Budget for Nature

Budget for Nature

Land trusts and land trust supporters - It’s time to mobilize: Ontario budget 2023 consultations are open until February 10, so act now! 

The province is seeking input from everyone, on what they want to see in the 2023 budget. Budget consultations are a critical time to provide recommendations about community and sector priorities. 

Ontario Land Trust Alliance is focusing its budget submission on messaging to the Ontario government to encourage positive action for nature, biodiversity, access to natural areas and nature based climate solutions (protecting and restoring key natural areas to store or sequester carbon). 

To help you to ...

Land trusts and land trust supporters - It’s time to mobilize: Ontario budget 2023 consultations are open until February 10, so act now! 

The province is seeking input from everyone, on what they want to see in the 2023 budget. Budget consultations are a critical time to provide recommendations about community and sector priorities. 

Ontario Land Trust Alliance is focusing its budget submission on messaging to the Ontario government to encourage positive action for nature, biodiversity, access to natural areas and nature based climate solutions (protecting and restoring key natural areas to store or sequester carbon). 

To help you to share our collective message we have created this draft email for you to personalize and submit. Thank you for your help!! 

OLTA and Nature Conservancy of Canada are asking the Government of Ontario to support community land protection efforts by investing $100 million over 4 years to support a renewal and growth of the Greenlands Conservation Partnership Program, including $30 million for community and regional land trusts to support this work. 

For Ontario community and local land trusts, this program so far, with $4M (Yrs1 - 3 of a 4 year program), has: 

  • Established over 7,800 acres (3,000ha) of newly protected land and freshwater, especially in southern Ontario where nature and wildlife face the greatest pressures and where the majority of land is privately owned.
  • Funded or partially funded 46 new projects across Ontario, from Thunder Bay, to Lake Erie to Thousand Islands.
  • Conserved 23 new properties that provide public access and increase the availability of green spaces for the people of Ontario to enjoy.
  • Protected habitats for at least 85 species at risk.

We are asking the government to continue and expand this program and support for private community based land conservation and stewardship, so we can increase our impact and conserve more connected natural spaces, that all life needs. 

 How you can take action: 

  • Use our 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.
  • Check out the tips to help you craft your own message, keep it focused on what you want to ask and avoid criticisms, however important, there are other platforms to use for that.
  • Share this campaign page with your networks, for them to also email their local MPP and broaden the reach of land trusts in Ontario. 
  • Take the budget consultation survey on the Government of Ontario website. 
  • Share this link to the budget consultation page and encourage your community members to recommend support for land trusts: https://www.ontario.ca/page/2023-budget-consultations#:~:text=Related-,About%20the%20consultations,helping%20to%20keep%20costs%20down.
 Once you have added your response, share this page with your friends. Thank You!
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Budget for Nature

  • Minister David Piccini, Environment Conservation and Parks

  • Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, Finance

  • Local MPP

  • [email protected]

Compose your email

Email Tips +

Start with an Intro – who you are and your concerns.  Your concerns might be about land protection and funding opportunities...

Add a “Thank You for …”  Find something to thank the government for and have that near the front.  E.g.  Standing up for …, recent help to Land Trusts, getting Ontario through COVID with less damage than our cousins in the States.  Close with it as well, adding something along the lines of ‘I believe your success with (the thing you thanked them for) can be repeated with (mention your main suggestion).  A ‘Thank You’ makes the writer look friendly, intelligent, sympathetic and reasonable.  It puts the writer ‘on their side’ at least for the moment, which is a long time in politics.  

Things to avoid – New regulations to do X is not a budget item.  A hundred new wastewater inspectors to enforce existing regulation is a budget item.  New laws are rarely budget items.  Internal shifting of spending from X to Y is generally not a budget item unless it is a major change.  (100’s of millions)  Don’t waste breath or ink on Bill 23 or any other criticism.  You want to be listened to, not filed.  

Emotions -   Governments love low cost items that attract positive attention.  And there are some in cabinet who feel government can’t do much good of any kind, so spending on anything will likely be wasted.  

Reasons – Oddly enough, reasons often count for something in the budget process.  

Support for Land Trusts – The recent programs to help Land Trusts conserve (not acquire) land have been matched by the public and resulted in ten thousand acres being conserved.  Carbon sequestered. Trails for thousands.  Habitat for rare species all at no additional cost.  Incredible value.  And popular.