Your Impact
- Dundas Valley’s lush Carolinian forests, colourful meadows, and cold-water streams provide habitat for a diverse array of rare plants, locally-nesting and migratory birds, and other wildlife. Visitors have the opportunity to explore an environment designated as part of the Niagara Escarpment UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.
- Thanks to a tireless volunteer group, Eramosa Karst’s scientifically important landscape of small caves, underground streams, woodlands, and meadows was protected from proposed housing development. Now, those same volunteers lead guided hikes through the area and participate in native planting projects.
What do these Conservation Areas have in common? All were either gifted directly to the Hamilton Conservation Authority by generous donors, or purchased through donations given to the Land Securement fund.
Hamilton Conservation Authority’s Land Securement
Once land is protected by HCA, it remains safe from all industrial development. It will be naturally, effectively managed beginning from acquisition and continuing for generations to come.
HCA owns and manages over 10,000 acres (about 4,047 hectares) of natural lands in the Hamilton watershed. While the current figure marks a huge achievement, it represents only 9.4% of the total area of our watershed. In order to protect our region’s biodiversity, unique landscapes, and natural capacity to mitigate climate change challenges, HCA wants to grow.
Giving Opportunities
Your gifts to the Land Securement Fund can support:
- HCA’s acquisition of new lands to be stewarded and protected in perpetuity as Conservation Areas, managed natural areas, or designated multi-use trails
- Improving the ecological health of natural lands under private ownership, thanks to the Hamilton-Halton Watershed Stewardship Program
- Building Hamilton’s resilience to climate change by increasing our region’s proportion of carbon-capturing natural features like forest and prairies, and water-storing features like wetlands
- … and more.