you can take action:

Use the message to the right to email your local MPP to maximize the messaging about land trusts that gets to the budget consultation committee. This campaign page allows this messaging to be shared directly with your local MPP.

Request a meeting with your MPP or ask your land trust to coordinate a meeting and encourage your MPP to support this budget request. OLTA can help you coordinate this if you are a land trust.
Check out the tips to help you craft your own message, keep it focused on what you want to ask for.

Share this campaign page with your networks

Take the budget consultation survey on the Government of Ontario website, and share it with your networks

Thank You!

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Make a budget submission and share it with your MPP

Find your local rep

Subject:

I am including you in my budget submission along with Minister Bethlenfalvy and Minister Khanjin to highlight the important work of land trusts and to ask you to support this budget request. In this Budget 2024 submission, I ask that the Ontario Government continue and expand its successful Greenlands Conservation Partnership funding. A commitment of $25 Million per year over the next four years would have significant benefits for biodiversity, climate resilience, and the capacity of people across the province to engage with nature.

I would like to thank the Ontario Government for investing in lands through the Greenlands Conservation Partnership over the past four years. This funding has helped to provide big wins for nature, and community connection to nature across Ontario. We know that access to nature is a public health determinant, boosting both physical and mental health. Conserving natural spaces plays an important role in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change by providing safe havens for wildlife, capturing and storing carbon, and improving resilience to weather events, such as flooding and drought.

Since 2020, Ontario has invested $38 million to leverage private contributions to the Greenlands Conservation Partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Ontario Land Trust Alliance to conserve significant conservation lands. OLTA has seen substantial results and successes.

Thanks to our Government’s contribution to the Greenlands Conservation Partnership, partners including Ontario’s land trusts and the Nature Conservancy of Canada have protected 166,000 hectares of land and water over 75 key ecologically significant projects – an area 2.5 times larger than the communities of Pickering and Uxbridge put together since 2020, with more projects underway.

Since 2020, through this program, local and regional land trusts have secured more than 60 new conservation properties across Ontario, from Thunder Bay to Lake Erie to Thousand Islands, including 31 new properties that provide public access and increase the availability of green spaces for the people of Ontario to enjoy. These properties protect habitats for at least 85 species at risk.

I believe the Government of Ontario’s success with the Greenlands Conservation Partnership Program can be amplified with an increase in the total investment for the whole Greenlands Conservation Partnership Program to $100 million over 4 years.

If the Greenlands Conservation Partnership Program is extended and expanded over the next four years, land trusts could preserve more areas of significant ecological importance, protect more natural areas, provide more access to nature and promote the importance of healthy, natural spaces.

These Greenlands Conservation Partnership Program enhancements would also recognize the benefits such areas provide for mental health, fostering recreation and physical health, and reducing the growing heat and flooding impacts of climate change. They would further respond to the documented loss of greenspace in urban areas, and growing development pressures on natural areas. Growth of this partnership would also enable land trusts to support more Indigenous-led and partnership conservation efforts.

This investment in nature will leave a positive legacy for future generations.

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